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Dealing with these undead was a lot like dealing with idiots with monotalents. They could be a real pain to handle until one figured out the gimmick and its limitations, but once that was determined they fell quickly enough. I still would have liked to have learned how that one we can hardly remember somehow managed to render all of our electronic equipment nonfunctional though. I figured that had to be an offensive projection of a reality overlay, but the most vital clues on that got blasted with large quantities of chemical explosives.
After another round of patching up and restocking, it was time to work on the final three undead. The vote so far was to go after Rahsome who was supposedly occupying the large area towards the back of the Archive. According to our new friend, part of that area was somehow conditionally existent. Apparently he was able to simply paint more room into existence when he needed it like some sort of cartoon character.
(Felix) That could be dangerous. If he can erase something while we’re inside he might be able to well, kill us all instantly.
(Vanatica) I highly suspect it doesn’t work like that. Most likely you get shunted into the nearest available space, which given the nature of the multiverse and space-time here, could be just about anywhere or anywhen.
(Felix) That sounds very likely to result in death.
I had my doubts regarding that. I had a strong suspicion that there was enough of an unconscious steering mechanism in play that one would at least get transported somewhere not instantly deadly if Codex accidents were anything to go by. It seemed that using magic to kill someone outright was always a tricky business even if the “physics” would indicate that it should be easy. In many ways it seemed like killing things would always be far easier with grenades and blasters than trying to use a magic fireball. I might have had a different perspective though if all I had was pointy sticks and pieces of stone.
(Jacob) Well, since we have an artwork animated guy, we can paint an explosion and set some resonating crystals attuned to the frequency of his subspace field and lure his monster into it! It will die in the explosion!
I don’t know which bothered me more – that there was somewhere reality actually worked like that, or that I was beginning to actually understand that nonsense on some level.
(Vanatica) I highly doubt it is that stupid, especially since it animates artwork as monsters to possess.
(Jacob) But it will not be expecting other paintings to be attuned to it and we can make a pit trap by painting on the floor.
Maybe I was being close-minded, but I did not want to be borrowing tactics from children’s cartoons no matter how much it seemed like reality was able to support such ideas. There still was always the tried and true methods to fall back on at least.
(Vanatica) Tell you what, I’ll pull a Kira and keep it distracted while the rest of you either prepare traps or just outright smash the soul anchor.
Admittedly, Katlyn was much better at pulling a Kira than I was. That was mainly due to her superhuman speed that even hybrids had trouble keeping pace with. What gave hybrids like Father an advantage was the fact they could also run through walls, teleport, and phase themselves. Still, the basic principles held true even for me and a facility with lots of obstacles and winding hallways offered plenty of opportunities to dodge attacks. I just would have preferred having access to the Mark IV Shieldsuit as a backup defense.
With the plan arranged we all entered the Archive again to deal with Rahsome. That section of the Archive was lit by drifting balls of light, flickering in a variety of colors, although most are shades of blue or violet. From them I could hear faint whispers. What little could be seen of the walls was of a greenish stone, but scattered throughout the area were hundreds of works – paintings and sculptures mostly. Several groups of skeletal figures, dressed in tatters, were slowly wandering from place to place, apparently looking at individual pices of art.
(Vanatica) I am going to guess one of these is the anchor. Probably one that depicts Rahsome as they looked when alive and young since that is the classic bit.
None of the skeletons looked like my expectations for Rahsome, so I figured that Rahsome was still elsewhere. Jacob started scanning with his tricorder.
(Jacob) Negative energies concentrations are especially intense around the lights and skeletons. The entire area has quite a lot of course, and the gradient steadily increases towards the far end of the room. I presume that the largest concentration is feeding into him.
(Vanatica) Or is him…. or her.
Not that I imagined gender had much meaning after millennia of undeath. I had been hoping that Jacob might detect some sort of supernatural link with one of the paintings or sculptures, but either he couldn’t detect one or hadn’t considered the idea. As for the art itself, while the topics ranged from unearthly beauty to utter horrors – all were obviously masterpieces of skill and fascinating in their own right. Katlyn would have loved the chance to view these or even display them at one of her charity benefits. I guess if we can deal with Rahsome without too much collateral damage that she might one day get that opportunity. A few of them even appeared to be moving. Probably some magic involved in that.
(Vanatica) Katlyn would love to see all this artwork. She’d probably be able to spend weeks debating painting and sculpting with Rahsome.
(Felix) Is the art any good?
(Vanatica) I am not an expert, but I would say so based on my own limited experience and knowledge.
Let unspoken was whether the subject matter was conducive to finding an audience given how downright disturbing some of it was. That didn’t mean it wasn’t of high quality, but sometimes it seemed like good art wasn’t just a matter of technique, but also of style.
(Felix) Ok, I don’t get to see lots of stuff like this. Not a lot to compare to.
(Vanatica) Could probably run a major galactic exhibit with this stuff alone.
I continued towards the far end of the room where the negative energy concentration was the highest. It took a small exertion of willpower to keep from staring at the artwork as I went by.
(Jacob) Shame we have to do this. Seems a waste to destroy this much skill when they could ascend still.
(Vanatica) Well, true art only really ever get recognized as such after the death of the artist. Don’t know if passing on into undeath counts, but I suspect most of the art community would consider that cheating. Although perhaps we can convince Rahsome to go on some sort of an art tour and leave this place.
I noticed that the others were struggling to pull themselves away from the artwork.
(Vanatica) Sigh, really with the tourist trap nonsense? I thought there was some sort of unspoken rule against artwork killing the beholder. Kinda like a chef getting his patrons addicted to coffee.
(Jacob) Well they are cheating again…. they’re artwork makes people undead eternal fans.
(Felix) I can quit any time I want to!
(Vanatica) I am sure some Sith somewhere was a similarly obsessive artist that fascinated people to death. I have stories about the family chef that go on a similar vein as he addicted people with his cooking. We eventually had to start charging the rehab expenses against the kitchen budget to make a point.
I still had to wonder at times why Mother kept that artificer Chef Rinal around. He had gotten better about his worse tendencies after he was “cured” of the Dark Side, but his concoctions still had an annoying tendency to be borderline addictive and fattening. And it wasn’t like one could complain too much, given that even Mother maintained a constantly respectful attitude when dealing with him out of concern for his outbursts. I didn’t think I should have to have THELOS maintain a ever growing file on my nutritional “requirements” just to avoid the numerous unintended consequences of eating his food without proper precautions. Still, there was no denying his skill and the benefit he provided large dinner events. I just wondered if the benefits truly outweighed the downsides as much as Mother thought.
Eventually the others were able to pull themselves away from the artwork enough to continue towards the far end of the room. As we walked along, the walls changed to a richly painted wood. There was a vague entity there, busily…. painting an arched corridor with plenty of space for more paintings into existence, extending the corridor with a few brushstrokes as it need more room for the mural it was working on simultaneously.
(Jacob) Let’s try offering them the chance to move on and paint as an ascended being where other ascended beings can enjoy their work without negative energy destroying their ability to truly enjoy it. And perhaps spend some Obols for clear thought for a short time.
(Vanatica) Alright.
I pulled out the staff we found earlier and prepared to use it to cast a Dawn spell as we approached what I presume was Rahsome. It didn’t take long for Rahsome to notice us approaching.
(Rahsome) Hmm?
(Vanatica) While true art is eternal, it is the order of things that the artist has to move on. For it is only after the artist is gone that the art can truly take on a life of its own and be fully appreciated for the masterpiece it is. I can vouch that the artwork here can be seen by a quadrillion souls if that is your wish. My cousin holds frequent charity events and is an avid artist herself. She would love to help show your art to everyone.
I briefly considered the idea of offering to open an art school and potential apprentices, but I got that feeling of intense dread that usually signaled that the Soung Precogntion talent was trying to alert me to something very bad and imminent. As I paused to consider what it was that I had missed, the others came over a secure commlink channel so we could converse without being overheard. At least I hope.
(Zin) Keeping that thing around is likely to be quite dangerous!
(Jacob) Ascending would greatly increase their viewership since the Ascended cannot see these works, but could see new ones they made there and we could send these on a tour of other places.
