The tranquil cage

Still and weightless, Sosir was once again trapped in the warp. His limbs locked in eon spanning tardiness, he floated in an endless sea of the cool blue light he had once been so accustomed with. His mind spat and cursed where his body could not. He strove to movehis body at a normal pace, he strained and thought but his limbs seemed as they were caught in amberstone. 

Nothing seemed to respond, until suddenly a cracking pain shout through his skull and his knee and schoulder were scraped. It seemed he had not moved, but was he certain his senses did not deceive him? The pain and impact suggested a great fall, and a hard and course surface. Taking his focus of his body, limbs and pain, he concentrated fully on what he saw. Or perhaps on what he did not see.

Limply he drifted through the warp. Slowed echoes reverberated though the void, echoes of forgotten mirth, surprise and ancient fears. He had heard it all before, and the shades dancing at the edge of his sight confused him none. The blue light swirled about his vision, and the vortex sharpened with his focus.

Slowly, over a span of what seemed to be days, he managed to close his eyes. The hollow giggles and cries that had dimly reached his ears before now faded, slowly making way for the natures sighs of the wind. The soothing sound of waves joined the play, and he felt the breeze on his fur just as he felt weather worn rock below him. A spray of tiny droplets covered him, and the cawing of a bird up in the sky finally convinced him of the reality of his senses.

Effordlessly he opened his eyes. Greeted by the blue of an open horizon, and the green of grasses between the stone, a wave of relief washed over Sosir. As he stood up and rubbed his minor falling injuries, he noticed the stone dais behind him, and the Magma norn lying still unconciously on top of it. Shaking and prodding seemed to have little effect on the Norn he had considered a friend until very recently. 687733 seemed to be under the effect of the illusion still, and Sosir decided he would have to come out of it by himself.

Sosir stepped out onto the rocks, looking to explore his new surroundings first. The blue sky was earily empty, as if one stared out into the mist, yet it was light and the air felt normal as he breathed. From his perch he could see a great deal, and beyond the stones and cliffs the spray of sea water was visible. The air smelled and tasted salty and unpleasant memories of water and the things below it flooded back to him. He snorted with some distain for his own hesitancy, and started on his exploration.

Some of the stones were loose, but most of it had been set into place by the passing of ages and patches of weeds and grasses. He clambered down to the edge, even finding a narrow passage right to the waterline. His hesitancy prove unneeded, as the slim line where the water met the overhanging rocks provided only sea weeds and some molluscs, rather than the anticipated horrors. A quick and meager meal paused him for some moments, but he quickly resumed, keeping his eyes on the peak above the cliffs that had been his ingress.

With the lack of a sun, moon or even the slightest of stars, navigation depended upon that one visual marker. A strange sense of disconnection overtook him whenever he though of the empty sky. With no astral bodies to scry the time from, the passing of time felt as uncertain and alien as the void and consistently blue sky above him. He passed carved marks and icons, but these were covered with the lichen of years, perhaps centuries.

The elder strangeness was offputting to Sosir. Some of the icons were mere symbols, some could, with sime imagination, appear like Norns or grendels, yet others might as well be gestr or changelings for their formless and lilling appearance. Sosir shivered involuntarily. Whatever they depicted, it's creators were long gone now. Some steps and trails led to the next icon, suggesting an unnaturalness about it. Nothing he could say for certain.

The smell of the sea followed him around the island. Some times the air was merely salty, some times the air was so heavy with the stench of spoiled sea-slime that a foul taste would form. Distant storms blew their ionised air over the island, carrying with them a sense of forboding. The small weeds gave below his feed as he walked though the patches of grass. Despite the lack of a sun the plants seemed very vibrant. Perhaps a play of the light, as dark clouds threw shadows over him, filtering the ever present light differently. 

Some of the herbs seemed familiar, and he knew he would be safe to eat most of them. They would make meager rations, but something suggested he would need to make do.

An overhanging rock had to serve as a shelter as a storm passed over the island. Small paintings on the dry inside of the rock again proved this island had been occupied before. Somehow the small doodles expressed a strong feeling of loneliness. They were too simple to truely tell a story, yet the emotion was nevertheless there. He was not alone, at least. He felt somewhat sorry for leaving Unnikár out in the open, but he was sure the Norn would have broken free from the illusion before Sosir would return to him.

He was not sure if the Norn would still know him. He caught himself hoping for that to be the case. 

