revivalproject | Make your Statement, face your fear.

Entry tags:

Make your Statement, face your fear.

WHO: Jonathan Sims & YOU
WHERE: Jon's Calibration Room
WHAT: Explore the Archivist's mind
WHEN: During the Calibration Event [ June 3rd - July 10th ]
WARNINGS: EYES - Body horror, possible mentions of unsettling events including kidnapping, death and dreadful monsters

The Archivist's office is a mess. Most offices are. Especially offices located in basements. Offices that belong to equally chaotic archives. And the archives of the Magnus Institute are incredibly chaotic. Gertrude Robinson has seen to that. And yet the mess in this office isn't hers. It's the mess of the current Archivist, right now seated behind his cluttered desk, appearing even smaller than he actually is, the small lamp on the table serving as the only actual source of light in this room. In front of the Archivist sits a small pile of statement files on a dining plate, but his attention isn't on the files, it's on his visitor.

There are more of these files spread all over the room. Cardboard boxes full of them stacked high and pushed into whatever free corner has once existed in it. Further boxes are stacked less high or are plain lying around, some closed, some opened, some rummaged through. Other, smaller boxes that aren't filled with files join the previous ones. There are also a few metal shelves covering part of the walls. And file cabinets. There are more files in these as well as more boxes and books. Most of them scientific in nature, some deal with the arcane, myths and legends. Various types of tape recorders and boxes of tapes are also widely strewn about as well as loose pages of paper, the occasional tea mug and cobwebs. For some reason or another there are at least a dozen fire extinguishers to be spotted throughout the room, and it likely isn't due to the clearly used ashtray or the golden lighter with a cobweb design engraved onto it on the desk near the Archivist's dust-covered laptop, untouched cup of tea and the sole human rib. Aside from more stray sheets of paper and some writing equipment, a single book also resides on the desk, its title introducing it as A Guest for Mr. Spider.

Though there is more to be found in the various shelves as well. A knife as well as a cleaver, an unsuspecting whistle that seems to be surrounded by an odd fog and will vanish should one try to reach for it. Underneath one of the shelves, there even is a plain cardboard box filled with C-4 plastic explosives. Further up, a roughly football-sized dark sun dares the visitor to look at it to plunge them into utter and complete darkness. The frisbee some may recognize as a certain someone's shield seems a little out of place as it lays unassuming on one of the higher shelves, covering an odd little action figure from view.

But maybe one feels more compelled to look out of the window, suspiciously present in this basement office. Outside lies the vastness of space, set to incite the feeling of falling right into it unless one pulls away from the sight in time. Or the human-sized mannequin standing motionless in one of the corners, wearing an ancient gorilla skin along with its top hat and a wide, leery, painted-on grin. It has no eyes. The pulsing, black and red veins creeping along the walls of the office and present themselves in varying sizes and thicknesses may also draw the visitor's attention. Or the seemingly harmless and somewhat misplaced looking yellow door draws them in, just there on the wall behind that coffin lying on the floor as if it belongs there. Thick chains are wrapped around it with a padlock holding them close, key stuck inside and inviting the visitor to unlock it. Just ignore the large letters carved into its wood imploring you to 'DO NOT OPEN' the casket. It'll be fine.

Yet... How tempting all of these things may be, the visitor may be unable to entirely ignore the MASSIVE EYE taking up the entire ceiling of the room, glowing an eerie green and watching their every move. Or any of the other eyes scattered around the room. The walls, the cabinets, the shelves, the side of the Archivist's desk, the corners, the floor, the Archivist's forehead. All shapes and sizes and colors and all of them watching the visitor unblinking, unjudging. Just following their every move around the room - Just as the Archivist himself does.

Maybe you want to look around, and maybe you just want to take a seat in that single empty chair before the Archivist's desk. There is just enough room between it and the casket to not feel too cramped in. As for the trap door next to the Archivist's desk... Now that one won't open just yet.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The only reason he hasn't touched anything yet is because he can't make up his mind on what to poke at first. The fact that there are things that look like weapons are highly curious, unusual even, for someone like Jon to have. He eventually circles closer by the desk, if only to have a closer look at the stuff there.

"Heh. I know a Mister Spider. Well, there's no 'mister' about him, really," he chuckled, his eyes already roving to another thing, tugging his attention elsewhere. "This place is like some twisted museum." He turns, shoving aside that feeling again, because surely there's a reason why he's suddenly in...

