2014.03.21 - The Nine Vaults

The Space Between, by its very nature, has no fixed appearance or dimensions. There sometimes appears to be light, or simply a great dark void. Sometimes there are pieces of things that were trapped her during the transition from one plane of existence to another -- the portal or teleportation involved being interrupted before what was being transported could fully reach the other side. Sometimes it is warm, sometimes it is freezing cold, and there is never ever ever any natural sound. Any sound that exists is brought from somewhere else. A missile or a bomb that was meant to be teleported from one planet to another leaving the thundering of its explosion behind for millions of years, but only within the area it detonated, for instance. A message whispered between two mages exploring this place, reverberating into a chorus of hushed voices eons after the ones who spoke them have not only returned to their own plane, but ceased to be.

Normal physics sometimes seem to work here, such as fire, and limited gravity, and basic electro-magnetic fields, and other times it all just breaks down and flies apart -- asteroids and space shuttles and iron towers all splitting into their component atoms and flashing outwards at ten-trillion times the speed of light, taking out everything around them in this space that might not even exist when it is not being actively perceived.

That's another danger. Perception. Perceiving something here defines its qualities to a degree, but that perception can be turned back on itself. If the very nature of reality around one has become cemented in one's mind, and then it all breaks, the one perceiving it is also broken. Those who stay here long enough or visit frequently enough to master the art of letting their reality remain fluid tend to go insane.

No one really likes to talk about what happens to the Space Between when perceived by someone insane.

Unfortunately, there is danger in this dangerous place. Necromancy on a large scale has been employed, reanimating the remains of those who died here or were trapped here when their spell or machine or other conveyance between worlds failed them. Though not many come here, enough corpses have accrued over the eternities, from many different universes, that there is a vast army of the dead now marching across an expanse of shifting, gleaming void. Like a sky made of glass and placed beneath their feet, it casts no light but reflects images of what has transpired here as the fragments of people, many of them no more than partial-bodies or disembodied appendages, advance towards their destination.

One of nine large black spheres, hardened against the dangers of the Space Between, guarded with magic, but relying on the environment as a defense. The sphere still lies in the distance, but there is no distance here. Not really. It could be as near or far as anything else. All these dead, all marching with unified purpose... And one shared perception between them.

The perception of an Undead Empress.

She is plenty insane. The way that the void jitters and twitches, the detritus of infinite worlds statics out occasionally, sometimes not coming back, and the way that everything just changes in the background -- one moment a beautiful aurora borealis covering anything, the next a blizzard of broken glass and ashes, the next a plane of endlessly-blooming blood splatters composing the 'sky', and more -- all while the dead continue plodding methodically forward... This is not a good place to be.

It was a place that Zatanna rarely dared to tread. And it was a place that she rarely brought anyone with her on, due to the very nature of the thing. Bringing a wondering, curious mind with her was an invitation for something exceptionally untoward to happen - by herself, she could focus on keeping her own little bubble of reality more or less stable. And Zatanna Zatara was entirely aware of the power of perception in this place, and she focused her considerable will to doing just that.

But she was Zatanna Zatara. A little flourish was required.

Fireworks seemed to erupt into clouds of sparkles - sparkles which solidified into bricks and made up the road she was traveling on. Zatanna was using the road to travel to Kathmandu for research on... well, on something that a certain Catwoman had unleashed into the world.

But it was impossible not to notice the army of the dead. Impossible not to sense their grim changing of the very reality around them. It was the sort of thing that you felt in the pit of your soul before you saw it with your physical senses, and Zatanna pauses a moment. As much as anything else in this place, she felt 'near' to their disruptive march. Spying other travelers in a place like this was rare - and to find an army marching through...

Zatanna recalls Diana, and the demonic necromancer Calysto that did travel with her. Someone whose power easily exceeded her own. This could be her. Zatanna closes her eyes, and reaches out with the tendrils of magic - manifesting here as a flock of doves like the sort that she might spring from her hat. It was those doves that attempted to push into the bubble of reality around the army, and if Zatanna could mentally maintain her focus - they would probably remain a little point of happy serenity in that bubble of madness.

