redmarsshit | redshift: tdm #5

redshift: tdm #5

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

▶ Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

▶ All TDM threads can be considered game canon, and current players are welcome to either top-level on the TDM so prospective players can tag them, or use the prompts for logs or network posts on the communities. All threads on the TDM can be used for Activity Check.

a. don't be a sap.

Good morning, October 25th! Whether you're a confused new arrival or a current resident, you probably had some plans for today, right? Grab breakfast, visit a friend, pick some fruit, explore a new part of the massive city.

Well. Too bad. Because, as every single bot in the city will be telling you the moment you show your face, it's GOOP FESTIVAL DAY! What? You've never heard of it? Preposterous, everyone knows about the Goop Festival, it's one of the most anticipated holidays in Anchor! Haven't you been preparing for this for a week now?

The Goop Festival is a harvest celebration, in particular, a celebration of the sap-producing trees that grow wild in the Park, thick around the edges of the south side of the lake. The bots have been hard at work setting up the festival grounds in the shade of the trees in the balmy fall temperatures. There are spiles tapped into trees with buckets placed underneath that are already half-full of a thick, viscous, amber-colored sap. The bots have also set up troughs of shaved ice with long sticks nearby, with which they will demonstrate for excited residents (you are excited, right?) how to cool the sap in the ice and wrap it around the stick to make it a sort of taffy candy. That's not the only sweet surprise waiting, either.

A long table set up in the grass is loaded down with all sorts of delicious sap-related goodies, ranging from cupcakes with thick globs of sap-flavored frosting to sap-flavored jerky to sap sugar candies, and just about anything else you can imagine. There are a wide variety of offerings that would taste good coated, flavored, or glazed with the sap, which tastes sort of like a caramelized toffee. Another table is laid out that has row upon row of cups, each half-full of the sap, heated lightly to a thinner consistency and served similarly to hot chocolate - at least, if hot chocolate gave you a floaty, happy, hazy sort of feeling. Everything made with this sap does, actually, with the cups of pure sap having a stronger effect and items with less sap content having barely any effect at all.

Does this not sound like your cup of weird tree sap? Too bad. This is the GOOP FESTIVAL, and everything is shut down for this lovely paid vacation day. Spa? Locked down. Kitchens? Locked. Bar? Nope, totally shut down and the server bots are all down at the park. VR Gaming? Too bad, the computers are all shut down. Even roaming the halls and trying to stay out of the way won't help much...be prepared to be dragged down to the park to participate in this mandatory festival! Isn't it exciting?

b. familiar ground.

Every year in Anchor near the end of October, there's a very strange interaction between the protective dome over the city and seasonal radiation surges that happen in the wastelands. Some complicated combination of refraction and reflection means that for the last few days of the month, residents will experience some of the more benign effects of the red shift inside the city.

Did we say benign? Because while there may not be any dangerous radiation to melt your skin off, there are some mind-bending dangers. Characters experiencing the shift will find the world becomes distorted, warped, impossible to navigate; they are enveloped in auditory and visual hallucinations, and can become so disoriented that they can't even recognize people they've known for years. And characters will find that the citywide shift brings in slivers of other universes, little slices of places characters have never seen before...or places so familiar they make the heart beat hard with joy or fear.

And just like in the wastelands, the things that show up in these shifts are all too real. Characters may find themselves walking through a door into a scene straight from home, or from someone else's home. Whether it's a favorite place to share with a new friend, or the nightmare landscape you almost died in, complete with the monster that almost killed you, be careful. Everything you experience here is real, and if you die in the shift, you die for real.

Of course, the city has its own safety measures in place - residents experiencing the hallucinations and appearances of items and places from other worlds may find themselves locked down in the room they're in, trapped with the otherworldly effects of the shift.

c. the virus.

A few weeks ago, people in Anchor started getting a case of the sniffles. While some of the earliest cases might be clearing up, there are still a few people suffering, or people freshly infected by those who were sick earlier, including some of the new arrivals who may not even be feeling it yet.

