Ok then, let’s get to it.
Do you guys remember the whole affair with Isutyr? Early on in the story, Miranda (this gal) counseled her into talking with Director Mitty (this guy); the matter being related to some alien business with a Gate below MoonFall. There’s an abyss, and in that abyss a door, and beyond that door—whose opening is conditionnal to Isutyr’s presence—yet more of the abyss, and in that part of the abyss a prison, and the opening of that prison has been foretold, and the Three Moons want to help otherwise MoonFall in its entirety will be destroyed, and in a vision Miranda saw me in The Blue Chamber Where The Door Lies, and raspberry jelly-filled donuts are the best kind of donuts, etc, etc, etc…
Really, the entire thing is, for the moment being, an unexplainable mind-twister kept thus for the enjoyment of those behind the curtain while they pull the strings. Well, now we go back to the Commercial district to pursue this strange matter and, hopefully, make sense of it all.
No sooner do we enter the Travelers’ building that the guards want us to relinquish our weapons before we are allowed to push deeper down, into the bowels of MoonFall:
That is fine, I think. I, Diana, and Isutyr are Shapers; we don’t need weapons to crush someone’s mind, should this need arise.
A vast blue cavern, is it? Could someone, I wonder, someone with augural proclivities, someone like Miranda, call such a cavern The Blue Chamber Where The Door Lies?
He then claims we—I, Diana, Kaywin, and Zafra—must stay in this here room, for our own safety. It’s okay. Strange rituals and alien magic and all that; I’m not exactly that keen on standing near a strange door of unknown origin at the precise moment of its foretold opening. More: I’m not a huge fan of Isutyr, whose bobance about her being an elf a Goada Naren, combined with her general haughtiness, rather annoys me. In fact, thinking about it, I really don’t like her at all and probably wouldn’t care if som—
You keep your hands off my beloved girl, you brutes, you curs, you miscreants!
Through the reinforced glass I threaten Director Mitty—something about tabasco-based lube—while one of his goons forcefully grabs Isutyr by the wrist. But a gentle prick of her fingertip later, as the floor is reddened by a droplet of her blood, all is well. Then Mitty, with assurance borne by practice, begins intoning a ritual of sorts.
– “Blood Unwillingly given and forcefully taken. Blood of the old blood, heir of the Oldest House. We of the Wardens, shackled by our Mandate, we unlock the Door, we accept the Consequences.”
A deep, sonorous, and unsettling noise is heard, and caroms on the cavern walls. The door opens slightly and, peering cautiously through the aperture, Director Mitty says, “There’s… something up ahead.”
And ahead he goes with his Delta squad, to secure the way. A moment later we follow, and:
But the door was shut. Never has the Mandate been inside this part of the Abyss. Incomprehension veils Mitty’s visage. Thus I turn to a scientist of his team, hoping she has any inkling as to the reason for all this:
Perspicacity, thy name is Ashen-Haired Female Scientist.
Suddenly the security team’s instruments detect movement ahead. Mere instant later we find ourselves fighting victims of the Crasher virus who have somehow survived here, in the Abyss. Their meager threat dealt with, we enter the encampment’s prefab, then intently read logs left by whoever built said encampment:
We girls emit an involuntary collective gasp. Reading on, and despite parts of the logs having been redacted, we gather that the expedition—having suffered heavy losses—eventually withdrew out of the Abyss, soon after Isutyr and her brother Maleon left together, to forge onward. The memory of all survivors, indicate the logs, will be wiped; and failsafes will be installed to ensure no one even re-opens the Door.
Learning of this, Mitty is flabbergasted. Isutyr is plunged into profound disbelief. “Surely the logs must lie,” she asserts as if to convince herself; to which Mitty replies that, possibly, the logs have been fabricated by whatever anomalies reside in the Abyss. Moreover, his team had not to deal with any failsafes when endeavoring to open the Door, which makes him believe that indeed these logs might be a fabrication. After which Isutyr conjectures the failsafes might simply have failed to the point of remaining undetected.
For the time being, we leave the Abyss in a most cogitabund mood, having uncovered more questions than answers.
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