The Exo slows to a stop, a scowl tugging at his metal brow. "Actually, yeah. That is a good question," he muses to himself before beginning to turn towards the Archivist behind the desk. "How'd we-"

His cloak flutters and falls again as he suddenly halts from his pivot, glowing eyes settling upon the coffin sitting there. "...you seriously need a new decorator," Cayde mutters, inching his way over to eye the words of warning carved on its lid.

Jon keeps following Cayde's movements with his eyes, the one on his forehead remaining on the Exo while his regular ones follow his notion towards the book "I don't recommend reading that." He says matter-of-factly. "I saw it devour another boy when I was eight." He has tried to move it elsewhere, but apparently he can't change anything about this room.

He takes a deep breath and glances at a few other items he would rather hide from view, briefly closes his own two eyes before shrugging "I don't know. I don't even know how much of this is real. I... Remember going to sleep. Which I don't really do anymore. But my dreams... They usually aren't... This." A pause. "I know my dreams. I remember where I got every single one of them. This? Is wrong."

"As for that-" Jon looks impassively at the casket. "It leads into the Buried. Also known as The Choke or Too Close I Cannot Breathe. The fear of being trapped. Claustrophobia. That the weight of the entire world comes crashing down on you. It's... Not pleasant heading in there."

The Exo pauses and looks back towards Jon, grimacing. "And you kept it since then?" The book. Why would you keep a book that you saw had eaten someone. "Why don't you just burn it?"

He straightens from studying the coffin, arms akimbo as he eyes the rest of the room. "I like my trophies but this is super weird. ...sleep? I do that every now and then. Maybe that's why I can't remember how I got here. Also you've got a little..."

A hand gestures vaguely towards his own forehead. "...something...extra. Actually, a lot of extras. Did you know you have an eye problem?" He squints up at the one up top, having the immense urge to want to poke it.

"I didn't keep it." Jon corrects, his eyes falling on the Leitner book "It is... It only exists here. The actual book vanished- Along with the kid. I... Can guess why it would be here? Bit I... I can't change anything about this room."

He takes a moment to look around, even though the eye Cayde indicates on his forehead sticks with watching the Exo. Having it pointed out to the Archivist results in a groan, followed by a nod.

"I am aware." And he doesn't surprised. Or worried. Instead, he glances up towards the ceiling. "I always felt... Watched. Back at the Institute. Can't say I'm surprised to find Beholding being this present... Here."

There's a pause here and Jon raises a finger to vaguely point around the room "I actually see what every single one of these sees."

"That's unfortunate." To everything said, really. Cayde continues to eye the big eye, but he nods as Jon responds about the eyes in question. "I mean...it's not completely weird. Knew a gal who had three eyes, one on the forehead just like you, all of 'em glowing green. I think I mentioned her before- Eris Morn? She'd be all over all this creepy stuff."

And then he looks back at Jon. "...really? How much of a headache is that? Are you checking out my butt right now? Also, if I throw something at the big one up there, will it blink?" he asks as he points up.

Jon remains in his place, but lets the Exo ask his questions before looking up towards the ceiling and the massive eye overheard "I don't think it blinks at all." Is his response to that particular question before he points out a couple of the smaller eyes located further down "And these are currently focused on your backside, yes." Cayde asked, and the Archivist will answer.

"As for a headache..." He considers this question for a moment, frowning slightly before he shrugs. "Actually... Not at all. It was confusing at first, but... I think I can handle it quite well? Not sure I feel very comfortable about it, however."

"Now I really wanna try it," Cayde says, his own optics roving the room, perhaps for something to throw.

He pauses at the confirmation of the question he'd made in jest, glancing at the nearest eyes, and then down behind him. Then he flips the tattered end of his cloak up, giving his metal behind in its charmingly weathered chaps a smack.

"So if I poke any of those would you feel it?" Not that he's going to try. Maybe not on purpose. He begins to nose about the shelves, perhaps still in his quest to find something to throw. His head tilts back as he catches a glimpse of that strange blackness, and he can't help but begin to feel just a bit unsettled at the sensation as he stares on up at it.

"Cayde, please." Jon groans at the Exo's approach to being... Well. Rather observed.

"I- I can't exactly control them, you know? I just... I see what they see. And they all are watching you." He pauses for a sigh before adding "...and I don't know if I feel it when you poke any of them. Not sure I want to find out?" Because it might hurt. And Jon doesn't enjoy being in pain.

But as he is still considering that possibility, Cayde has set out to explore what else he might find in this room, making the Archivist look over upon realizing what had caught his visitor's interest.

There isn't much of an actual memory tied to the dark sun. It's more of a feeling of a steadily encroaching darkness around the Exo the longer he looks up at the remains of a failed ritual.

