Curious on arrival

[demikara]

[Please.] Molly said and followed the being. [There may be something others can do to fix the breach. I can reach out to other Ratatoskr and a Guardian to see if they know.] A breach was serious business. And while she frankly hated the idea of dealing with Xiaolian in this manner, she would if needed to. And it looked like she may need to. [There are others who walk the world tree, travel in the void. They can help.] though the different groups didn't interact much at all. At least the breach was supposedly contained. That meant a good deal.

[ I may also be able to fix the damaged wards. Wards are my specialty.] She was very good at what she did and used wards in a variety of ways that most people wouldn't even begin to think of. She'd need more fire power to cast a ward that effected the planes but she knew two people with plenty of firepower behind them. Hopefully they'd be willing to help out, if she could just explain the importance of it to them. Though she suspected she'd need more of an arsenal of people than anything else.

[littlekreen]

It led Molly to the elevator to comment at an older woman peering from her door, "Abuela, Sergio has been hit by transit and is no more. We will handle the issue with federales but do not know his family. If you know of them tell Atilio."

A small wavering voice came from the door as the woman talked through a crack, "Oh nooo! He was so happy with the protésico! I will ask the neighbors, Los Jefe."

An eye looked toward Molly then to her badge. The door closed as the door locked. While they'd adapted to their imposing landlords the badge they trusted less.

It continued on to the elevator its worn door pulling smoothly apart with a bell chime. Sent downward by others in preparation. The black key emerged once more to insert in a keyhole installed behind the emergency phone. Out of place but no less functional it turned and clicked as the floor hummed. The headwind picking up as it prepared to lift to the Central Axis. Perhaps her bracelet might complain upon the closing of the elevator door as the lift shudders from frameworks engaging above. Less a changing of planes than extending a reality out of space as it was far safer for the inworlder. The change itself less a lift than a wandering gravity as the floor space oriented to the Central Axis. A critical mages eye would rapidly reveal when the doors closed the world fell away down as the shaft bent at a right angle to space.

The door opened with the same ding that it always does. Though dark fractured space at first a ward lit meant to keep the veil on its own side with the tumultuous headwind of both Great Machine and the Void on the other. Extradimensional space alit in chaotic shards of space then unified by way of a haphazard bridge of white brick and metal through the hall of mirrors. This central axis rectified slowly across the view. As it stabilized that bridge its surroundings show bleeding plane-space as flaring oblivion of two spaces meeting. Thin tendrils of fractured space grow across a cavernous crater behind them toward a stark white plane at some vast distance away. Natural forces failed to repel an invader as it tried to heal a gap isntead. Center of the far end a building sized hole at the bottom of that angular surfaced crater. Crevasse in splintered cracks spread in all directions to distant views. Black specs of robed Jinhai along the Central Axis fold into the local reference frame as the view stabilized further. A long subsets of gears, cams, and axles mounted to the central axis transferring power. Jinhai carried metal gears and beams as much ants scurrying at constructions in the distance. Each working to extend a haphazard construct of grey sandstone bridges as if platelets busy at a wound. The cracks themselves spark and fury in random activation of broken protective scriptures.

They'd suffered every creature thrown in these riotous depths that it could not return. None were permitted to destabilize the great machine. Neither to ever leave. This duty less less dogmatic since the fracture. Myrkul's Vein as the source of their intellect carried their worries alone. A bright white swirl quartering one of its immense swirl eyes ignites at the bottom of that crater's well. A feral green beam lanced from within to impact the extending tendril above. The elevator shook slightly but remained steady. Jinhai along the Central Axis wobbled under their loads then carried on. Myrkul could do nothing about the millions of smaller roots seeking purchase. Causing further damage to the 'world tree' let alone alarming humankind was not within its mandate nor its protective interest. Thus Myrkul did what it could to keep taproots at least from grounding the storm.

What they'd learned so far told them to draw the storm across would do nothing well for humankind. Its passing mountainous shadow shifted as it mvoed far too wide for comfort given the small specks of black Jinhai seen walking bridges and stark surface. The shadow drowned out errant lightning from behind the various crevasse as Myrkul's vein relocated itself within. A cord too thick to pass that needle-eye of the egress point lacking the amorphous qualities of smaller servitors.