He had no manner of keeping the time. The waves of the sea did not even obey some tide, as the sea's level would remain constant with no moon to follow. Instinct, some biological clock within him told him a day would have almost passed by now. He had not moved swiftly, and patiently waited though the storm as it had come and gone. The entire island was not big. He had circumnavigated it in half a day worth of walking. He had not extensively turned over every figurative rock, but he had a decent idea of the extend of the surroundings and where he could find necessities.

He would find a vessel of sorts to contain the water, but for now he drank from the freshwater spring on the shadow side of the peak and considered his return.

Sosir clambered up the hill again. A flat spot nestled amoung the rocks inspired him build a home once more. He would pick up Unnikár, they would build a real shelter, and they would find a way out of this strange place.

The Norn was still in trance. His fur was wet from the rain, but his skin felt neither cold nor warm. He wasn't sure what to make of this witchcraft, and bore the Norn on his back.

Several days had likely passed. At least, Sosir had slept several times, despite the brightness. The days had been spent in simple toil, the kind that drowned worry and uncertainty. The islands bounty was meager at best and the chill would set in whenever the wind blew, but stacked stones and sod made a small but functional hut. The novelty of his surroundings, the strangeness at least gave him respite from his ever present farsickness.

Unnikár still lied uncontious. He was probably caught in the same illusion as sosir had been, but perhaps the influence of strange magics or a lack of experience denied Unnikár egress from it. Sosir felt uneasy watching him, and made sure to frequently roam the island.

Perhaps he would make an additional room in the hut if it would last much longer.

There was a pattern in the placing icons. It was difficult to see, but Sosir knew such things mattered when witchery and the swirling blue portals were involved. He trailed around them, looked at them from a hilltop and tried to follow the probable leads they seemed to point at.

A few of these walks even paid off, as some led to more drawings, or trails down to the waterline, or to a closed off spelunk.

As he planned to open it, he began to play with the idea that manipulating the statues themselves might lead him to other results.

Other days were controlled by the need for food. Fishing, foraging, digging. Most food was difficult to come by. As green as the grass on the island was, he could not eat it. Sometimes he found a nest of seabirds nestled on a seaside cliff, or in holes in the hills, but for the most he ate weeds, seaplants and mollusks. 

Unnikár still needed no food or water at all.

Large shells and conches made for adequate vessels. Sosir had thought of moving closer to the spring pool of fresh water, but it was colder and more moist there. More importantly, he wanted to keep an eye on the top of the peak, still hoping a portal would again appear.

He steeped chamomile in the water from time to time. It brought some comfort withing the stacked rock hut.

Uneaten herbs and weeds, refuge and empty shells he would toss out the hut down the slope, eventually containing is with a stacked rock wall. It took a week by his estimate before it started to look like a small terraced field. Some of the soil he had carried in from other parts of the island, but he had been tardy, still attempting to change the statues to perhaps call on elder magic and take him away.

No portal opened yet, but the patterns now shew other trails. Some led to buried tools, another to an unconcious Ettin, covered with a stone slab and the dust of forgotten days. 

Perhaps he and Unnikár had not been the first to be marooned there in the same unbalanced manner. Perhaps one lonely friend had no longer been able to bear the sight, and buried his unconcious Ettin friend to forget.

He didn't know. He likely never would, but he carried the creature home and lied him next to Unnikár. Now he would definitly build another room on his squat stone homestead.

Two more terraces graced the slope by his low home. A month might have passed. He tied knots on a grassroot rope hanging by his nest for every time he thought a day had passed, but he could never be certain. There were no patterns in the waves, the weather, the clouds or the plants by which he could measure time, only an internal clock that told him to sleep and wake.

The terraces trapped rain as it would hit the rocky hillside, and he had to make the hike down to the pool less frequently. Small seedlings of mayflower, wild parsley, nettle and sorrel dotted the black soil, promising an improvement to his ease of living in the near future.

The work brought a little distraction, but a great deal of his time was spent out by the icons and statues. The blocked cave entrance, low enough that he would need to duck, was still blocked. There were no handles or openings to be seen by which it could be opened. The slab was solid stone, marred only slightly by Sosirs assaults. 

Nowhere on the island had the smell of other creatures been so strong. He could not explain it, but there had to be others behind that slab.