Perhaps, but I still wished Zin had been a little more clear as to what exactly was the risk with keeping Rahsome around. My precognition talent was confirming his supposition, but that still didn’t tell me why. What exactly was so dangerous about a painter and sculptor going on an art tour?
Still, it seemed like the offer of a large audience was indeed an inducement since we quickly got permission (and assistance) in packing away most of the artwork. In fact, Rahsome seemed to just roll the art, the skeletons, and the globes of light up into a small case of paintings.
(Vanatica) Think of the new forms of art that await you in the ascended realms just waiting to be studied and mastered. All the things that don’t exist under the sun are out there beyond this layer of reality.
(Rahsome) But I have not yet achieved perfection in this level of reality! It is not the time to start over!
Sigh, time to steal a quote from someone who I think put things aptly.
(Vanatica) The perfect artist? There is no such thing as perfect in this world. That may sound cliché, but it’s the truth. The average person admires perfection and seeks to obtain it. But, what’s the point of achieving perfection? There is none. Nothing. Not a single thing. I loathe perfection! If something is perfect, then there is nothing left. There is no room for imagination. No place left for a person to gain additional knowledge or abilities. Do you know what that means? For scientists and artists such as ourselves, perfection only brings despair. It is our job to create things more wonderful than anything before them, but never to obtain perfection. A artist must be a person who finds ecstasy while suffering from that antimony. Only by having the bravery to go forth and encounter the new, can we hope to grow a little and become a little be more than what we once were.
(Rahsome) And that is why it is on this level of reality! Perfection within the limits of this world is the first step! I will not leave my work unfinished!
I switched back to the private line with the others.
(Vanatica) This isn’t going well, you might want to look for the soul anchor now while I try to keep this one distracted.
I switched my focus back to Rahsome.
(Vanatica) Then you limit yourself and your art. It is like a painter who refuses to use anything beyond oil paints. Yes, one can achieve a great deal of skill doing so, but you also limit yourself and your expression if you do not indulge in as many forms of art as possible to find new ways to provoke emotion in people art has never touched before. Only through expanding your limits and not artificially constraining them can you achieve new art.
I found myself privately wishing Katlyn was here since she was better at these sorts of arguments in the humanities than I was. I only paid enough attention to this sort of stuff so that I could speak intelligently at those charity events and not embarrass myself.
(Vanatica) My cousin once took a class in studying how to paint with colors she could not perceive because human eyes don’t see in the correct range. She felt it made her grow as an artist because she had to think beyond form and color and rely purely on expression. Tell me, what do you do here that pushes yourself to new heights?
One of Rahsome’s tendrils reached down a corridor and pulled a drifting spark of light whereupon Rahsome swallowed it up.
(Rahsome) Why to forge a different path to ascension! Once my art achieves perfection, my audience will be unified, and I shall ascend on my own terms!
(Vanatica) And after half a million years or so you’ve managed to accumulate half a dozen viewers?
I heard Jacob scanning the room with his tricorder behind me and swearing quietly. I could only presume that meant that his search for the soul anchor was failing. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could feign interest in an argument that was rapidly going in complete circles with no acknowledgement of the logical fallacies inherent in the argument even when they were brought to the fore. Debating with droids was more engaging than this most of the time.
It was out of the corner of my eye that I saw Theo pull his gun and fire at Rahsome without much of any warning to the rest of us. He fired off two shots that hit Rahsome dead center and clipped something inside that sounded like metal. At first I thought it might be an indication that Rahsome was using a droid body like other undead we’ve encountered, but this one seemed too old a “body” for that. Perhaps the “soul jar” or whatever was actually being hidden internally for Rahsome as opposed to the others that so often had an external one.
I would have preferred to at least have gotten some warning that we were going to be entering combat. While Theo did reveal the likely location of the soul jar, he happened to do it in a manner that gave us a now incensed undead monstrosity within a mere meter of myself. At least it was turning its wrath upon Theo instead of myself. That gave me an opportunity to pull out the lightsaber and shield as I swung at the “backside” of Rahsome. Unfortunately, it was difficult to tell if I was actually damaging Rahsome as half of their body seemed to be composed of smoke as opposed to anything solid.