Which may make the cause of some unexpected 'glitches' around the city a little unclear. Residents who are feeling the effects of the illness, or who are infected but not showing symptoms yet (or anymore) will find that their access to certain parts of the city are restricted. Suddenly, automatic doors aren't opening for them, as if they were ghosts, particularly when they try to access anything that may facilitate transmission of the virus. Suddenly, only some of the residents of the city will find they can't get into half of the MedBay, or the spa, the kitchens, the VR or games rooms, the bar...anywhere people gather or eat or sit close together.

Residents may put together that it's related to the illness some of them have been experiencing over the past few weeks, but it might take a while, since these safety and security measures are affecting people who are showing no symptoms yet. Be prepared for a few days of paranoia while seemingly perfectly healthy people are locked out of common areas. What does the computer know that residents don't? Are these people security risks? Is it a system glitch? What could be going on?

c. the network.

Need to get hold of someone, call for help, ask the city at large a question? Need to warn a friend not to leave their apartment unless they want to be forcibly press-ganged into the Goop Festival? Maybe you need to hold your sat phone up to whatever crazy thing you're seeing and send out a recording to double-check if your eyes are deceiving you and what you're looking at is real?

Whatever the reason, the network is going strong, so feel free to include a post to it in your top-levels.

Mod Note: The "familiar ground" prompt will be active between October 29th and October 31st; "the virus" prompt will be active until the next introductory mingle, which will be kicking off the second part of the illness plot.

Navigation.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ben doesn't know how it is that Cole can say things that, coming from anyone else, he might find ridiculous. Perhaps it is because he trusts Cole, knows that if he wasn't really communicating with those trees and understanding them, Cole wouldn't fake it to present himself as wise and natural and superior. Cole doesn't do that - tailor the way he presents himself to please other people or try to pretend to be something he's not. He is honest, and connected to things, and open-minded in a way that Ben actually envies, just a little bit.

"Is it nice here, for you? With everybody feeling happy?"

He can't be the only one who had had some of that sap, who is getting into the holiday spirit - and even those who aren't seem amused by the event or at least appreciative of the edible treats. Ben knows Cole's mood, his feelings about himself and his place in the world, are shaped by the emotions of those around him. He thinks this is probably a nice place for Cole to be; he hopes it is.

Ben watches the trees swaying in the breeze, little glints of light coming through, the ground dappled all around him. How much of a difference it can make, to just be in a beautiful place like this. To have fresh air and green things all around, bright light and the sounds of people laughing and talking softly all around (and of robots saying the word 'goop' a lot which is charming in its own way).

"Are there any festivals like this that you know about in Thedas?"

It's always a little bit of a risk, asking about back home - not just with Cole, but with anybody. But Ben is feeling so relaxed and peaceful and good, and he likes Cole and wants to know more about him, to learn all the little things that he doesn't know, yet. He hasn't got insight into people's minds, and so if he wants to become closer to Cole, his only way is to ask questions.

"It's nice. Here, now, it's nice. People are annoyed they can't do what they want, but the reason is a nice one, so most people don't mind too much." Cole slides to lie down, setting aside his hat. He lays to put his feet up on the trunk, head near Ben's solar plexus and face tilting to look at him stomach.

"Satinalia, I suppose. It's a bit like Christmas on Earth. There's celebration and wild parties. I never participated in any, but I know of them." Festivals happened, but were of limited interest to a spirit and Cole never got the chance to celebrate a lot. "The trees are like your Them. They experience things, but not like mortal animals do. They communicate, but it's not with sound and words. Them and the trees are not like each other... but they're unlike us in similar ways, I think."

Ben isn't all that surprised to learn that Cole hadn't really participated in the festival back in Thedas. They both have histories - different, but parallel - of being on the outside looking in. Sir Reginald had had no time for something as frivolous as holidays. Grace had done her best to make them festive treats, to give little gifts and make some special moments and memories out of almost nothing. But it wasn't like what Ben had seen in movies, read about in books. It was a shadow of the real thing.

But now here they both are lying on the grass, at the goop festival, a part of it all. Ben feels a calm, settled sense of... belonging.