Sosir stared at the sea. Only rarely a seabord would come from behind those waves, and fish seemed even more rare. Perhaps the sea was fake. Only a thin moat of salty water between him and a painted sky. 

It seemed as if some hoary and jealous father of storms would hear his mind every time he thought that though, and black and angry clouds started to roll in over the horizon. He would need to take cover soon, but for a while he stood there, ruminating if the horrid ophidian breasts the sea spat out really were fish.

His hut had become quite a cosy place. It was somewhat squat to retain heat, and the sod on the roof had started to grow again. Storages of dried herbs and leathery dessicated molluscs filled conches and shells. Small oily lights of fish liver oil would light and warm it during dark, stormy hours. Improvised digging, cutting and fishing tools were placed around his nest.

A doorway in the back of the hut was blocked with stacked stones, reminding him of Unnikár and a nameless ettin that lied behind it, senseless and unaging.

By now half a nornyear had passed. 

He was turning the last of the statues. It made little sense, but he had turned each statue to face the next. It would not lead to a pattern that he could follow, for such a pathway would lead straight into the depths of the sea. Still, when he turned the stone changeling, a barely noticable click was felt when it stopped. 

There were no lights, no sparks or nor fires. He would not know what magics were involved but had expected more, with the months worth of anticipation sparking his imagination. Nothing noteworthy had happened, as far as he could see, but it made sense to check up on the blocked cavern.

Open. Half a year of assaulting it, analizing it and manipulating the strange icons. The smell of others slowly sighed from the dark and looming orfice. The darkness was almost as a tarry, opague liquid leaking from an evil wound in the earth, after such a long time of seeing solely daylight.

He lighted the fat filled shell that functioned as a lantern. His hesitation faded as did the subterranian night, and he stepped into the deathless crypt. Carved into the ancient granite walls were rows and rows of seats, stretching out beyond the reach of his flickering light. Each and every one of these was filled by a creature, all unconcious like Unnikár and the Ettin back at his homestead. Dust, stone grit, cobweb and even soot covered them in a none too fine layer, yet all of them were still alive.

The tunnels seemed to worm through the entire island. He needed several excusions into the uncerground to map them, only to find all branched off and came together eventually. Nothing too out of the ordinary could be found, except the endless seats with creatures of all origins. Norns, Ettins, Grendels, unnatural crossbreeds of all kinds, rarely some Gestr, even some creatures he had never seen before. 

Less and less of the seats were filled as he continued. A dread weight filled his stomach, but he he had to continue. There was no other way off the island, it seemed. The ash fine dust was kicked up with each of his careful steps, the light from his improvised lantern insufficient to carve through the forboding darkness. All pedestals were empty now, and they ended there. The walls gave way to a wider space.

A stone throne held the room's lone occupant: a pale, flabby changeling. Unmoving it sat in the empty, ages-old room. 

Sosir circled the probably ancient creature, searched the chamber for writings, signs or more icons, but nothing was there to be found. He spat and cursed, kicked up the dust in a rage until it gave him a coughing fit. Eventually he calmed down, powerless. He returned on the trip back to the surface, hoping his lantern would hold out.

He found his way back. Despondondent, he kept to his homestead. Days passed while he barely ate, he sat on his doorstep and watched the clouds blow over the sea. A storm came and went before he finally stood up and stepped back inside his hut to warm himself by a sooty oil flame. He sighed, gritted his teeth and finally relaxed his pose. He had gone over the things he had seen in that catacomb over and over, but he had missed something his tired mind could not quite grasp at.

He awoke in the gloom of the darkened hut startled and distressed. He knew what he had missed. The pale, flabby and unmoving changeling at the end of the dark pathway was like all the others in that pit, except for one thing: his eyes had been open.

With great haste Sosir sprinted on towards the cave. Tripping his way over granite rubble and boulders, having grabbed his simple lantern and a stone shard he had used to filet the rancid deepsea fishes he caught. The gaping wound in the earth still stood wide agape when he arrived. The black pit looked even more repulsive than it had before, but he had to know. The changelings he had seen before were vile, hungering things. Alien and absolutely anathema, but he had to see another thinking creature.

The little hall was empty. The throne stood lonely, a dust free seat the only thing reminding of its former occupant.

"SHOW YOURSELF, TRICKSTER."

The bellowing shout surprised Sosir for a moment, and it took him a moment to realise the voice had been his own. Being silent for months had him forget his voice. 

Giggles, hollering and hooting echoed from the other end of the cave. It seemed caught in its own thoughts as its gibbering and sniggering did not respond to Sosirs shouts as he ran towards the egress.

Eventually he once again met with daylight, seeping carefully into the cave. He fought to catch his breath and his light had gone out, but the changeling was nowhere to be seen. He hiked out to the peak, gazed out over the island but found nothing. He knew little of the kind, but thought its containment an ill omen concerning its nature. He returned to his homestead and opted for patience. Eventually it would turn up, but in the meantime he still needed to eat and to continue finding a way out.

He had stringed up shells and stones in his hut and doorway as an alarm system. It did not feel too certain, but without sleep he would be nothing. His sleeping hours had been cut short the last two months, his alarm strings had rang at odd intervals, yet there had seemingly been nothing when he came out. Sometimes nothing happened for long intervals, other times endless echoes of howling and hollering rolled over the island. No matter how hard he sought, he could then never find the origin of the noise. Seemingly close giggling would wake him at other times. As nerve wrecking as it had been, things were starting to get worse now the furtive changeling had started to sabotage his traps, his nets and his fields.

He would spend days in seething anger and frustration, feeling he was being played with as he would hunt his tormentor. It absorbed him, he neglected his fishing and foraging, and simply forgot to seek a way to open the portal.

This he only realised after he came home to find the closed backwall torn open. Both the unknown ettin and Unnikár were gone, abducted by the nameless fiend. Somehow a lifetime had passed since he had spoken to the Norn, or any creature for that matter, but he still knew he had failed a friend.

The sniggering and bestial screaming echoed over the island at that time, mocking him. He could not defeat the ancient evil directly, but he had to clear his mind and find a manner to get Unnikár back at least.

Seeking respite from the gibbering, the ceaseless echoes, he drifted all over the island. Hours had come and gone before he found himself at the far end of the land but the howling thundered with equal intensity through his head. There he once again saw the ancient overhanging boulder that had sheltered him ages ago. Sosir was at his wit's end, and simply crawled through the grasses around it to rest underneath.

Silence. Quiet at last. He breathed deep, finally feeling the tiredness in his limbs and head. As he gave in to it and drifted away to sleep, his eyes locked on the lonely old drawings on the stone walls.

Their meaning had become clear to him when he woke up. The drawings were faded, but their feeling of loneliness no less intense. Their story he had not quite deciphered, but the ending was clear. A creature left the island, and another had been left behind. Perhaps this creatures had not been ready to leave, perhaps not been willing or able. 

The manner was simple enough if he was to believe the doodle.

He strolled into the cave, the catacomb that held scores of unconcious creatures. He was at ease, the horror that had taunted him had done no more that to him. If pressed, the changeling could assault him, but with his stone shard and a simple stone club he felt more than ready. He was there to find his friend, the others would need to wait. 

The subterranian night was still opague as tarry smoke, but with the club prepared as a makeshift torch he would make do. He wandered the winding tunnels, knowing they would all lead to the same place. Hours again passed until he had found the formerly empty recesses in the wall. Two were now filled, and sensing by the hateful presence radiating from the deeper darkness, so was the throne in the heart of the island.

The simple grassroot rope he had brought he tied under the arms of the still unconcious magma Norn. The grey grendelhide cloak the Norn still wore, weathered with age, made for an adequate sled. With both arms free as he tied the rope around his waist, he remained armed and safe as he made his anxious but slow escape.

Again hours passed, for all he knew he had been up for what should have been days. He certainly felt as such. The underground gloom fell off them as they once again entered the watery grey daylight. Tired and angry, Sosir at least did not notice his hunger as he dragged his friend up to the summit of the islet. He pulled the unmoving friend up the dais on the top, surprising himself with a strength he had not expected after the ages spend on the isle.

He spoke the magic words as he threw his hands up to the sky:"I'm very crowded!"

The swirling blue gate opened with a burst of wind, throwing him of his feet. The wind reversed as the gate sucked at the air around it, and he had to resist the pull to grab his friend and take a final look over the timeless isle, and he at last stepped over the threshold.

The gate closed, yet the hatefull howling of the changeling echoed in his ears.

Writers note: Thank you for reading this story! It meant to explore the experience of a creature being exported from the game world. I hope to have conveyed this properly, and I hope the story wasn't much too pertubing. I have had little time to write recently, but I really did enjoy writing this.