Content warning: gore, violence, death
[__ Day 3 __]
Volu was crouched on a sandy edge of the methane sea shoreline. The ocean touched the horizons, up to which he looked for a moment. He hadn’t gotten used to the utterly featureless gray sky. At least gray skies back on Kepler still had the gentle slopes of clouds and lighter patches, allowing their star’s light to peer through. Here, there was absolutely nothing beyond a single tone of gray void.
He heard another tiny squeak and turned his attention back to the small green rod no larger than an ant that stumbled across the sands on six or seven haphazardly placed legs. The creature was trying to walk over a small ridge that Volu’s boots had kicked up on his approach. It would climb and repeatedly get washed back down by the rising methane. This was despite the fact that there was a much shorter path out of the crevasses to his right, a divot that immediately led to dry sand. The rod simply walked a straight path from the sea each time.
C’mon fella, he chuckled. How the hell’d you even get this far with that sort of thinking?
On the next failed attempt, Volu picked up the pill-like creature as delicately as he could through the suit’s gloves. Nonetheless, it began to squeak and squirm with all its might. Volu looked across the smooth rod’s surface. Ah, no eyes– of course. He tapped his helmet with his other hand’s knuckles twice.
A man’s voice broke through from a few yards back behind. “Volu! We’re heading out.” It was Kalbun, adorned with the same sleek black-metal suit and helmet as Volu.
Volu let the rod go atop the ridge. As he scurried away, he realized he accidentally snapped one of its legs. He felt a sting in his heart for the small creature, then turned back to land.
The terrain was incredibly rocky, with brownish-red stones three to six feet tall jutting out in random directions every few steps, as the eye could see. Kalbun stood and raised an eyebrow through the glass face of the helmet. The rest of his body was adorned with the same sleek black-metal suit as Volu, with the words “Life & Co.” engraved on the chestplate.
“Find anything useful?”
“Nothing valuable, no” Volu sheepishly responded.
Up ahead, Sib’s wrinkles, of which she had many, creased as she scoffed. She returned to climbing the rocks ahead to get back into the formation.
Company orders were to spread the thirty-three members (thirty now) of the contract out into a mile wide square-ish formation. Groups of three made up the points of a sort of grid across the square, so that each group was about a third of a mile away from each other. It was reasonable to cover more ground. After all, an artifact could be as small as a few inches and easily missed if you weren’t close by. In practice though, it quickly fell apart throughout each day as the “grid points” moved past each other at different speeds. Makes well enough sense for those asshats in the research division.
Volu saw Sib heaving herself over every rock in her metal-rubber suit. He could almost feel himself sweat preemptively. Kalbun patted his shoulder. “Keep focus. I’m sure as shit not carrying your corpse back,” he said.
Volu nodded back with a weak grin. As he picked up his backpack, with greater ease than he’d liked, and joined the rest.
___
They lost another by midday. Volu looked down at the remains. The body had multiple perfectly clean cuts through, separated in horizontal parallel lines. Some segments were missing entirely while the rest were arranged anatomically correct, had the body been whole. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.
Sib’s hands grabbing the remaining armor broke through his stupor. He watched, mouth half agape, as she peeled the black metal pieces off and into her pack. Every three minutes or so another group from behind would see them, stop, shake their heads, then pressed forward. “Hounds can’t be far behind,” Sib spoke curtly.
“You sure it wasn’t a Slippery-Face?” Kalbun said softly.
“Nah, surroundings’ perfectly normal looking to me. Most likely a small pack ran through here. Poor fucker got caught in the rocks, then they headed back to Steeple.”
Thank gods they only travel in packs. Getting surprised by a lone hound would not be a fitting way to go.
Kalbun patted Volus’s back, breaking his focus on the corpse.
“It’s not as bad as it looks. They passed quickly, no pain at all. I’ve heard horror stories of some folks living for hours while segmented.”
The pit in Volu’s stomach worsened.
After Sib got up, Kalbun knelt at the corpse’s side and gave a silent prayer. He looked across the whole length, then picked up the severed head and placed it gently in a black bag, writing a name across it.
“What was it you said about carrying my whole corpse?” Volu forced a small laugh while trying to keep the carnage out of focus.
Kalbun stared back with a flat face, then they both went on their way.
___
As the hours passed, the three kept pace. Though now, Volu was beginning to lag behind. Kalbun spoke up as he was halfway up a rock, voice muffled through the glass of his helmet. “So, Volu, what made you choose an Orthrim post?”
“Right, lots of great options to pick from. Between acid storms on Renvo, collapsed toxic industrial megastructures back on Mars, sky stations hanging over nothing but dense gas for tens of thousands of fucking miles on Trisus, derelict alien ruins didn’t seem all that bad.”
“Ha, yeah well at least those don’t have hounds, you know.”
“True, that. See-through hounds didn’t seem all that bad on paper. And yourself?”
