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The ink sac felt cold in his gloved hand as he approached the structure.
Over him, a pair of golden gates loomed magnificently, polished and well kept. The smooth material shone and glistened despite the lack of a light source, a stark contrast against the rough, jagged cave, entirely drenched in black ink. D3rLord3 couldn’t understand why the golden structure seemed to gleam in these dark depths, when his own armour didn’t.
The cave hummed quietly. It was a rather unnatural noise. Like poorly tuned, tight strings on a viola - quivering, prone to snapping at any moment, yet still intact and held together by sheer willpower. Much like d3rLord3’s patience.
Ever since he’d gained consciousness in this world, he’d felt it.
Something was on his neck. Toying with his sanity, whispering incomprehensible phrases and thoughts they both knew he couldn’t decipher. D3r was overwhelmed, but despite it all he maintained a cool head and navigated this world cautiously and safely, searching for answers… and yet this inexplicable presence lingered seven steps ahead of his strategising at all times. Daunting. Waiting for him.
As hard as he wracked his brain, set traps, listened in, this unidentified entity seemed to surpass his wit and intelligence, constantly one-upping him, never quite slowing down to let d3r pass it and advance in this baton pass race of intellect, never letting him fill in the puzzle with the piece he’d fought for and held in his sweaty, gloved hands.
Surprisingly, this incessant chase hadn’t taken a toll on d3rLord3’s senses just yet. He stared at the gates, sizing them up again and again. His mind wandered. Scrawled, messy writing of the book in the distant, abandoned village flashed in his mind. Turn back.
Turn back?
As if he could. Not after all the decisions and paths he’d meticulously picked on the search for answers. As if he could.
His legs sprung into brisk movement before he even fully realised it.
A sense of finality settled throughout his weary body as he passed through the massive golden gates. It was all too absurd, to come across such an astonishing work of architecture in the middle of a thoroughly hidden away, completely inked cave. As if someone had been pulling the strings on his armour-clad vessel, extending the illusion of choice out of nothing but sick amusement whilst gradually narrowing his options, until he inevitably stumbled into the gates. All roads lead to Rome.
D3rLord3’s eyes adjusted, the reflected golden light still obstructing his eyesight as the gates gave way to more deep darkness. He squinted, and then he saw it.
Saw them. It. Her. Him. All. None.
It gazed into his soul. D3r felt the piercing presence slicing through his eyes, disregarding his physical vessel, and reaching into the depths of his spiritual being.
Thirty seconds.
One.
Unraveling, his mind strewed itself apart, bent, strained, as the presence he had been chasing since acknowledging its existence projected all that has, is, and will be into his consciousness.
Five.
It hurt. All of it. His consciousness bent under the weight of wisdom he was relentlessly receiving against his own will.
Ten.
His boots staggered as his footing shifted. Instantly, he regained his balance. He knew how to. So desperately, he wanted to tear his gaze away, but the presence made him crane his neck upwards and stare.
Fifteen.
Once again, he stilled, gaping. Mind cracking open, raw, surging, buzzing, overflowing. The ink sac in his hand almost slipped, but he wrapped his fingers around it securely before it escaped. He knew it would happen. He knew. He knnnnnnn
Twenty.
Storage room. Laptop. Unzipping and extracting files, running applications. He saw it. He knew. He knew.
Twenty-five.
The presence’s iron strong grip on his focus didn’t let up. D3r’s mind was incomprehensible. He saw everything that led to his arrival to this accursed structure, and what will unalterably seal his fate, and the same for every single human, plant, animal, bacteria, organism, when they were, are and will be conceived into reality, when they did and will perish, how they cry, how they laugh, how they fear and live and sleep and experience,
thirty.
The magnetic pull broke. D3r was all too aware of everything, ever. The entity loomed over him, grand, omnipotent, and yet it was so small, to discern a single physical trait on it would be a Sisyphean task. His mind staggered under the pressure of knowledge, and he backed out of the gates, and ran.
D3rLord3 ran backwards out of the structure, and ran for a life not his own, but for everyone else that would follow, all that would ignore the warning of the book in the hidden away house of the abandoned village, everyone else that would be foolish to entertain their nature-given curiosity and hunger for answers, their faux sense of achievement. He leapt over the uneven rocky surface, the ink gradually fading out from the ground and walls, he did not trip, he knew without looking where to step, pivot and jump, and d3rLord3 knew everything.
Mouth dry, blood rushing, his consciousness worked and worked to process all that’s been forced into it, to no avail, he knew he wouldn’t ever come to terms with it, because he knew everything.
Bare fist met stone as an incredibly human desperation overtook him and he punched through the rock wall, stumbling into a simple torch-lit cave. He stared dazedly at the staircase before turning around awkwardly and opening a chest.
He dug through the irrelevant items, the information of their creation, collection, and gradual abandonment to collect dust in this chest rushing into his mind, and his jaw shifted. His own inventory contained a book and a quill. Flipping the book open with cold, clammy hands, d3rLord3 grabbed the quill and began writing with fervour.
Whatever you do at the crossroads, don’t turn left.
Don’t be fooled. It’s listening
He gasped for breath, a shrill, alien cry breaking in his mind. It hurt. It hurt. His quill shook.
You can’t outsmart it
It’s listening tom e
D3r remembered the artificial memory of the village’s citizens, then still living and thriving, praying every moment for The King to come, how they’d traversed deep into the caves, planned the blueprints and brought the materials for the gates, built it, earnestly believing it would bring them salvation. He clenched his teeth, sweat pouring from behind his helmet, a pained groan escaping him, and continued writing,
It’s watching me
It isn’t from this world
He flipped the page. His conscious reminded him how the tree was cut down, harvested, how the paper was produced and pressed into a book.
At the crossroads don’t durn left
At the crossroads DONT turn left
At the crossroads don’t turn left
The moss adorned caves, the uncanny forest, the underwater passages, the abandoned village, the maze. Systematically placing down sand and dirt blocks in the tunnels, as if that would somehow change his sealed fate, he saw it all now. His hand slipped, his armour crumpled up the fragile paper.
ATt the crossroadsa dont durn left
D3rLord3 knew of Avery. The high pitched shriek in his mind did not pass. It screeched, a warning, clear as day and as d3r’s fate. As his fate. As his fate. As
So he wrote. Furiously, desperately, heart hammering, mind in naught but sheer agony. What else could he do? He had the answers to everything, and yet this question had the audacity to remain unanswered for a brief second. Millions of routes and outcomes suggested in the blink of an eye right after, what good was this?
The King taunted him into an inevitable death, d3rLord3 let himself, because he didn’t know. He didn’t knNowow he did He knew. He knew. How human of him, to give into his primitive desires to discover, uncover and learn, assess, be experienced and above it all [All. None. – Saw them.]
He weakly opened the chest, four pages of distraught writing in dark ink. Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, Colorant, Ink, d3rLord3 knew, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, or desig
His armor scraped as he slumped over the wooden chest. He shut his eyes. D3rLord3 was inhumanly tired. The King, the gates,
He knew
He