Perception is everything here. Having one's perception of reality altered can alter the world itself. The doves sent out to form their own little pocket of presence and perception are noticed, by the one controlling the dead that stretch out behind like a river of corpses. The void around the magical birds turns deep red and billows outwards like blood dripping in clear water. Red veins crack outwards from around it, gradually spreading, the redness pulsing and throbbing. It's like they're an infection, a cell that has burst, a painful wound. Determinedly, the one controlling the dead ignores the presence, her whole will focused on what she is doing and nothing else. The undead do not turn to look as the threads of red rush and flow and spread life into their reality of death.

But with the esoteric and exotic senses and ways of working in the Space Between, Zatanna should probably have no doubt that at least the one moving this legion forward is aware of her and choosing to ignore her for the moment. That bubble of joy and peace, spreading red, gradually starts to turn a cold, icy blue.

Meanwhile, the large black sphere in the distance grows larger and larger. The soldiers in the wars of many different worlds fight and die beneath the feet/hands/tails/entrails/etc. of the silent army, conducting their battle upside-down and reversed as though inside a mirror. A huge luxury liner of Earthly origins suddenly starts plummeting from high above (or as much 'above' as there can be in a place with no directions), streaming water that freezes, bursts into ice fragments, then steam, then water again, over and over, even then the dead do not react.

But the ship smashes right into the midst of the forward-most portion of the army, punching right through them and then continuing down into the glassy void. Bubbles of compressed space trail the vessel as it seems to get 'stuck' in the nothingness, now a sudden obstacle for the legions of silent, rotten forms.

That should buy some time at least for Zatanna to determine what to do next. The undead do not stop marching, however, so this is not a permanent solution. The column is wide enough to pass around the obstruction on the sides, but the ones in the center -- the main bulk -- are significantly slowed by what lies in their path, and they just keep marching ahead, gradually piling up against of and on top of each other.

What is that sphere exactly, and why are so many dead being sent there?

There were many things that Zatanna did not know about this place. Many things that she may never know. The magicienne always had a hesitance when it came to traveling by these roads, but there was a need to use this particular road to get to Kathmandu. So the giant sphere that they march towards? Zatanna lets her eyes linger on it a moment, before drawing her breath out - the birds swooping down over the army as one - then another - succumbs to the dark influence.

The remaining birds start to flock together, start to draw nearer and nearer to each other as if drawn to each other by magnets - and Zatanna starts stepping forward in her own little bubble of being. The sparkle and flash of the walkway gives way to something solid and simple to think about - a simple stone floor of brown that stretches on for the entire length of her little break in reality.

Necromancers as a whole had a terrifically bad reputation, but - Zatanna Zatara was not sure if this particular one bore the same evil that most did. To disrupt the reality bubble of the other was to risk damning her to an eternity of being lost within these realms of madness.

Zatanna starts striding forward a little more briskly, her hand coming up to her hat to hold onto it as she closes her eyes - seeing with her minds eye more than her physical ones. There was a block beneath her feet because she believed. And it made it easier to see through the eyes of those doves. Doves that were smashing into each other more and more - until... well. They became a golden rabbit hovering there in a top-hat.

Zatanna furrows her brow as she puts more of her being - dangerously splitting her attention into maintaining the intrusion, and keeping her own bubble afloat. The rabbit spins, end over end - floating to a point before the magess leading the pack of zombies. And the rabbit speaks. "...that's quite an army you have there," it says, in a voice suspiciously like Zatanna's. "Where are you going with it?"

The army of the dead, numbering definitely into the hundred-thousands, if not greater, seem prepared to continue their progress even as the golden rabbit appears. But then, they all stop simultaneously. All those corpses simultaneously halt their advance, staring at Zatanna's 'avatar', and only one person is looking out of those eyes -- in the case of those who have eyes at least. Their images seem to nearly blur together, the river of death become an image. A face super-imposed over the army? Or the army itself becoming a face? No, not a face...

A gigantic skull. When the skull moves, it's actually the undead moving in a mimicry of the 'skull's' movement. It's both optical illusion and magical certainty. This is how she unifies her perception even when splitting it between what may well be over a million bodies. All those bodies are in essence acting as one.

The jaw works and the undead ripple and twitch and push forward or sway back to create that movement. In a voice both near and far, echoing and cold, a woman answers, "As you have, though unwisely, stopped me to ask questions instead of simply attacking, I shall afford you an act of generosity and answer your question. My business is within the Nine Vaults, of which one lies nearby." She does not specify it is behind or ahead, even though from a conventional point of view, the sphere would indeed be ahead of the army and behind Zatanna. Only sometimes it is not behind her at all, and it is 'behind' the army instead, which... May be why giving directions like that is pointless. "There are items of interest kept within, of which I have need. Their keeper is not a generous sort. If you know not of the Nine Vaults, then you need not be told anything further. In either case, it would be in your best interest to move aside. I have no reluctance to use force to remove you from my path if I must."

The 'skull' that is a sea of bodies seems to turn this way and that, as though looking at the rabbit from different angles. Similarly to what Zatanna is doing, it is likely not the caster herself who is present. Despite the inherent madness visible in the surroundings, as spears begin to punch up between yellow bricks dyed red and pink with the brains of those they were used to scatter, the spears in turn becoming tall sharp poles with bodies impaled upon them, that tower up and up and up until they vanish into a swirling cloud of pure-black butterflies that compose the sky, the speaker seems... To at least know what she is saying and doing. Even if insane, she is sane enough to hold a conversation with a fair amount of eloquence.

And then the skull says, "If you are truly desirous of knowledge, I may permit you to aid me. You have an adequate degree of sorcerous proficiency for the task. Though certain items are mine to claim, aught else that may be to your liking and that you can take with you is yours to take. A magician to open the way would allow the shedding of this cumbersome avatar. What say you?"

"If I had attacked an army so vast as yours - well," Zatanna lets a little smile dance up at the corners of her features - a smile somehow mirrored on the lips of the rabbit. "...would that have ended well for me?" she says, her avatar hovering there. A moment then, and Zatanna flickers open her physical eyes. She felt the twisting, the resistance at keeping the rabbit avatar 'alive' in a sphere of another person's influence, and wished to see what they were putting in physical space as she resists with the ethereal.

That might have been an error, as the image in her mind's eye shifts to incorporate more of the skull and death images of the other. And the rabbit fades a little more, the bleeding out of its own energy into the death realm proper fading away a touch. "And I try not to judge on appearances too much. One of my... uh... friends," Student really. And a student that /really/ didn't like her. "...is a demon afterall." A smile crosses Zatanna's lips, and the woman breathes out in a bit of a sigh."To be here and not know of the nine vaults would be... pretty bad, don't you think?" says Zatanna, and the rabbit winks to the gigantic avatar.

"In fact... I think you know less of them, if you bring a physical army here to attempt to destroy the keepers. Your attention is divided between your subjects. Singularity, he will snuff out your soldiers one by one, until he is just left with you. And his will is more formidable than all of ours," says Zatanna.

"So if you're going to be getting in there - you might need a different plan. ~If~ I can take my pick of the artefacts within - give me fourty-eight hours, and I will return with absolutely everything you and I need to get in there and pillage to our little hearts content," she says then.

Another beat, and Zee shrugs her shoulder. "Or you can attack on your own, ponderous avatar and all. Whaddaya say?" she asks, her tone of voice light.

"Fighting here would not generally turn out well for anyone, but if it was a choice between that and being obstructed, I would choose the former until it no longer became necessary." The mind behind the death avatar focuses less and less on the surroundings and more and more on the rabbit avatar. The environment recedes gradually as this occurs. There is an irritation that rises at the implication that she is not up to the task of dealing with the Lord of Nine Vaults, but she still listens to the end. "I am a necromancer, it is true. However, I am a necromancer in the same way that you are a conjurer. Though I do not know you, you are clearly proficient in more than one discipline. If you do not wish to judge by appearances, you should not have assumed this was my only method of weaving magic, just as you should not have assumed I intended to physically assault a spatio-temporal claudication with simple corpses. These bodies are a tool and a resource, nothing more." She does not elaborate in what way she was going to use them if not to attack.

"The terms are acceptable. I will wait for now. You will find me at the appointed time," the voice says with casual certainty. The 'world' keeps receding and contracting until the river and skull alike are beginning to be pinched off into some other reality bubble, or perhaps withdrawn to a different plane -- where the caster is? Who knows. Both the visions of blackening flowers blooming and rotting repeatedly in hyper-accelerated fast forward, and the silhouettes of skeletons doing a macabre dance amongst them that were starting to form the new environment wither and fade, along with all sense of the necromancer -- and other magics-caster -- as well.