“Actually picked Mars for a few years. But, uh, well, let’s just say I wanted to have kids that weren’t born with extra sets of arms and legs.” He gestured to his crotch area. “And Sib’s been here for a good few decades. So I guess for you it’s like muscle memory?” Kalbun turned forward to her as he slid down a rock face.
“Yup.” was all she had to say.
After a few seconds of silence Volu spoke up.
“When you take a step back though, it’s still kind of amazing. A civilization with human-like intelligence. Wonder what they looked like.”
“They couldn’t have been that intelligent. Fuckers forgot the part where ya supposed to ruin the planet after finding a way off it,” Sib chortled.
“Oh well, not really. It’s thought that they had knowledge of the far field, so they probably did have interstellar travel. Must’ve just not found a stable enough star system to settle on after leaving.”
“Gods, you one of those dumbasses that believe in the holographic universe ‘M-Theory’ shit?”
“Well the ship we used to get here is literally powered by string theory. So, yeah.”
“Right, according to the Life & Co. funded research. I guess you really believe these shitty suits protect us from 99.9% of radiation? Or that our diet of godsdam paste really ‘boosts’ moral and bone durability?”
“Fuck no, the research division isn’t like what it used to be. Back in their start, they actually gave a shit about real knowledge.” Volu stopped atop a rock. “Now, they’re so incompetent as to leave a treasure trove of alien technology to rot, just to protect the company’s bottom line. Having to send clumsy humans to collect scraps, because heavy equipment loss is ‘too costly’. Even worse, being so fucking pig headed, throwing away golden opportunities to get outside researchers for fresh look at their data.” He was almost shaking now. “No, these fools don’t value anything that isn’t directly in front of their conceited faces. Heads so far up their own asses they’ve spat themselves back out!”
Kalbun and Sib stopped by now as well. Sib’s face contorted from a mouth half agape to slight laugher, all the way to bellowing over. “Nah man, tell me how you really feel!”
“Need a minute, Volu?” Kalbun’s voice was soft.
“Uh, yeah, may–”
Sib quickly composed herself and spoke louder from up front. “Hell no, I’m not wasting time for this guy.”
“Not like I’m ask–” Volu was beginning to slide down a rock when he saw a discolored section of black stone in the dim light. He stopped in his tracks and stared.
“What, artifact?” Sib questioned.
“Yeah! I think! Wait, let me make sure.” Volu tried to keep his cool, but his past adrenaline had shifted into excitement. He crouched down at the lowest point of the crevasse and looked at the three foot tall, two feet wide rock ahead. The black piece from a distance looked as though it was stuck in the rock, but upon closer inspection it was actually floating just a few inches off the surface. It was like a triangular cog, with a color that shifted from gray to black depending on the angle you looked at.
By the way it catches the light… It’s gotta be a Glistened Machine piece. Engineers at Life & Co. had specifically bountied artifacts of its ilk, as reverse engineering the Glistening factor took an absurd amount of examples. The coat was so delicate that each analysis nearly immediately sheared off its surface into nothingness, or so said one of the recent internally published materials science papers at the company.
Volu looked with amazement, distracted enough to not have noticed Sib climbing back from ahead. In an instant, before he could even touch it, he saw her arm swipe down from above and grab the piece.
“Wha– HEY! I found that shit first, hand it over!” Volu scrambled up the rock as she slid back down.
“You know the briefing kid. An artifact’s sale goes to whoever physically collects it first.” She resumed her climb forward on the next rock over as Volu stared slack jawed.
“Dick move, Sib.” Kalbun was watching a few feet away atop a different rock.
What, she thinks I’ll just let that slide? Fuck no. Volu jumped across the gap to grab at her pack, only for her to roll over and down the rock’s left face faster than he’d guessed a person her age should be capable of. His belly hit the rock instead as he scrambled his arms to grab hold of Sib’s upper arm before she could slide fully out of range. With a quick turn she slipped free and landed on her feet, hopping back a few steps. “Nice try, kid,” she jeered with heavy breaths.
Volu began to crawl down as Kalbun stepped in between. “Hey guys, enough! We’ve still got days left out here!”
“She just fucking scuffed me! Whatever that is could house me for weeks!”
“You weld your ears shut or something? Wasn’t yours buddy, you were too busy gawking at it” Sib retorted.
“Hang on Volu, technically she’s right. You have to touch it first, for it to be yours.”
Volu bit his lip. “Yeah well fine, keep it. Hag.”
“Suits me!” Said Sib, turning back forward to continue her climb.
“Listen man, whatever we see next, if I see it first I’ll point it out to you. Ok?”
“Yeah, sure. Fine. I’d appreciate it more if you had my back with Sib, though. Two of us could definitely take her on.”
“Trust me man, it’s not worth it. I’ve worked with her on occasion, she’s just easier to deal with if you ignore her. There’s a reason she’s gotten this old in this line of work.” He patted Volu’s shoulder, then began to trek forward as well.
Volu remained a few seconds as his blood remained hot. He had thought that at least out here the lethal conditions would lead to a form of team comradery. I guess fucking not. Soon enough, he was off as well.