That calm is disturbed when Cole mentions the creatures on the other side of the portal, but only a very little. Just a few ripples of reflexive unease, before he adjusts. That sap stuff really does work wonders. Or maybe it's just - Cole. His presence, and the way he talks about them, and the fact that he keeps bringing them up, like they're not unspeakable monsters. It wasn't until he became friends with Cole that Ben realized how much time he spent trying to avoid thinking about them - and by extension, about himself. He buried himself in books, avoiding his family, avoiding the person he was and his powers.

But Cole just... talks about them. Like it's okay to do that. Like it's okay for them to be there, a part of Ben.

He settles a hand on top of his own stomach, making a wordless hum of consideration. After a long silence - some of it thoughtful, some of it less so as Ben's mind wanders, he says:

"I used to daydream about losing my powers. About finding some way to cut the connection for good. But... that's never gonna happen, is it?"

"I don't know."

Cole doesn't. He doesn't lie, doesn't really know how to, and he doesn't know. "I can't see the future, not like that. But it would probably be more comfortable to learn how to live with yourself and Them, because that's a thing you can do and it doesn't matter if you have Them in the future or not."

Cole doesn't know how to make it happen, how to be okay with it all, but he knows it's the best way forward for Ben.

He hadn't meant it as a literal question, but the fact that Cole takes it that way and tells him so earnestly that he can't see the future has Ben grinning again, broad and bright. There is so much more that Cole can perceive than he can, and Ben's come to really like that, but it's also nice that there are some things Cole doesn't know. He can't see what is going to happen in a year or tomorrow or even in an hour.

The words come easier, because of that sap he had drunk.

"You're right. Even if... I snapped my fingers and that connection was gone right this second, I don't know how much that would change. It wouldn't undo all those years we were connected or the fact that I was born with the powers I was. It wouldn't really fix anything at all."

The thing that will is the thing Cole keeps suggesting; learning to live with himself. Unlearning all the ways, big and small, that he has been taught to see himself, and Them, as monstrous. It's... a work in progress. He really has been trying, but it's sometimes two steps forward, one step back.

With his hand on his stomach, Ben feels the slim little paperback that he has tucked into the pouch of his hoodie. It's been a habit of his for a long time, to have some book or other on him at all times. That way, if he's stuck somewhere or locked in or bored, he can have something to occupy his mind. He'd been planning on returning this one to the library, since he'd finished with it, but he never got that far. Now, though, he pulls it out idly, ruffling the yellowed pages. They are rippled from old water damage, but it's still legible. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He'd been combing it for passages he could use in his reading lessons with Kieran.

"Have you heard of this book?"

He figures probably there wasn't a Robert Louis Stevenson in Thedas but Cole was in Drift Fleet a while and who knows, maybe it came up?

"Not having magic hasn't actually undone what Cole went through. I don't have his magic, but I have his memories of how he was treated because he did. I still lived his life and felt his pain from it. Even without them, Reginald still injured and scarred your spirit. You can't undo it, but it can be healed."

Cole props himself up on his elbows, squinting at the cover. "No. Man and monsters, man is the monster, to deny yourself your whole is to be incomplete, half alive. I know the concepts. I met someone who knew him, I think. The story gave him power."

Even through the contented and joyful haze from the sap, there's an ache in Ben's chest, hearing Cole mention how the human Cole was mistreated. He still only knows fragments, but every impression he's gotten is that the human Cole's life was miserable - and this Cole carries all that. The memories and the pain that comes with them. Ben's breath catches when Cole says his father's name, places the blame firmly on him, so simply. As if there were no question about it. That, too, is a work in progress. Accepting that he is not a monster means looking back and knowing he didn't somehow deserve the worst things that had been done to him. That he hadn't caused or provoked them by being inherently evil.

Ben lets out a slow breath, and gives a single nod. Acknowledging Cole's words, but then letting the subject go. Part of that healing has to be choosing when he wants to dwell on such matters, and when he wants to let himself think about the dappled sunlight moving over him and Cole as they lay on the grass, and the way the air is starting to smell sweet from all the sap, and the way that, right now, he feels safe.