The Jinhai pointed to the nearest trundling portions of axles stretching past them an ever-calm voice intoned, [We do not have the resources to complete the axis before a terminal grounding event. Degradation is slowed so better options can be persued. Jinhai servitors are unfit to walk under your restricted space without support any more than essencekind can long survive the void.]

[Jinhai are too occupied with triage to assess the extent of the damage. You will need something to protect from void exposure, Essencekind, if you wish to walk the Central Axis.] Advises the dusty voice of a creature born within such a place.

[demikara]

[Void exposure...you mean being between the planes. The bracelet only prevents me from going there under my own power. I've never needed more protection then what I naturally have as a Ratatoskr to be between the planes.] She assured him. Translating between what he meant and what she knew was tricky, but she was reasonably certain she was right. Molly looked the scene over and frowned. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't pretty at all and this wasn't something she could handle on her own. She'd need to contact the Ratatoskr Council about this. It wasn't a good thing at all. [ I'm pretty sure this sort of event merits a joint effort to fix it.] Nobody liked joint efforts. There would be a lot of in fighting about how to handle it, and the politics would make it take forever. The people in charge of things were so rarely do-ers that it meant things were bound to take ages.

But this wasn't something Los Jefes could handle on their own. Speaking of...[ I can get into contact with the Ratatoskr Council for you, and pass on a message to a Guardian I know.] and wasn't fond of, though she had tried for ages to be. [But what should I call you? What do you call yourselves when you run into other groups between the planes?]

She needed something to call them other than los Jefes. What a human called them didn't count for much given humans that ended up on the world tree were rare in number. Besides, it appeared to be a nickname that a mundane human had given them, and most mundanes weren't well viewed in the Unseen.

[littlekreen]

The Jinhai's gaze tilts for a moment to examine the central axis before it assents, [Then you may enter the central axis.]

It stepped through the door as extraspace had fully rectified into something more easily interacted by physical beings. The void around it was another matter and still retained its inconstant depth with its riot of light and strange angles. Natural forces were less at war here than frenetic regrowth that found familiar soil. The surface from which the elevator emerged composed of a white stone sheet over a flesh of dark grey sandstone bricks. As if a clock half-built and barely ticking the square of inset gears ringing the elevator lay incomplete and part hollow where but they'd merely prioritized the absolutely necessary.

Overhead motion of the long run of axels from the crevasse leading behind them connects to an anchor cogworks at the terminus of the Central Axis. In an exact footprint of the missing penthouse, this frenetic construction of swirling pendulums and cams arrests the forward attraction of the fracture point. Myrkul spent much of its wellspring to protect the world without but it could ill afford to starve on the leeward side. Much of the new additions were mundane steel or aluminum. Inadequate warped supports and gear teeth of inferior metal festoon the area in small piles of mechanical charnel. Forced to make do with what they could get inside the building much of it did not last.

The Jinhai points to the fracture its voice warped by metastable void, [The bulwark is insurmountable in all directions. None can pass or touch from inside but all can enter. Nothing now behind the bulwark has left it from now until the fall of Rome. You are the first to know us as we are.]

It walks to the edge of the platform with an infinite folding dark 'beneath' though gravity soon had no meaning there, [Those that built the bulwark predate the sentience of Myrkul's Vein. They may not know of us. We do not know who they are. The Great Machine presumes Aetherkind but it lacks wisdom. Our template is named Jinhai.]

A point to the hole it noted, [Do not pass the egress. The Great Machine can not compel Myrkul's Servitors to hostility on this side. Servitors will be required to destroy you in spite of Myrkul's will if you enter. Myrkul's Vein took names for itself and servitors from the screams of the exiled.]

[demikara]

Molly followed and frowned as she took it in. "Well shit." Molly stepped out of the axis, having seen more than enough and pulled out her phone, before hesitating a minute. Xiaolian would be better able to come quickly and was a guardian. But her mentor needed to know this too so he could get the Ratatoskr wheels rolling. uncertain, she pressed her emergency beacon to bring her family to her.