—
By evening, the sky had shifted to a darker gray. It was through the shade that Kalbun saw another glint of something off a stone a good few yards away. He stopped his climb to wait for Volu to catch up. When Volu saw that he stopped, Kalbun pointed at the glint. Without a word, he dashed as quickly as he could across the rocks and away from the other two. Now Sib stopped her climb as well to watch him. When he got there, the object was hanging mid air in-between two raised stones, a tarnished silver encasing about the size of a textbook.
“Artifact?” Sib had called from around 100 feet back atop a rock, remaining there as Kalbun held her shoulder. She pushed his hand off, but made no attempt to cross the distance.
Volu ignored her and carefully grabbed the bottom of the casing. Its top was cut in a clean diagonal shape, including the moss, which gave the whole thing a sort of triangle look. He gently began to pull it downwards, causing air to hiss from the top edges. Before his eyes, the casing seemingly grew more of itself from nothing. He finally pulled it out entirely, revealing a silver rectangle. Fuck yes!
“Wait, Volu! Slip-Face right on you!” Kalbun shouted.
His heart dropped as he frantically turned in all directions, briefly staring into each stone. His perception of time seemed to slow as every breath echoed throughout his mind. From nowhere he felt a jab and let out a high pitched yelp.
“It’s just me!” Kalbun grabbed his shoulder, then pointed to an abnormally smooth side of a nearby rock. It looked as if someone had perfectly sanded it down. “Get moving!”
Volu hit his helmet twice with his knuckles as he followed Kalbun back across the rocks. They stopped where Sib laid on her back atop of a large sloped rock, twiddling her thumbs. Kalbun laid to the left of Sib, leaving Volu to get down on his stomach on the far end of the rock. He watched where he just stood barely a minute ago.
It started subtly, like a trick of the light. The rock next to which he found the silver began to flatten. Then it dramatically looked as if he were getting an x-ray view within the rock’s surface, its top cleanly vanishing into nothing. It was like some loathsome geology book from his youth just had to show him what the cross section of an igneous rock was at each layer.
Two minutes later, a perfectly flat surface forty feet across laid near horizontally where the rocks once stood, as though they were shaved off.
“It’s been long enough, right? We’re in the clear?” Volu began to rise, but Sib had already rolled over Kalbun to yank Volu back down to his stomach. His helmet hit the stone with a clang.
“Not yet, dumbass!” She tapped her suit’s clock on the left arm.
“Hands off me!” Volu batted her away. Sib raised her palms toward him and feigned fear, then looked back towards the surface. Volu looked on as well, as Kalbun pushed himself to the right side with Sib settling down in the middle.
Not a full two minutes later, the first see-through hound bounded, no, flowed across the rocks. It was nearly indescribable, a creature that shouldn’t exist in reality. At any one point it looked a bit like some quadrupedal creature that had been horribly mangled, horizontal segments stacked atop each other with empty gaps in between, all sliding freely. From moment to moment, pieces evaporated into nothing while others appeared. There was no defined end of the hound, as pieces gradually just stopped appearing a few feet away from the center mass. The many toed feet were only occasionally actually seen making contact with the ground, gravity being a mere suggestion to the gliding horror.
After it passed, a few more did as well. Soon enough, tens could be seen all at once following the line of the first. From this distance it was fascinating. He longed to see it up close, but the briefings were clear: the hounds never responded to any forms of communications. To be so stupid as to try and caress one’s side would no doubt be Volu’s last act in this universe.
After about 15 minutes their frequency had slowed, until the last flew over the horizon.
—
By nightfall the sky turned pure black, not a star in sight. It was only through the light of each group’s campfire that the rocks were illuminated. The formation tightened to a quarter mile over the flattest patch of land they could find for the night.
Volu sat around the fire, dumbfounded by Kalbun’s attempt at explaining. Sib sat atop a rock a little ways away from them.
Seeing Volu’s furrowed brow, Kalbun called out to a member of the expedition who was wandering campfire to campfire like a vagrant.
“Irri! Get over here, you’re better at explaining this.” Kalbun beckoned.
The vagrant sat and joined the three of them around the fire. Only her lower face was visible, with her nose and above behind in tinted glass.
“Explain what, exactly?” Irri spoke in a near monotone, her head bobbing around aimlessly.
“That whole ‘escape the circle’ thing.”
“Oh- yeah uh- hang on.” She grabbed a rock from the ground and marked a circle into the larger stone below them, finally focusing.
“Imagine you’re, like, a 2D ant, in the center here. And I-uh- tell you to escape this circle without touching the edge. Can you do it?”
Volu puffed air through his lips, eyes half open. “no.”
“Right, so-uh… Well if you were a 3D creature, you’d just walk over the edge, leaving without ever touching it. But to the ant, it looks like you just pulled some magic teleportation stuff’ since its 2D brain can’t handle it. Ok- so now say you’re 3D, inside a 3D sphere. Can you try and escape it without touching the surface?”