It's clear Cole has heard of the story if not read it, but Ben splutters in surprise at the last bit:

"You met someone who what?!"

He sounds shocked and delighted at this strange piece of gossip.

"I didn't know this was based on a real person? I thought it was just some big metaphor - you're saying there was really some guy like this, and you knew somebody who knew him?"

If it were anybody else Ben would so think he was being pranked right now, but Cole doesn't really do pranks, or lies.

Cole leans in close to whisper in Ben's ear.

"Some people, like Reginald? Are just assholes."

It's a very important piece of life advice. Some people are driven by pain. Some are damaged and can't help how they are, don't know how to change, don't know the pain they cause.

And some people are assholes.

Cole flops down again, shoulder to shoulder with Ben this time. "In the Drift Fleet, there was a wolf who pretended to be a man. He wasn't a wolf either, he was the idea of a wolf, the Big Bad Wolf. Not just a Fable, but a Paragon. He knew Dr Jekyll after his birth in the Victorian times."

Ben can't help smiling, then, just at the corner of one mouth. It reminds him so much more of the sort of thing that Klaus would say - has said to him many times - rather than Cole. But maybe that's the whole point. Even someone like Cole, who can see inside of people, to all the complications and weaknesses and squashed hopes and failed efforts... even he believes that some people just hurt other people because they don't care.

Ben has hurt a lot of people. So many he lost count. But he never didn't care.

There are times when it's hard to tell when his own confusion is due to Cole's poetic way of speaking about people and the world, and when the things he's referring to really are just capital-f Fables in a way that Ben doesn't quite grasp yet. Fortunately, he's buzzed and it's easy to just accept the concepts Cole is introducing without worrying too much about analyzing exactly what the meaning all is. He'd known a guy who was the concept of a wolf. Why not?

And maybe in some world, people could be big bad wolves and could be Dr. Jekyll. Ben is getting better at accepting anything is possible, in this strange mixed-up multiverse.

"That's pretty crazy."

The fact that Cole had known someone who knew a version of a character from a book Ben had plucked off the shelf for the first time when he was only ten or eleven years old. Ben turns the book over again in his hands, thinking about the copy that they had had at the Academy. It was much nicer than this one - one of those very fancy 19th-century printings, maybe not the first edition, but certainly the second or third. When he'd read it back then, he hadn't really picked up that it was about denying a part of yourself. He'd been young, and because of various circumstances, he'd of course just seen it as a story about somebody who let his darkness get the better of him. Who hadn't controlled it well enough, the way Ben was supposed to control his...

An idea bubbles up, sudden, unexpected, and Ben, impulsive and less inhibited than usual, asks:

"Do you want me to read you some of it?"

Cole had mentioned how much he liked it when a friend of his back home would read to him. Between Drift Fleet and this place, it had probably been a long time since anyone had taken the time to do that...

Some people are just assholes, Ben.

"Is it? Any crazier than Compassion becoming a real boy? Or being a portal to another dimension?" Cole's asking for real, because he knows he doesn't understand things like mortals do. To him, being different on the inside from the outside is pretty crazy.

"Yes! I like when people read to me! I only hear their voice, not all the people who have held the pages."

Ben laughs, soft and easy, even though he knows Cole is asking in earnest. It's just funny, this reminder of the fact that both of them, to most people's eyes, would be pretty crazy, indeed.

"No, I guess not. I had just never imagined it. I guess it just depends what you're used to."

And he feels a little swell of happiness, realizing he is, in fact, used to Cole. When they'd first met, Ben didn't understand him, was wary of him and his powers. It took a while, to really wrap his mind around what Cole is. And a while longer still, to come to accept it and no longer really think about it as something out of the ordinary. Cole is just... Cole. By bits and pieces it's become hard to imagine what his life in this place would be like without Cole around, to be his friend.

"Okay. I haven't done this much so I might not be as good at the voices, but.."