(Jacob) It looks like that statue over there is oldest object not a soul in this room. It looks like a member of the Kyrcanir species sculpted as powerful, impressive, and “noble”. The thing itself acts as a soul trap. It’s acting in a sort of horrible symbiosis with the extradimensional ooze we’re fighting now as the ooze is keeping the souls within its grasp entrapped while the art is pulling them in and gradually imposing a common vision upon them. The controller is trying to unify them all in its own corrupt form of ascension. It’s an eternal audience for Rahsome.
(Vanatica) So kill the ooze thing?
This explains why Zin said letting this thing loose was such a bad idea. If it was a hive creature that forcibly inducted souls into itself, then giving this thing an audience was precisely the last thing we should have done. This was a scenario where a Mark II Rifle couldn’t possibly make the situation worse and using a Starbreaker against a consumed planet was an improvement. Unfortunately, I had neither available right now.
Which was a point against my continued survival as a swarm of skeletons erupted from the oozing wisps of cloudy darkness that was Rahsome. I attempted to fall back and hack skeletons in half when a pseudopod of blackness reached out to slam against me hard. The momentum of that attack flung me against a stone column with considerable force as a sharp pain shot through my right shoulder and neck. I also felt an intense chill wash over me that made me want to shiver uncontrollably.
(THELOS) WARNING: CRITICAL POWER DRAIN DETECTED! CORE SYSTEM FUNCTIONALITY COMPROMISED! POWER REGENERATION IN PROGRESS!
Wonderful….
A quick glance at the error messages scrolling by was not any more encouraging. Shields were down, as was the strength amplification, flight systems, most sensors, and various other active protection systems. Luckily the enchanted power cells were rebuilding the power reserves and thus bringing things online again, but another hit like that was going to cripple me if it didn’t kill me outright. The others were facing similar issues as we collectively decided to make a run for it. I stuck some explosives on the walls as we fled in hopes of either catching Rahsome in the explosion or at least burying it under tons of rocks, but it didn’t seem to be having much effect. About the only saving grace was that we were either able to outrun it or at least stay ahead.
I had hoped that as we exited the Archive into the daylight that it would break off the pursuit and let us be. Unfortunately, it barreled out into the open after us. It continued to fling pseudopod attacks at us, but those seemed to be of limited range and it couldn’t do that trick too much in rapid succession. However, I was not encouraged by the way it seemed to be fumbling within itself in a disquieting manner.
The relief I felt when THELOS announced that the power reserves had built up enough to enable all systems again was immense given that the rock I was hiding behind was beginning to crack against the sustained assault. Not keen to give Rahsome the chance to grab me, I kicked in the flight systems and made a dash for both distance and altitude. Once I was satisfied I had sufficient distance between myself and Rahsome I pulled out the grenade launcher and let loose a volley at the ground around Rahsome.
That did seem to be affecting Rahsome, but the…. is durability the right term…. of this monstrosity would give high end Sith or Hybrids a run for their money. The way the smoke oozed about to seemingly generate visions of monsters and horrors was not doing my head any favors either as I began to develop a splitting headache that combined with the pain in my neck and shoulder was making it very hard to concentrate on the battle.
I did catch glimpses of a statue inside the oozing blackness though and it did appear that our attacks were damaging it occasionally. Not rapidly enough though given my estimation of our remaining endurance. Time to try something drastic then. I pulled out all of my remaining clips of grenades and started rigging them to a makeshift remote detonator I cobbled out of the subspace sensor module. It wasn’t pretty, but three clips of twelve grenades apiece was still liable to make a hell of a bang.
Unfortunately, it looked like Jacob had gotten swarmed via skeletons and was currently pinned in the likely blast zone. Unfortunately, Rahsome seemed to be spawning into existence some sort of a dragon creature from a painting they had just unfurled. This was getting too dangerous to not being willing to cut some losses unfortunately if it meant the rest of us survived. Still, I was going to be give Jacob some warning.
(Vanatica) Jacob, you’ve got ten seconds to find cover before I drop an explosive near your position!
(Jacob) Don’t worry about me, I’ll shot down the blast wave!