Ah. “Nope.”
“Right, but the hounds are 4D, so they just step ‘over’ the surface without having touched it. So like, to us it looks like teleporting. Their actual bodies are massive, but we can only ever see a small slice at a time.”
Volu slowly nodded his head. “And the Steeple?”
Irri stopped herself from getting up. “Oh– uh yeah so, the hounds always surround the Transparent Steeple. Aaaaand…” she trailed off and stared into another campsite.
“Hey, Irri?”
“What? Oh yes. Honestly it doesn’t really matter, if you get trapped inside there you’re dead anyway, nine time out of ten”
“I’ve known a person or two to survive over the decades,” Sib cut in. “Said she saw something worse than the hounds chargin’ through or something. One came back with an incredible find though, damn near enough to retire.”
“Worse than the hounds?” Volu raised his voice high at the end.
“Dangerous enough that Life & Co. stopped sending researchers there centuries ago. ”
“How do you even get in? Or out for that matter?”
“You planning a trip?” Kalbun chuckled, then slightly frowned.
Irri had looked up to the dark sky for a few moments. “Well, it’s pretty weird. Steeple kinda just appears randomly. I think of it like this: imagine a sort of scanner that only lets you see one one less dimensional slice of whatever you put in. If you put in, uh, like a circle, you’ll first see a point as it enters the device. It’ll slide through, so that that point extends into a line that gets bigger and bigger. Then once it’s big enough, like the diameter of the sphere, it’ll shrink on back down to a point and disappear.”
Clearly Irri had places to be, as she spoke faster.
“Put a sphere in it, and you’d get a point that grows to a circle, then shrinks to a point. The, uh, Steeple is like that, except four-dimensional. So as you put it through the thresher of our 3D-limited brains, it enlarges into spheres, which then shrink and disappear.”
Volu squinted his eyes and slowly raised his pointer finger. He began to speak but she talked over him.
“Actually, the Steeple isn’t like a 4D sphere though,” Irri continued. “It’s got all kinds of twists and turns. So in general it just sort of looks like random objects are clipping through reality as they get bigger and smaller.”
At this Irri stood up without any natural indication that she had finished speaking, and walked on to the next campfire.
“Yeah, see you later, Irri.” Kalbun said with a chuckle.
Volu reached into his backpack and pulled out the silver slab. He slid his gloved fingers across its surface and imagined a fantastical origin. What lays within the surface of the Transparent Steeple?
Sib nodded her head towards him “Not a bad find yourself, kid, I gotta give you that.”
“Wow, I’ve been dying for your approval.”
“Listen, sorry about earlier eh? It’s just, I’ve seen a lot of you ‘greenie’ kind. Figured you wouldn’t need much if ya were gonna die anyway, you know? Shame to have such a score segmented.”
“I literally couldn’t care less what shit fell out of your mouth, granny.” Volu hadn’t taken his eyes off the slab
“Alright Mr. Tough Fella. Hard truth is, if ya not willing to use every advantage you got, someone else will. They’ll leave your weak ass behind in the dust. That’s not just true for Orthrim either. Shit’s universal.”
Volu thought about his application to the research division. Maybe they were just looking out for themselves, given how underfunded they were. It’s true, their rejection of him meant he had no other choice but to die out on some random planet trying to earn barely enough credits to eat. Perhaps, though, they were only able to maintain their place in Life & Co. after promising the board they’d turn a profit. If they were fired, they too would be buried out here in pieces.
That almost made sense until Volu realized that sort of thinking did nothing but push the problem up the line. He’d tear the insides out of those board members if given the chance, and the same for those fuckers in outreach for doing nothing but supporting the status quo.
“Whatever sorry excuse you need to sleep at night,” he spat out at Sib, at which she chuckled.
“Come on guys, let’s just try and be professional.”
He began to turn the silvered piece, just as his hand slipped and it fell onto the corner of a stone. Immediately the brittle metal shattered into pieces with some brown mass revealed on the inside, roughly a foot across. Kalbun grimaced as Sib stared at the remnants, the corner of her mouth raised and eyes wide.
“No, n– SHIT!” He dropped to his hands and knees and frantically sifted through the pieces. His gloves scoured the ground, trying to find any hidden materials aside from the brown mass, finally grabbing at it after finding nothing more. Kalbun rushed to his side and held his hands on the back of his head. Volu held his breath as his eyes scanned its brown surface in milliseconds that stretched emotionally into eons. His comprehension caught up to his hands, it was nothing more than a leather-bound book. “Fuck!”
He tossed the book aside and scoured the pieces in denial. When he could pretend no more he opened the book in one last ditch effort, only for it to be entirely written in english. He tossed the book aside and held his head in his hands, his body now in a sort of makeshift prostrate position. Sib got up and grabbed the book, then started laughing.
“Who knows man! Maybe the Pluvians coincidentally learned English on the last days before they fucked the planet!” She could hardly get that much out through her laughter.