He settles himself, scooting just a bit closer to Cole so their shoulders are touching as he lifts up the book, flipping through to the first page and clearing his throat before he starts:

"Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable..."

Ben's delivery is a little stiff, at first, and he's overly aware of the sound of his own voice, of when he is pausing to breathe, of how he is enunciating the words. But gradually, he relaxes into it, and that self-consciousness slips away. He's only thinking of the content of the story itself, and Cole's presence beside him listening, absorbing the story. Ben doesn't even care if anybody's watching them, if they stand out amidst the various people enjoying the goop festival. He is too happy to care.

Cole goes one further.

Cole shuffles in, lying on his side until his nose is nearly pushed against Ben's ribs. It's odd, but he's used to being close for reading, being able to hear breath and voice so clearly.

He doesn't sleep. But he very obviously relaxes, not commenting on emotions, or thoughts, just listening because for once, everything he can hear says the same thing and nothing needs his help.

Ben is aware of Cole moving, settling himself in to a comfortable position to listen. But he doesn't mind, just staying still, continuing his reading, and gradually Cole stills. He is a good audience - not interrupting, or fidgeting, or distracting Ben. He occasionally glances away from the page just long enough to check on Cole and see that his eyes are still open, that he's still attentive, not bored or asleep or troubled.

He continues on like that for a while, as the people and robots move around them through the trees. Gradually, that buzzing high from drinking the sap fades, but it doesn't leave anything like a hangover in its wake, which is lovely. Ben gets through a few chapters before he can hear his voice starting to go dry and scratchy. When he finds a good stopping place, he closes the book around one finger, to mark his place, and says:

"I think that might be as far as I can get, today. If.... you want, I could read the rest of it to you, another day?"

The offer comes out tentative, hesitant, even though Cole should be able to sense clearly how much Ben would like to do that. He had enjoyed reading to Cole immensely. It felt like sharing something that had always been solitary for him, before. Reading has always meant so much, to Ben. It's close to his heart. So he feels strangely shy, asking if Cole would like to repeat this again in the future.

Cole listens, quiet and content and peaceful in a way he usually doesn't manage. He likes being read to. A lot. And his eyes half close along the way, but they stay open, if unfocused and watching Ben's ribs.

"Throat dry, those last few sentences cracked, I need water, I think, will he want to do this again, I think he wants to do it again- Yes, I would. This was the nicest time I've had here. Since... maybe since Elize and Cullen left the Fleet."

He reaches behind him and pulls out a worn flask, offering it up. "Water. I carry some, in case."

Ben has learned, now, not to worry if what Cole is saying doesn't make sense right away - and soon enough he is telling Ben he would like to do it again, that he had enjoyed himself, more than he had in a long time. That shy tension in Ben eases into pleasure as he confirms:

"This was the nicest time I've had here, too."

Ben takes the flask from Cole, surprised that he has it, considering he doesn't need food or water, but grateful. As much as he'd enjoyed that sap drink and the way it made him feel, he hadn't meant to get intoxicated and he doesn't intend to do it any more. He drinks the water, grateful for the coolness of it against his throat.

"Thank you."

He hands it back, and after a moment's hesitation, sits up. More time had passed than he had realized; the goop festival is still in full swing around them, but Ben thinks he has had his fill of it. He climbs to his feet, offers Cole a hand to help him up.

"I think I'm going to head out. I need some food that's not just sugar..."

He isn't sure if he is saying goodbye or not, if Cole will want to come with him down to the kitchen or if he'll want to stay here, talk to more of the trees or someone else. He wouldn't have been sad if that were the case, exactly, but all the same, he feels a contentment when Cole walks with him, towards the exit of the Agricultural area, and back into the rest of the Anchor.

Cole takes Ben's hand and lets himself be helped up. he doesn't need it, but he likes the offer, the feel of the want to help him through ben's skin. He doesn't brush himself off, just rolls his shoulders and looks over to the tables. "I'll be a moment."

Cole vanishes in a flicker of smoke, but he's back again within moments, carrying a bottle of the sap drink. "It might be good later, if someone needs it."

