Part 20b: Jack of shadows

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Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Dworkin (GM)
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Night never really comes to the city of glass.  The sun sets, but any stars are lost in the glare of the flyers' lights and those of the city itself.  A shadowy dusk settles across the city, and the buildings (if such they are) seem even more ethereal.

But nothing stops.  The inhabitants still run their unknown errands, never needing to sleep.  The silver spiders, their metal limbs clicking against the transparent surfaces, clusters of emerald eyes glowing dimly, move tirelessly across the seemingly endless city.

One of the spiders (the term is not entirely accurate, since it has ten limbs and is clearly mechanical in nature) descends a wall of glass to the lowest level of the city.  It pauses briefly whenever it meets another, and a humming, whistling dialogue ensues, before both continue on their way.
The spider reaches "ground" level, a sheet of thick, translucent glass several yards above the actual soil and stone of this world.  Shadows seem to pool down here; blots and splotches of umbral gloom amidst the gleaming transparency of the towers.
The machine creature stops suddenly, its glowing eyes locked on a patch of darkness which had seemed to move in an anomalous fashion.  Strange senses reach out and find nothing lurking there.  The shadows don't move again, and the thing soon turns away, moving faster now as it hurries to complete it's appointed task on schedule.

Behind it the darkness flows, pulling itself inwards and reshaping until a human form can be dimly seen within.
Jack has arrived.

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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Jack
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   Jacks are wild tonight. Jack thought and waggled shadowy eyebrows comically sliding into the deep pooling shadows and blending into them as a chameleon. He looked the city over remembering where his tendril had shown him the complex with the orbs was at. Studying what lie before him he chose a route that would best keep him in his twilight safety zone.

      He started flowing along the darkness and breaks in this worlds pattern at high speed, but not so fast that he could not react to what was coming up. Always keeping an eye on places to run, storm drains, back  ways or anyplace small and inconspicuous away from any light.

He was not certain how well the link with Kali and hunter worked this far apart, or if Cyan’s card tricks worked. So he though Kali, Hunter, Cyan can you hear me? searching for the comforting mental contact of his friends as he moved onward. He would send out a tendril to be certain of where he needed to be as soon as he was certain of their contact or lack there of.

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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Jack
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        Jack was greatly relived at contact, there was a part of him that was just waiting for something to go wrong. At one with the shadows he slipped through them blending with them unseen. He had been about to send a tendril out to guide him to his target now that he had the comforting feel of friends. When the man entered camp. Jack stopped uncertainly, remembering the entrance of the lord of light looking as a trusted face.

    Are you certain all is well Cyan? He asked through the power of the card. He trusted Berd, Hunter and the women to handle anything that came their way. Still he had to ask I can come back if you need me. Though he hated the thought of having to start on this again later. Though that was a bad habit of his, he hated leaving anything not completed and acquired a single bloody minded tunnel vision when working on important tasks.

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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Jack
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       Okay I am pressing on, pull me through if you need me Jack would have like reassurances from Kali as well, but he had faith in them to handle whatever may come their way. He would have never thought he would have felt this way, but he wished Aaron was there in his absence.

   With that he called his broken pattern to mind and sent a tendril questing for what he sought. As soon as he found it, he propelled himself through the night and along the breaks in the pattern at incredible speeds. Flowing for all he was worth and taking full advantage of his insubstantial form, the world around him rushing by as little more then a shadowed blur.

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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Dworkin (GM)
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Jack hurtles across the city, using the breaks to bypass the silver spiders and other, even stranger, machines which swarm everywhere.
As he nears his destination though, he is forced to slow down for fear of missing the storage structure.  Finally he sees it, the building he had detected earlier.  A broad glass dome, topped with sky-scraping minarets and towers of crystal, each with a spiralling core of silvery metal.  The dome is surrounded by a wide area of open space, slightly concave, as if the dome sits in the bottom of a shallow bowl several times the diameter of the structure at its centre.
Inside the dome, large shapes can be dimly perceived, some of them moving in regular rhythms, as if taking part in some bizarre dance.

Perhaps a mile away across the bowl, Jack can clearly see wide openings around the edge of the dome.  One of the spiders scurries out of an opening, it's man-high body giving Jack a better idea of scale.  The dome is perhaps two hundred feet across, and fifty high, with each of the openings some twenty feet high and wide.
As he watches, lurking in the shadow of a building, Jack sees the spider start to perform a complex series of movements across the bowl, and where it moves it leaves behind a trail of silver metal.  Moments later several dozen more rush into the bowl from various points around the rim, laying their own patterns of silver which connect and intertwine with the original one.

Suddenly one of the moving lights drops from the sky, plummeting like a stone and stopping with an impossibly-fast deceleration just a few feet above the spiders, all of which turn to face it.  It hovers there, a huge wheel of metal, flame, and light revolving sedately in mid-air.  The hairs on Jack's neck prickle as a booming voice issues from the thing, all metallic notes and screeching tones, and the spiders move away in ones and twos, some returning to their work and others heading for a point on the far edge of the bowl.

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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Jack
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     Jack looked on knowing there were several options as to what could be done at this juncture. That meant there several paths that could be followed and limited time to follow them, the night was only so long.

     Kalika, Cyan. . . Do you have any observations or ideas at this time. I could try to find out if any of these things have minds, but that might give away the fact that I am here. I would like to see the pattern that these things are laying out. He says flowing up the dark side of the closest building  to get a batter look at it. He wanted to see if it resembled his or Aaron’s Pattern or was something all together different. He even went so far as to look with his dark well lens.

     I may be able to search out any underground access, drains, conduits anything else if it is there. Or I could follow the other spiders to see where they are going. I might have to ride in inside of one of the spiders, if I can pull that off. Any ideas or suggestions?


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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Jack
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   Yes the Wheel is what made me think that perhase these things do have minds. I will keep an eye on it and try to passivly see if there is anything there. He continued to watch the wheel and try to figure out what the pattern was of. Examining all as closely as he could therough the lens.

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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Dworkin (GM)
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A loud, angry-sounding blast of sound comes from above, and a second wheel drops into the bowl.  The two start circling each other, their inhuman voices echoing from the surrounding buildings.  Both shift from white to crimson light and the shouting gets louder.  All of the spiders press themselves flat against the ground, and the green glow of their eyes dims.
The wheels spin faster, and start clashing their rims against each other sending showers of sparks flying in all directions, and shadows dancing across the bowl.

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Re: Part 20b - Jack of shadows by Jack
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         Jack Stood watch the two things fight, he was pushed father back into the darkness by their light with filled the bowl.  All of this time he had been keeping the contact with Cyan and through the link Kali and Hunter in the back of his mind. It was far easier for him to divide attention because his mind seemed to perpetually work on multiple tracts at once. With a rapid change the scene before him which should be most important falls into the background and the fire side scene back at the camp comes to the front.

     Cyan, pull me back. . . He knew Kalika and Cyan could hand anything, but he had to be there for support. If nothing more, Jack bristled with indignantly and fumed with what little bit he had caught. His reasons were simple, it would be dangerous for him to do this with distraction. What’s more is he felt the need to simply support and be there for Kalika and Hunter. Either to defend them or just quietly support them.

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