Kalbun gestured for the book. Sib handed it over and whipped tears from her eyes. After looking through a few pages at random he turned to Volu who still lay collapsed.
“Sorry man, you still have a good three days left though! Maybe you’ll find something by then? And I wouldn’t pay much attention to the book. Can’t sell something left behind by humans for much.” He patted Volu’s slumped shoulders.
The rest of the night Volu kept mostly to his own thoughts, retiring to sleep early. He took the book with him, which now with cooler tempers actually did look rather interesting. It was a leather bound titled “Voynich Codex Vol. 2”, with a stark contrasting interior of metallic pages on which the words were engraved. Perhaps the research division would hand Volu what little pitiful amounts of funding they had left to see the lost work of a past scholar.
Through low electric light, Volu purused the text. The author went unnamed, but wrote with a fervor that carved through the decades, or perhaps even the centuries since written. They wrote about the Pluvians and their history. Parts rang true from what Volu had heard, but a few key details stuck out as obviously false, making him question the sanity of the writer.
…with mastery of the fourth dimension, vast distances across the world were crossed in a matter of minutes through profane and incomprehensible paths. At their societal peak, buildings the size of mountains would walk across that fourth side for mere moments, and appear astride the counter side of the planet.
Alas, it was through this mastery their fatal folly pierced: The Pluvians believed one’s mind a separate entity from the body. They failed to perceive the limitations of all flesh and steel, seeing themselves as above the toils of the animals down below in the lower realms. I wonder, what say they now given their decrepit state? To think, I shall ask for myself in not but a thirty-day from now!
That last bit stood out to Volu. Perhaps Voynich (as he had taken to calling the author) was near death and believed to meet their civilization in some afterlife? This line of thinking held fast in his mind as he slipped into unconsciousness, dreaming of ancient significance and boundless cityscapes.
__
[__ Day 5 __]
The past few days Volu had managed to find a few good artifacts here and there. A coil made from a rubbery metal, a rock soaked in ferrofluid, and what looked to be an ancient metal battery casing. All together it wouldn’t cover the cost it took to get to Orthrim itself. Normally this would occupy his every thought, but the codex gave great comfort in the odd hours he had to read it. Voynich allegedly reached the inside of Steeple itself, and walked with beings within. So absorbed in the book, Volu strapped it to his left leg so as to be able to easily grab it whenever needed. On this afternoon during a midday break under the monochrome sky, Volu read Voynich’s encounter with one such entity.
It was a colossal thing, that three legged beast that stalked the halls of the Steeple. I kept my distance, though I knew not its true range. Arms flowed over the fourth side as it traveled in intricate patterns that I failed to grasp the significance of. On some passes, that thing roared abhorrent calls against me. Should I not howl back in much the same manner, it would avert its path and lunge towards me until I behaved as it seemed to wish.
He called out to Kalbun, who sat on a nearby rock to his right with his arm retracted into his suit, eating hardtack. “I’m telling you man, you gotta check this out. Voynich made it inside the Steeple and back alive!”
“And I’m telling you to trash that thing,” said Kalbun. “The Steeple breeds insanity, Volu. You’re just letting it in you!”
Sib sneered from her position directly across from Kalbun, back leaned against a rock.
“‘Drives insanity’? The fuck you hear that from? Little whispers from the Orthrim spirits of the night?” She spoke that last part in an exaggerated wavering tone.
“Trust me, it’ll only lead to trouble,” said Kalbun.
Volu slowly nodded his head, but in truth he simply had to know more.
__
[__ Day 7 __]
By the last day of the job, Volu’s most valuable find was a solid chunk of ore made from a rare metal that must have been refined a thousand years ago, nestled in a rock sanded down by wind and methane.
It was all but certain he’d go hungry between now and his next contract. He considered asking Kalbun to split some of his findings, but guilt overrode him. To focus his mind, he hadn’t picked up the Voynich book in a whole day. He’ll probably have to sell it in the end, for whatever tiny amount of credits he could bargain the research division for.
It didn’t help that Sib had stolen artifacts that should have gone to him more than once. In a last ditch effort, he made an excuse of needing to toss his urine bag to break away from the both of them. Kalbun said nothing, but the soft look in his eye gave Volu the idea that he understood.
“Just throw it anywhere.” Sib reproached.
“I gotta clean it out, it’s my last” he lied.
He trekked out for a good few minutes and scanned the horizon. With great luck, there was indeed a certain discoloration in the rocks further ahead! Wasting no time, he scrambled over to the surface. There, a strange sight presented itself; a tiny slab of black material that hovered just above the rock. it occasionally caught the light and was no larger than a few inches. His eyes squinted as he tried to make sense of it, noticing a slight vibration. Hurry up Volu! Sib could be closing in at any fucking minute! He tapped his helmet with his knuckles twice, and reached out with his right hand. His finger simply passed through the slab. Huh?
And like that, the rock in front of him began to lose its face, as though it wanted to present its innards clearly. “oooOAH SHIT! SLIPPERY-FACE!” Volu howled and tried to pull his hand back, but the slab held his finger fixed in space. “HELP! GODS PLEASE HELP ME! KALBUN!” he projected his voice as far as he could.
Someone shouted his name behind him. All the while the clean flat new surface of the rock spread, like an invisible force was erasing reality itself in front of Volu. His whole right side felt colder and colder.
“KALBUN! I’M HERE!”
He turned his head towards the shout, at which point his neck went stiff. Sib came first, over a high rock, and stared him down with cold eyes and mouth tightly shut. Kalbun came around it to the right and inhaled quickly right as he saw the horrific sight before him. He started to break into a sprint towards him, but from her vantage point, Sib shot her hand down in front of him.
“Don’t! He’s finished.” And like that, she had decided his fate with unbelievable arrogance.
“Not Im fucking not finished! Get me out of this!”
Kalbun slowly rocked his head left to right and closed his eyes. “I’m… Sorry, man.”
“How bad does it look? Just tell me!”
“You’re, uh… right half’s completely gone.”
Sib spoke up. “Kid, you look like a biology textbook section on the human body. All gross organs and shit hanging out.”
Volu gritted his teeth and made an inhuman groan.
Her eyes lit up “Wait! I think I can get you out! It’ll be a hell of a close one though.”
“Do it! I’ll give you anything!” Volu pleaded for his life.
By now the slip-face had stopped expanding at a yard wide, nearly perpendicular to the ground with half of Volu attached. Sib crept forward towards his back, then placed her hands on his left shoulder. Volu’s eyes shot wildly around, trying to see behind his own head.
Kalbun watched on with shoulders crossed tightly. After a few seconds he slowly released his arms “Sib, the fuck are you doing?” She gave no response. Instead, she slowly pulled something off, then stumbled back when it broke free. Out of the corner of his eye, Volu saw his backpack in her hands, still intact.
“YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” Volu gave a visceral howl.
“Too far, Sib! Hand it over!” Kalbun had dropped into a low stance, blocking Sib from the way they came.
Wordlessly, Sib charged Kalbun, then feigned right. Kalbun fell for it and stumbled forward, tripping to one knee. Sib dashed far faster than she should be capable of at that age, vaulting over a rock as she held onto the extra backpack’s strap.
“Just leave it Kalbun! Please help!”
He looked up from where he fell and frowned tight. He began to speak, but stopped just as suddenly. He slowly turned back to Volu, eyes wide and mouth agape
“What? What is it!?” But now he could hear the flow of the see-through hounds in the distance behind him.
“I won’t abandon you! Just, uh, stay calm! Maybe they’ll miss you, and I’ll come right back after!” Kalbun spoke fast as he climbed fast over the rocks further away.
Volu screamed in some mix of a pathetic war cry and fear. In thirty seconds the hounds were upon him. The first glided past him to his right. Volu saw its segmented bumpy skin clearly, abruptly cutting off to nothing in horizontal gaps. It had the vague shape of a four legged creature, but at times an entire leg would be gone, then reappear a few moments later.
Volu closed his eyes, still feeling nothing but extreme cold. He heard the sliding and scrapping of rocks that grew louder and overlapped itself. When his eyes opened, something worse met his gaze far above in the gray sky. There, a black curved surface formed out of nothing. It was shaped like a triangular prism, with the base curved as though attached to the surface of a sphere. As it grew larger, many more appeared. All the while the hounds ran over, and in some cases through Volu. He could only tell this as the white skin of the hound appeared directly in front of his eyes running further past him.
Volu’s lungs failed him as he tried to scream, but no air would come out. His body felt painfully cold as the prism and other strange vaguely geometrical shapes got larger. Now, the entire sky was taken up by the horrifying architecture. Eventually they reached the ground, expanding into and somehow replacing it. A black surface appeared in front of his eyes, giving him a full view of its abstract symbols and bas reliefs across. It grew and curved around him so that he could see nothing else but the uncanny form .
It enveloped him totally, and his body felt warm. A few seconds later the black surface vanished. Volu fell to the ground on his stomach, then pushed himself up with both hands. He jolted as he realized his right remained. After rolling on the floor for a bit and being satisfied that he was in fact, still whole, he stood to his feet. Before him, Volu beheld an unimaginable sight.
It was like a massive nave of a chapel, only the pillars and wide open space repeated into seeming infinity in all directions. The ceilings had a height of four or five story buildings, held up by thin gray pillars, each about twenty yards apart in a grid-like structure. The pillars, if they could really be called that, pinched gradually up from the ground and curved back smoothly into the ceiling, with bulbous spots that looked similar to the divots and shapes of muscle. The walls and floor had that same black complex patterned texture as the surface that had surrounded him.
All Volu could do was gawk. In the end, it was a sudden faint screeching that broke him from his stupor. He narrowed his sight to where he thought it came from. When he heard the roar again, like a glacier splitting in two, he bolted in the opposite direction.