He says needs it, but he means if the effects of the sap would be better than letting them get drunk and unhappy. Alcohol makes the sad sadder. This doesn't, so he likes it.

Falling into step alongside Ben, Cole strolls with him to the exit. He'd rather come along with Ben and spend time with him than stay. The trees aren't going anywhere; he can talk to them at any time.

The step out of the door, and into-

Darkness.

The eyes can adjust, light being provided from cracks and glowing moss and some otherworldly source which is nowhere and everywhere at once. There is old, stained stone, walls that reach up too high and the roof too low, claustrophobic and smothering. Mildew and damp sit heavy in the air, the drip of water steady and haunting, echoing through the labyrinthine caverns.

There's a sarcophagus in the corner. The lid is partly opened and the smell of old death permeates the room.

This place is ancient. This place knows horror and was forgotten, abandoned, unwanted, and the things down here are just as unloved and unwanted as the place itself.

The bottle shatters on the ground, slipping from Cole's numb fingers, sending splintering glass and thick sap everywhere. The sweet scent is sickly as it mixes with the dust and mould, cloying and thick.

"No."

Cole spins on his heel, but the way they came is only another passage, a crack in a wall showing nothing of the Anchor.

He can't breathe. His terror is almost tangible.

"No."

The darkness is so abrupt and so complete that it startles Ben. He stumbles back, as if it were some physical thing, striking him in the face. For a confused moment he thinks it is a regular corridor of the Anchor and that this is one more measure those pesky robots have gone to, in order to ensure people stay for the entire duration of their beloved Goop Festival.

But something is not right. The usual, low-level hum of machinery is absent, replaced by a slow dripping. Other things, too. The temperature and humidity of the air has shifted, radically. And the smell... the smell is different. Not like anywhere Ben has been in the Anchor.

The sound of the bottle hitting the ground and breaking startles him badly; Ben flinches back, heart racing. He's just about to set a hand against his chest, laugh and make a joke about how much it had scared him...

...but something's wrong. Really wrong. He knows it the moment he hears Cole's voice. There's an urgent fear in it that Ben has heard before, but only once - back when they were confronting those nanites that had turned into the shape of Despair. Ben's eyes adjust slower but he hears Cole moving in the darkness, feels the shift of air as he searches for the door they'd just come through.

The door which, Ben barely sees through the gloom, is no longer there.

"Cole?"

He doesn't know what this is or where they are or how they are here but Cole is afraid, and Ben reaches for him. He does it automatically, fingers searching out Cole's shoulder, not wanting to lose him in the dark. If he can keep him close he can protect him. If anything attacks them, Ben has his powers, and he's not letting anything hurt Cole.

"What is it? Where are we - what happened?"

Because he thinks he can hear, in that breathless terror, something of recognition. Understanding what has happened or where they are.

Cole flinches.

It's a full body, shuddering flinch, the shock of being touched. The next moment he grabs Ben's arm, hand pressing to his mouth to silence him, listening intently.

Footsteps.

They're not alone.

If they find Ben, they'll hurt him.

He starts off, towards a corridor, holding tightly to Ben's arm. "This way, quick, this way." His whispering is breathless and scared. He takes them to a door, bending down to whisper an entreaty to make it open and then the lock clicks and he pushes Ben inside, shutting the door behind them.

When he next grabs Ben's hand, his skin is colder than before. Cool, clammy, like the deathly boy Ben met, not the warm, living boy he generally is with the other man.

Ben has no idea what's going on, but he's never seen Cole this scared. Not even with the nanites. He'd been distraught, then, and frightened to some degree, but he hadn't been panicking like this. Ben can actually feel him trembling, when Cole presses his hand against Ben's mouth, silencing him. He trusts Cole implicitly by this point, and goes silent and still, listening hard.

He hears the footsteps, too. When Cole starts to move, Ben is ready.