It didn't take long for them to arrive and she explained the situation quickly. Zander took one look, swore and disappeared, though Alex and Pwyll remained behind. That just left Xiaolian to go and Molly scrolled through her contact list and selected the others name, not particularly wanting anything to do with the other, but knowing that the Guardian needed to know. Molly held the phone to her ear and waited for the other to pick up. "Xiaolian? I need to speak to a senior Guardian. There's been a planar breach." She rattled off the address so the other would know where to come to.

[littlekreen]

Composition of thought and raw ingenuity was something Myrkul and its servitors did not do quite as well. Their improvisation was a thing of brute force attempts until something worked. Still, they could at least put a name to their understanding of what Molly was besides an urban cohort. It removed the mask once more to have a clearer view of the newcomers the four spark-eyes moving independently in pairs to inspect them.

[You are,] The creature paused to fit a puzzle piece into dicta, "Cohortes Localia?"

The swirls pan slowly over Alex and Pwyll as it moved closer with the mask dangling from one hand. That black sandstone key embossed with the symbol of Myrkul's Vein emerged from its pocket again. The key gripped in both hands it cleft lengthwise in two with a snap. Palming both a wavering illumination in each fist offered two conventional door keys to Pwyll.

Though it spoke in Fae called the Latin title, [There must be a pursuit of basal order. So thus follows that the Overbeing chooses to acknowledge this extension of Cohortes Urbanae. The Great Machine can not and does not accept you.]

It offered the two smaller house keys to Pwyll and Molly, [The Central Axis is tenuous and cannot reach external doors. We offer the Cohortes Localia access as necessary. Unknown persons may be confined to recursion.]

Neither were they creatures of sentimentality in its placid dusty voice, [If you require access to the Overbeing a cognition engine is available to be re-templated for communication.]

[demikara]

Molly and Pwyll accepted the keys, but Alex answered the question. [ I am not} "Cohortes Localia." [But I do know who to speak to about what we're seeing here. How long has this been here?] How had this passed under their noses? Molly lived in Dallas, she should have noticed this fairly quickly. But she had been barred from traveling to the In Between under her own power and no doubt that played a role in this. It was harder to notice tears if you couldn't go to where they may be after all. They were lucky this had captured her view.

He knew who to speak to at least. He certainly had the connections to speak to them too. Alex was the closest the family had to someone who handled legal matters in the family. Zander worked wards like Molly, though not at the same level and Pwyll focused on the farm more than anything else. Someone had to take care of the home front after all, and he had known even as a child that it wouldn't be Molly who managed that. So he explored as a Ratatoskr occasionally, but mostly saw to their home.

[littlekreen]

A creature better able to see through the violent murk the Jinhai looked up then back to the egress, {We could not see past the bulwark. Flows of time were similar to the other space we see touching this plane. The creation of the anchor and Central Axis has eliminated time dilation. We estimate at least 1900 years in this reference frame.}

Their assent wasn't required, noted the overbeing in the cyclopedia, as the title it gave them allowed flexibility in dicta not to attack. The Jinhai gestures backward at the great space behind its mind could more easily see as concave. Distortion frenzies of regrowth obscured but better showed the expansive curve. Among the background, in direct line of the axis, tight groups of bulwark shards weakly gleam already in a tangle of taproots. These wrathful impacts were not alien to Myrkul's Vein as Great Machine and the Black Storm forced such knowledge by sheer survival.

{You are within a planar impact crater,} explained its breathless monotone to Alex, {as the breach in the bulwark was done at speed. Any evidence of the malefactor likely fully obliterated on impact. Regardless, another event by the unknown malefactor must not occur. We do not have the resources to arrest any further planar drift on a secondary axis.}

It turned to look as distant spellfire erupts from black specks racing across the grey scars that span bulwark cracks. Something too far to identify pounded harshly at their conflux.

As the beams shortly die down It gave a curt remark, {Exiles are learning the egress is here.}