Volu ran down the never ending walls, heart ablaze with the fear of death. He could feel the beast coming close, propelling his legs to move faster than they’ve ever. The creature roared once more, making Volu drop down behind one of the pillars, trying to make himself as flat as possible.
With his helmet-face down, he covered the back of his head with his hands. The ground shook harder and harder, until the being had to be right next to him. For whatever reason, the creature continued barreling past him. Slowly, Volu got to a crouched position and used the gradual increasing slope that led to the pillar as a corner to hide behind. With halted breath, he peered over at the beast roaming the halls.
The thing moved on three solid legs and was gargantuan, nearly as tall as the ceiling. It was shaped like an upright pear, though the point where the stem would be fell into a tube shape that cut off abruptly with a sheared surface. Down the hall, more were coming.
Over the next five minutes Volu glued himself to the pillar as creatures beyond his comprehension performed tasks he could not imagine the goal of. They moved on two legs and had a body like an hourglass with no arms. It slammed itself against a pillar ten or so down from his. It then moved in a circle, finally abruptly stopping. After twenty seconds or so of no movement, it launched into a run that traced a square around the pillar. It transitioned to running in a pentagon. Eventually an octagon, and lastly a solid circle. Just as abruptly, it pressed forward down the infinite path.
Even after ten minutes of silence, Volu’s heart still pounded. His limbs were numb and his chest tightened further. His breaths were short and stifled, as though he could barely get any air. He felt this way for what felt like ages, until he remembered that the ship was due to leave in not but a few hours.
Gathering his strength, he picked a random direction and ran. When twenty minutes had passed with no hint he was reaching any sort of destination, he collapsed to his knees and wept. He’d like to think it was the kind of controlled tears with quiet strength, but in reality he was a complete sobbing mess. Shit, I knew this job would kill me eventually. But not like this! It can’t end this way!
At that moment, it came to him. He quickly felt his left leg and found the bound metal book. With haste he tried to unfasten the strap, but his hands were all thumbs at this crucial moment. He voiced a groan that rose into a shout, until he tore the strap itself and freed the book. He flipped page to page at a frantic pace.
…The Pluvian’s mastery of the fourth side was an anisotropic feat. Factions vied for power, enhancing their reach across landscapes. Of course, the fourth side itself was naturally a minuscule thing, wrapped tightly around the third dimension. Through their unhallowed and abyssal engines, they pulled it into a massive scale of its own. Where the need for only mundane travel existed, Safeguards halted its expansion and protected the bounds of everyday society. The holes of a ship filled in with sheets of paper…
…In truth, the boundaries only hindered the power of their profane voyages. And so in time, the strongest factions were those willing to abandon that quiet safety for raucous advance. Ah! That final day, when the sky retched open, and out from the fourth side the very world was torn asunder! To see–
Useless! How the hell did you escape this place, Voynich!
…They of the infinite cloisters are cut from deceptive ilk. They keep their true form hidden across the pathways of the fourth side. Whatever their actions now, it is so incompatible with humanity so as to incidentally cause the irrevocable dissolution of the human form…
… I have found their legs, which dangle like feet in the pool of water that is the overworld. Across the rocks off Orthrim, their true legs appear as cut fabric draped over the rocks, flowing like water in brilliant displays of…
…Passages into the Pluvian abode are much like slipping across the veil of a jargendy field. Certain spires hold the imperceptible cracks out from which I crawled–
Volu dropped the book and launched himself headfirst into the nearest pillar. He banged his head against the top of his helmet, and slumped to the floor. Ignoring the throbbing pain, he scoured his hands across the spire to look for any parts that gave way. When he heard the hellish roar once again, his blood ran icy cold.
Turning back he could see a creature bounding over on six legs, body shaped like a massive flesh covered box, with a corner cut cleanly and deeply through, revealing a smooth white surface underneath. Something in Volu’s brain sparked in remembrance, and he shot his head towards the book, then back towards the being.
At once, while it was only a mere fifteen yards away, he howled at the top of his lungs. The creature halted in its tracks, then answered with its blood curdling call. Volu shouted back, now in a sort of defiant stance. The creature turned about forty five degrees to its left, then continued to run and howl down the corridors. Volu watched it recede further with wide eyes. Fuck yes! I’m the godsdamn SCHOLAR!
He resumed his probing of the pillar, though now with just a bit more calm. Eventually he gave up and moved to another right next to the first. When that failed, he’d repeat the process again and again, going further down a line. After about ten minutes of this, his panic rose once more. Before it could fully manifest, something caught his eye not far ahead, about twenty yards. It was like rows of some reddish brown dirt. In his head the voice of Sib passed through, an incredible find.
He jogged over to it, legs feeling like jelly. As he approached, the horrific sight resolved itself. It was Sib’s body, segmented into roughly thirty pieces in a pool of blood. A few feet to the left, a backpack laid on its side with its content splayed across the floor. Another sat twenty feet in front of her, though still remained closed.
With some hesitation, Volu gathered the contents of the first backpack. He then pooled all the artifacts into the backpack in front of her body and equipped it. When he looked back at her, he expected to feel some form of resentment. Instead, the sight reminded him of a bloodied tiger, down after its last hunt.
With this closer look, he noticed her hand pieces sat atop some small silvered object. Volu crouched next to it and slowly reached his hand out. He pulled his hand back before he could touch it, and nearly retched into his helmet. After gagging, he calmed himself and tried again, closing right eye to limit his view of the gore.
He grabbed the object, which now looked like a black-silver orb, between his pointer finger and thumb. He slowly brought it back and swatted the bloody hand pieces off. Peering into its surface, he saw the same complex pattern as the walls, but through a tiny hole a purple dim light pulsed. Incredible find. He secured it in his backpack, then resumed his search across the pillars.
After doing the same for three more pillars, it was the last one that caused his heart to palpate as his hand vanished across an invisible barrier, just above the pillar’s surface.
What happened next was a blur. Without explanation, he began floating off the ground, his hand receding from the vanishment. He screamed and turned his head in every direction. Around his waist a bumpy white skinned appendage formed out of thin air. It grew larger and larger, just as a gray tube appeared a few feet in front of him that also expanded.
“Fuck YOU! I followed all your stupid fucking rules! Let me go!” He shouted further obscenities, kicking and screaming in the growing appendage around him, holding him now twelve feet off the ground. Above him, a white skin-like oval grew from the air, a solid yard wide and half as short. A slit cut through it, and parted the flesh. Inside, a brilliant white light shone down upon Volu’s face, blinding his sight. He raised his hand to block the brilliance, shouting further curses. The growing gray mass around him tightened, until Volu felt something snap in his left leg which was now also covered by the being.
Volu slammed his fist against the creature with greater fury, until the entire world turned white. He felt wind rush past him as his body was released. Shouting into the infinite white void that lay before him now, Volu saw a solid gray sphere envelop him as it too flew through the abyss.
Suddenly, the gray sphere disappeared and he felt his body hit the rocks. Feeling himself for injuries and finding none other than his broken leg and now leaking suit, he looked around him and saw the evening gray sky of Orthrim. Rocks all around him, and the methane sea not much further. On the rocky shore, the ship was standing on its four landing wheels.
A short laugh escaped Volu’s mouth, then another. Eventually he was howling with joy, despite the radiating pain in his leg. He slowly got up and began to limp over to the ship, shambling over the rocks as best he could. When he got closer, he saw someone inside the landing port door, to whom he shouted out for help. It was Irri, and she climbed the rocks over to him.
“Oh my gods! Irri! You don’t know how fantastic it is to see you!”
“Damn. You got messed up good, Volu. You slip and fall or something? Your suit’s leaking too.”
She held him up to his feet and looked down at his legs.
“Shit, man, I’ve seen horrible things, Irri, HORRIBLE THINGS!” He grabbed her shoulders and shook them. She held onto his arms, top half of her face still obscured by her helmet’s dark tint.
“Really? What was it?”
“The fucking Steeple! It’s a living nightmare! Plucked straight from the bowels of hell! Filled with monsters that just– It’s awful!”
“You made it out? Excellent work! I gotta give it to you. Just in the nick of time too, we’re due to leave in half an hour.” Although her voice sounded passionate at first, it dropped off to the low almost monotone that she normally spoke at. It annoyed Volu greatly, and he let go of her shoulders.
“Wait! Kalbun! Did he make it back?”
“Uh, Kalbun?” Irri squinted her eyes and looked to the sky. “Uuuuh, nah I don’t think so. I saw him actually, when the Steeple touched down. Said he was looking for someone or something? Maybe Sib? Pretty sure they were traveling together.” Her words seemed unfocused now. She looked more like she was looking through Volu, not at him.
Volu gritted his teeth and stared back at her. “Are you fucking high or something? Have you hit your head? He could be dead! Sib certainly is, I saw her corpse, it was horrible!”
Irri sighed. “Listen buddy, we all got our own things going on, alright? If you care so much, go back and look for him yourself. Ship’s not waiting for you though, tight schedule you know?”
“I– I would! My leg’s fucked though. But I would, I’d go back for him!” Volu leaned against the rock for support and held the sides of his helmet. He turned back to the rocks where he came from and saw in the great distance a slim black tower that vibrated slightly. His body froze once again by instinct. “Help me back to the infirmary… would you?”
And Irri did just that. Kalbun never returned, but Volu’s haul would give him a decent life for a few years. Eventually he had to return to work. All the while, so many nights he’d think about what terrible fate must have befell his new friend. He would wonder what would have happened if he perhaps had been more calm in those horrible moments against the slip-face, if Kalbun had chosen his own safety and returned to the ship.
Eventually he came up with some rationality to stave off guilt. Deep inside, his brain would rack with the possibilities for the rest of his short life. Even in the end, he never did forget the horrors of the Steeple on the fourth side.