Even though he isn't dressed for stealth, Ben can move quietly. They'd had enough training and practice on sneaking up on your enemy when he was a kid that it comes back to him automatically. He moves where Cole pulls him, through a door, watching as Cole pulls it shut after them. His eyes are becoming accustomed to the darkness, but there is nothing familiar about this place. His mind is full of racing questions, but he stays absolutely silent, gripping Cole's hand back.

And there are other ways to communicate. If Cole is not too scared and too distracted to hear him, to sense his feelings and thoughts. Ben tries, through his own confusion and fear, to crystallize a feeling of readiness, of support. He isn't going to let anyone hurt Cole. He thinks it over and over, hoping Cole will sense it. Ben is here with him, he's not alone, and he's going to protect him.

Cole's hand feels so cold. Ben lays his other hand on top of it, as if he could warm Cole up, worry muddling his thoughts. If only he knew what this place was, what was happening, how he could help -

Cole pauses in the room, looks around and then moves to a corner, to a crate that he pushes aside to reveal another crack, tight, but doable. "In," he urges, glancing to the door. "In. Safe cell."

Through the crack is a cell with a collapsed doorway, facing the opposite wall from the cell they just came from. Aside from the crack, there's no way in or out.

And this is where Cole settles them down. It appears to be an old dungeon room, rusted out shackles on the walls, engraved with a metal that hasn't tarnished, that softly glows in carved runes.

"This is the Pit, underneath White Spire, in Val Royeaux." He still whispers, but he's willing to take the moment to explain. "It's probably Templars, searching for rebels."

Cole knows this place. Ben is sure of it, the moment he sees his friend going to the crate with purpose and decision, moving it to reveal a narrow passage out of the room. As much as he trusts Cole, he can't help hesitating a moment, facing that narrow crack in the wall. Could he fit? What if he got stuck, got trapped? And what was on the other side? All he can see is total darkness.

But he screws up his courage, glancing over to see the stark terror on Cole's face. He almost insists on Cole going first, so Ben can keep guard and follow after, but it doesn't seem worth the wasted time to argue it. Besides, there could be just as many dangers on the other side, waiting for them.

Maneuvering himself through is not an easy task, and Ben scrapes his forearm against the rough stone. He makes no noise, despite the pain, except a slightly sharper inhale. Once Cole is through, too, Ben looks around, at this tiny stone box they've hidden themselves in. He sees the manacles, and a cold, slithery fear slips into his guts. It ought to be comical, something out of a fantasy movie, a ludicrous, over-the-top dungeon. But it's so horribly real. He can smell the disuse of this room, damp stone and moss and metal, but underneath it, old but unmistakeable, is the smell of blood. Real blood that had been spilled here.

When Cole tells him where they are, Ben doesn't recognize any of the names he mentions. He breathes out, even quieter than Cole:

"In Thedas?"

His mind is reeling. Had they been transported, somehow? Is he in another world entirely? An idea occurs to him, and with shaking hands, he fumbles the device from his coat pocket, clicks it on. The light of it is blinding in the pitch-black cell, but Ben squints against the sudden brightness, tapping through to his inbox. He selects a text at random and deletes it, waiting for the signal to go through. As soon as the words disappear, he gives a tiny nod, shuts the device off and slides it back into his pocket.

"We're still in the Anchor. The network - the signal reaches here. This place is - inside the base, somehow."

That doesn't mean the danger isn't real. Ben has seen things from Cole's world brought through the shift, before. He had fought that Behemoth. So it doesn't change much, knowing they haven't been moved. Except there is some hope for escape.

He turns to look at Cole, heart racing, but keeping it together as well as he can. It's just mortal peril. Nothing new. Nothing to lose his cool over. Right?

And yet the terror seems to seep out of the walls of this place. The hairs on the back of Ben's neck are standing up and why can't he stop smelling that old blood?

"If they find us, get behind me." He shuffles closer to Cole in the darkness, jaw set, tense and angry at whatever forces have landed them here, are putting them through this. But anger is useful. Anger will help him to keep his friend safe. "I'm not going to let anybody hurt you, okay?"

Edited 2019-11-07 02:37 (UTC)

The terror seeping from the walls is real. To Cole, anyway. He had always been able to feel it, even if he didn't understand that that was what he felt at the time.

The light is bright, too bright, and he tries to hide them, to stop it spilling from any cracks. "No light. We're safe with no light."

It occurs to him that Ben might like a little more explanation. "Won't find us, not here, too thick, too enclosed, no way in." He shuffles closer to Ben, curling his hand around Ben's again. "They can't see me. Even with the red lyrium, I'm never seen if I don't want to be. It's you they'd want. Hurt. No Behemoths though. Won't fit in this part of the Pit. Templars, maybe Horrors, probably not even a knight."

Cole pulls out his knife, the ugly, jagged little thing that never leaves him. It's still killed things more heavily armoured than the Templars.

Through a split in a stone, little more than a thin line, a red light appears. It's the same red of the Behemoth, sickly and dark.

Ben nods when Cole tells him not to shine any more light; he believes him, that it's the best way to keep safe. But the darkness of the cell, those close thick walls, are making it a little difficult to breathe. His eyes are drawn to the shackles on the wall again, and he shivers, shutting his eyes tightly.

He holds Cole's hand back, tightly, and it's not just to comfort his friend, anymore. Not when Cole reassures him that he won't be seen if he doesn't want to be. Ben believes that - he's a spirit, after all. So that means, as Cole makes so clear a moment later, the danger is just to him.

And these aren't the bank robbers and art thieves he'd dealt with as a kid, or those slow-shambling zombies he'd fought off at that Whole Foods. They are Templars. Templars have powers - he remembers that much from what Cole's told him of Thedas. Could they stop him using his powers? Catch him off guard, render him helpless? He can't count on being able to defend himself the way he's used to, against people like that.

Ben knows that, with Cole, emotions can become like a feedback loop. What he ought to be doing now is remaining as calm as he can, to soothe some of Cole's anxiety over being in this familiar, fucking horrible place. But it doesn't work like that. Now that the fear is sinking its claws deeper and deeper into his chest, Ben doesn't know how to tear it free. He can hide it externally, the way he'd learned to do so well while he was alive the first time. But that would mean nothing for Cole. He will still know, still feel it.

When that red line of light appears, Ben doesn't breathe, heartbeat racing faster still, adrenaline coursing through him. He doesn't move, doesn't make a sound, just grips Cole's hand as tight as he can.

Cole holds onto Ben.

Not just holds his hand. His arm slides around Ben's shoulders, pressing him to the corner and then Cole exhales slowly, eyes closing as he focuses.

Don't see us. Don't see us. We're not here, there's nothing here, don't see us.

His mental litany warps the world, completely undetectable, but when a glowing eye tries to look in and sees nothing, the light withdraws and moves away again.

Cole's eyes aren't open to see. He's almost using himself a physical shield over Ben, like it would make his power extend over him easier. Maybe it does.

He feels wet, slick heat on his upper lip and knows it's blood. It always happens when he fights against something so powerful to hide someone else.

Ben hates this. He can't remember the last time he felt this helpless and trapped. He presses himself into that corner, Cole blocking him in securely, and does his best to just breathe slowly and silently. But that's hard, when he catches a glimpse of something searching through that crack. For a crazy minute he thinks it is an eye, but he isn't really sure because he closes his own, squeezing them tight, afraid the reflection off them or any more movement of them might give them away.

When the light dims, whatever was searching here moving away, Ben lets out a long, slow breath. He can feel himself shaking from head to foot.

Then he opens his eyes and sees blood on Cole's face, and the terror is back, in an entirely new form. He barely holds back a little wordless noise of surprise and worry, reaching up to touch Cole's bloody upper lip. All at once his emotions are a roiling chaos of affection and fear and confusion and guilt.

Barely even whispering, he breathes, "Cole, you're bleeding."

Cole is hurt and he can't be hurt and Ben doesn't know what he should do or how serious it is. Do they wait out whatever phenomenon has brought them here? For how long? What if something came and blocked up that crack and they were trapped in here? How are they going to get out of this?

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