Preservation

For some Eliksni, Darkness is no material thing, no crashing wave or vicious force to struggle against. It is an impulse, an urge to do that which serves you best and discard all the rest. I recognize this well. It was an opinion I shared for much time.

Humans–Guardians, at the least–view that same Darkness as something that can be fought in battle, handled as a weapon. The powers arisen from it would say they are not wrong, either.

I do not wish to call to the Darkness in that manner. But of late I have come to know the feel of the things in it. I can no longer help it. I consider Darkness now as a suspension—or perhaps a colloid. Carrying some solid along with the flow of the river. Difficult to extricate, flowing as liquid does, but still… there is something not of the Darkness itself.

I took something upon me when we strove to bring Osiris back to the waking world, when we collected the relics of Nezarec once more. I imagine I feel it sometimes, under my exoskeleton. Fluid that stirs and settles, moving sediment with it.

When I wake from nightmares, that sense arises, as though it has been waiting for me to wake.

I hear talk of Darkness among Humans now as a force of consciousness, of minds rather than matter, of connections and flow. Not evil; not cruel in itself. But if it is that thing which spins between peoples, hums string-plucked when ideas and emotions touch each other, no wonder that it may carry more with it as it moves.

No wonder that it may be named as that voice of our worst impulses, knowing all those who have used it, who have given themselves to it. I hear that voice more clearly than I once did.

If your enemy carries a rifle, you may take it from them: but what if their hand remained on the stock? If you would ever have a trigger that yearned to be pulled by another's thoughts? If you might come to believe that it was you, after all, who wished to pull that trigger?

Will I leave some part of me in that Darkness? And what will that part be? I struggle to believe that it might be the best of me.

I would like to leave Eido with something better.

— Partially recovered overwritten data sectors from personal logs of Misraaks, Kell of House Light

Transformations of Matter

Category: Book: Chirality

Old Friend, Beloved

Perpetualis

Category: Eliksni

Prodigal Return

Piece of Mind

Category: Mithrax

Process

Plate of Agony

Category: Nezarec

Robes of Detestation

Phobos Warden Grasps

Category: Osiris

Process