And while Jon wants to call out to Cayde, the Archivist is curious to see what happens. If the Exo feels any fear once entirely submerged in complete darkness.

Usually he wouldn't object to having all the attention. What makes it weird, awkward, even, is that it's so many eyes and only one person on the other end.

But all that thought's far away now, and the darkness is closing in. It's like how you can't turn away from some horrible sight no matter how much you might want to. There's just that sick need to know, as though maybe, just maybe if you do turn away, that you might miss something important. And then it's just too late.

It's familiar, and in that familiarity are a mix of emotions. There is that vein of fear, thin and running through uncertainty and resentment that he might've sprung a trap, but it's only himself to blame, and then it's nothing new. A spark of boldness, and even if he can't see himself smirking, he knows he is. Is it just darkness? He's confident he's been to worse, and nothing can snuff out his Light.

It's not mere darkness. It's absolute darkness. A darkness no light can cut through. It's cold and infinite. The creature, at least, isn't here.

The Archivist observes the Exo for a little longer before Jon decides to intervene.

"It's a dark star, Cayde. Born from the fear of people trapped in complete darkness for months. The People's Church of the Divine Host believe that only darkness in its purest form is the true state everything needs to be in. See it. Once you do it- It should be gone." That's how he destroyed the original. It had been... A strange experience.

Even in whatever weird dreamspace this is, he's without his partner, his Light in physical form and presence. He knows what it is to be without it, to be cut off. It's only a mild consolation that he hasn't felt like that even when brought to an unknown planet by the Agrii. But here? Seeing whatever this darkness is? It comes unsettlingly close.

Cayde may very well be trying to initiate a staring contest with the endless blackness, if only because the thought in its ridiculousness is what keeps that spark of boldness from being tamped down by the fear that maybe, just maybe he's gotten in over his head.

And then Jon's voice breaks through, giving him something else to focus on, a reminder that he's not all by himself here. The Exo forces a laugh. "See it? Ain't that all I'm seeing already? It's dark, I get it!"

"No, Cayde. You aren't." It's a simple observation. At least here, in this unusual instance of reality, the dark star doesn't exterminate those daring to look at it. This, at least, is a relief.

The Archivist remains patient "See it for what it is. Understand it. It's one of the oldest fears manifested in a single spot. It wants nothing more than to devour you."

Rationalizing fear doesn't work in all cases, but it has been rather effective in certain ones.

That'd be a bummer, dying in a dream for real. Or would it be? Ugh, this place is going to be a headache to figure out.

Cayde sighs exasperatedly, but Jon's clinical perspective of the situation is messing with whatever semblance of calm he might have had a grasp on earlier. "You'd make a great Warlock, you know? That is definitely something a Warlock would say." Warlocks would definitely have a field day in a room of things like this.

Understand it, Jon said. Thing is, maybe Cayde does. He knows this devouring Darkness. Maybe it's the same, maybe it isn't, but he's seen it first hand. It had been in the book, although even he wasn't sure whether chronologically it went along with one thing or another, but he'd scrawled it in for some drama. The important thing was that it was true.

The sky was torn open and nothing else was left as shadows boiled all around him and everything, him included, were engulfed.... Devoured...

When the entire room, everything really, turns dark, Jon frowns, yet doesn't lose sight of Cayde regardless. This is still his mind and he will not be blinded in his own mind.

"Cayde...!" He calls out to the Exo, voice voice taking on a commanding edge as within the darkness every eye present in Jon's mental room takes on an eerie, green glow and something seeks out Cayde's consciousness to latch onto with a single, understanding-inducing command: See.

It's a command that opens the path to understand millions of years and more of beings of all types and shapes and their most primordial fear of the dark. A fear that has always been present, is near impossible to conquer and will exist for as long as there is life present to perceive it.

The Hunter's head jerks, his optics wide, the glow of both those and his mouth fighting futilely in the darkness that seems to absorb any excess spread.

It's like someone's hot-wired his brain and plugged it into some database of awful, and as much gets pumped into his head, he can process it all, and that's maybe the worst of it because it just seems to keep going.

Cayde-6 does not often scream out, but he does now.

That scream sounds wrong.

Cayde of all people just- Shouldn't be screaming. It's enough to get the Archivist to move over to the Exo, stepping up before him and reach up with both of his hands to cover Cayde's eyes from the darkness around him while turning his own attention along with all the still glowing eyes in the room up towards the dark star holding Cayde captured.

An audible static flickers through the artificial sun at first, expanding to a wailing crackle as the darkness is being seen, the darkness around them cracking away bit by bit before the entire construct shatters with a loud, piercing howl.