Either I didn’t hear that right or Jacob had gone insane. Still I counted down the ten seconds I promised and then flung the explosive right at Rahsome. Once the explosive was as near as it was going to get, I activated the remote detonator and triggered the blast. Even though I was prepared for it, the blast wave still sent me tumbling for several seconds before I regained flight control. Looking at the battlefield, I saw the skeletons were destroyed and Jacob was still alive as he had apparently fired his phaser to block the blast.
So I had heard him right, even if what he had just done didn’t make a lick of sense. I was going to yell at him to obey something resembling physics when motion in the crater I had just made caught my attention.
(Rahsome) CRITICS! EVERYONE IS A CRITIC!
(Vanatica) Once you’ve seen one self-important artist, you’ve seen them all!
Although admittedly, none of the artists I had dealt with up till now actually were literal soul-devouring monstrosities with an ego equal to that of entire cities. It was usually in a more figurative sense when I made such insults.
It was easy to see that this Prima Dona was now very unhappy with us. While it looked like the explosion had done substantial damage, I had to guess Rahsome was still roughly half functional. I also was out of grenades to make similarly large bangs with. Fortunately, it looked all those still in melee range had managed to escape and thus we could continue long range bombardment with more conventional weaponry while largely remaining outside Rahsome’s ability to harm. I could see though that this was going to be a long and drawn out fight.
Suddenly a familiar voice came over the commlink.
(Vanessa) We’ve got your position and tactical data from THELOS. I’ve got soldiers and war-droids enroute to support. Fallback to the following coordinates….
At which point THELOS popped up a mini-map of the area and an arrow directing us to the rendevous point. Already I could see numerous green and blue dots moving into flanking positions and setting up heavy fire support. As we approached the target coordinates, I saw rockets, blasters, and mortars fly into the air towards Rahsome from a number of directions as the sounds of explosions and blasterfire became deafening. War-Droids swarmed over the ridge to provide an easily identifiable target for Rahsome to focus on while soldiers worked to pull the other members of the team behind prepared cover. I too dove behind cover next to Vanessa’s position.
(Vanessa) What the hell is this thing made of?!
(Vanatica) Captive souls, death, and some sort of eldritch ooze monster.
(Vanessa) Lovely!
Eventually we brought Rahsome down despite his/her/its assertions that the cosmos cannot do without their genius. Injuries were numerous, there was significant equipment damage, and many of our available power cells had been drained, but Rahsome had been forced to move on to the next life. Ve Ke tended my own injuries while medics tends to the others and droids and technicians collected what materials could be salvaged from the battlefield. We were probably going to need a fairly sizeable delivery from orbit to replenish lost equipment and supplies, but such things could be managed.
I was not happy with Theo though.
(Vanatica) I think in the future it might be a good idea to hold off shooting at the massive undead monstrosity until after we’ve found the easy way to deal with it!
(Theo) What, that was difficult?
(Vanatica) We nearly lost Jacob, many of us took substantial hits, and we lost not a trivial amount of equipment! YOu think new stuff just falls from the sky?!
I realized as soon as I had said it that for all practical purposes to everyone here, this more or less was the case given the regular equipment deliveries dropped from orbit. Still, the integrity of our supply chain was very much in question given the unorthodox circumstances and I was not keen to waste what might potentially be valuable resources when I didn’t have to. Right now, I was of the opinion that the battle we just fought had been unnecessarily difficult simply because someone lost their patience and started shooting.
(Theo) But we didn’t, chicks dig scars, and it looks like it paid for itself.
He was probably referring to the one hundred and twenty Mind Diamond Obols, one hundred Life Obols, and eighty-four Death Obols we found where Rahsome “died”. Plus there was also the large pile of artwork and the massive statue made of untarnishing gold-and-adamant alloys. Not that there was a reliable exchange rate between Obols and Marks, let alone sufficient access to back home that I could try to leverage one into the other. Right now all the wealth down here did little to offset costs in orbit. It was only because I had ridiculously deep pockets from the standpoint of entire galaxies that I could afford to keep this going until the social and not the material costs became uncomfortable. I was this close to cutting off Theo from access to our supplies and services though as a way to make my displeasure known.
And all the money in the Galaxy couldn’t bring someone back from the dead.
Creative Nonsense 