It's a terrible, garbled sound that strains between organic and mechanical. It gutters out with a gasp as Jon intervenes, overlapped by the sound of the banished darkness.

The Exo might accidentally pull Jon with him as he lurches forward in a stumble, like a puppet whose strings were suddenly clipped. His hand catches the edge of the shelf to keep himself steady. He remains that way for a good moment or two, which would be understandable for someone who had a breath to catch. That's not what he's trying to get a hold of anyway.

"...the hell was that??"

Jon is, indeed, pushed back against the shelf behind him when Cayde suddenly moves and flails a moment to grasp for purchase and catch himself, nearly knocking a cardboard box filled with statements to the floor in the process. He does look up at the Exo in a wide-eyed, wondering way.

"Christ- Are you okay?" He asks while pushing the box back in place without looking at it. Instead the expression he has turned up at Cayde becomes apologetic. "I- Didn't think any of these could pull someone in that badly. My own experience with the dark sun are... It- It actually broke rather easily."

"No..! I'm not 'okay'! That's not it!" Cayde continues to rely on the shelf for support. His other hand rests over the grip of his gun, more out of seeking comfort in something familiar to focus than actually considering using it.

"That thing that happened just after you yelled at me. I was remem'ring something bad and then suddenly it got a hundred times worse, like that dark sun thing found something to connect with."

The fact that Cayde is grasping for his gun is at least mildly unsettling, causing Jon to try and back into the shelf behind him a little more. The Exo's words make him press his lips closed tightly.

"I- I.... I think-" He stammers for a few moments, then glances up from Cayde to the large eye overhead "-I think that might have been me-?"

The Exo looks over at him then, optics narrowed. He at the very least seems mindful enough to notice how uneasy Jon appears, and he's not sure which hurts more, that or the admission he makes then.

Very deliberately, Cayde removes his hand from the Ace of Spades, still watching Jon, an expectant tip upwards of his head suggesting an unspoken: Go on.

Cayde moving his hand away from his weapon allows Jon to ease up a little, though a certain tension yet remains even as he nods.

"R-remember that I- I told you to see? To... Understand? That... That's the Beholding. The ceaseless Watcher." He now points up "That's... Me." The pause that follows is only brief before Jon rambles on, starting to pace away from Cayde and through the cluttered room. "Beholding is all about knowledge. Watching, learning, understanding. I-I... I think I forced my understanding of the Dark on you? I mean- So far I have only known Elias to have this power, but obviously the rules here aren't the same as the ones we're used to. And Elias he- He puts... Things in people's heads? To hurt them? Terrible truths meant to break those receiving them. If you believed a loved one died peaceful in their sleep, he will show you what really happened. And make you understand every little detail."

And he stops abruptly to turn to the Exo again "Jesus. That's dreadful! I- I'm so sorry!"

He hasn't moved from where he leans, but his eyes flick upwards at the ceiling, at the eye that continues to watch, unblinking. The desire to throw something at it still hasn't vanished.

Cayde's eyes fall back upon Jon as the man starts to pace about, explaining. He remembers, swimming somewhere in the haze of what had just happened, that single word that had arrested his attention all at once and once it stole his focus gave way to so much.

Forcing someone else's understanding of something like that? And how much did Jon know of it? Too damn much, so far as Cayde's concerned. He's shaking his head, having a difficult time trying to process that Jon had just done something like that to him. "You can't-" he starts, his words overlapping Jon's, halting at the realization, the apology.

"You don't do that!" he continues, wills his voice to steady, the laugh all too brief, too forced. His hand hasn't returned to his gun, but his fingers curl into a fist beside it.

"I know and... I didn't mean to." The Archivist replies ruefully, head dropping apologetically "...I didn't even know this is something I can do- At least... Here." He doesn't miss the fist forming at Cayde's side, however, causing Jon to look up cautiously at his visitor.

"...how mad are you?" At least there is still a chance that Cayde won't remember this happened.

"Honestly, I'm pretty pissed," Cayde replies, running his other hand across his face as though he could rub out the memory. He forces himself away from the shelf, not that he particularly trusts his feet, but even in a dream he doesn't care for looking like something's got the better of him, even if in this case it did.

His other hand flexes, and finally he rests both at his hips, glowering at the floor. "...I'll get over it," he finally says. Voicing it at least makes him feel a little better.

Hey you're the one with the C4 just -sitting- there

Part of being the Archivist entails blowing stuff up, Cayde

Can I just sign up for the blowing stuff up part

The waiting list for that is long

see, people know where the fun is

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject