The Artist

Under a street in Duskbanter, in the service tunnels there is a locked door. Behind this locked door there is a hallway that leads to a room. In this room there are several people reviewing the void glass screens, trying to make sense of the scene in front of them.

The canvas was empty. Potential in its purest form. This was the love of a mother, to nurture this blank slate into something that could shine with its own light. To live on its own without reservation. She sat on the cold stone floor and stared lovingly as the sight filled her with exaltation. Art takes time, and here in her cell she had all the time in the world. Halan’s first stroke on the canvas was a deep crimson red.

The Voice understood her. It shared with her the patience of the creator. It spoke of the world, of how things are, and of how they should be. Reality is as much a work of art as the painting or the sonnet, and it was up to us to choose how to interpret it. Through our interpretations we can change it. Mold it. Carve it. The voice spoke to her soul, and it’s name was Vaug.

The monsters were never there. They were hers, and they only looked that way because she was afraid. Afraid in the way a mother holding her only child for the first time is afraid. Fragile things are easy to break. We are not so fragile, Vaug said. Art is strong, and enduring. Why are they holding her? Art comes from sacrifice and pain and freedom. You have sacrificed, Halan. You know pain, Halan, but do you know freedom? She spoke these words out loud, in perfect harmony with Vaug. Her second stroke was a thin and wispy thing. She loved it so.

The image projected from the eye of the arbiter started as a jumbled scattering of light. It spread across the open space, flickered a few times, and then solidified into the image of one of the Prism cells. A small one, tucked away off site. A young lady sat on the stone floor of her cell, she cradled herself as she rocked back and forth.

“Sound.” The voice cut through the room with measured authority. An assistant in a lab coat hit a button on his multitool, and the arbiter beeped in response.

“Do you know? Do you know? What do we know? We know pain.” The recording had a strange harmonic to it, like she spoke the words twice at the same time. The projection flickered again, before stabilizing. Now the lady was on her knees before the stone wall. Her hands were covered in blood. She worked with ferocious vigor using the friction from the rough stone wall to wear the skin of her palms and fingers down to raw, red flesh. She spoke again, and it came out with that same strange harmonic tone, “We give. We give and we give. They take all and leave nothing. We have one thing left to us. It is ours. But we will give it. Yes. To give. The greatest sacrifices are the greatest gifts.”

The image jumped and danced. The assistant let loose a flurry of button presses on his mutlitool, before the image changed again. The blood from her hands covered her, the red staining her shift, the floor, but not the stone wall, contrary to the scene before. Where before there was blood, now there was a clean space in the vague shape of a man. Halan Jo’tar was cradling something in her arms. She was looking up to the ceiling and crying, a warm smile across her face.

A guard carrying a small metal food tray enters from off screen. When he saw the blood he dropped the tray, and started to run towards the cell. Before he could even get his keys out of his pockets the small bundle lept from Halan’s arms, sliding between the bars leaving behind a thick red smear. The creature landed on the guard with a wet slap as the guard screamed, more in shock than in pain, at first anyways. The screams grew in intensity as the strange blood-clot attacked. More blood, this time coming from the guard’s neck. He hit the floor gurgling as he went.

With a quick scramble the prisoner grabbed the guard, who was still attempting to breath through an ever thickening pool of his own blood, and pulled him over towards her. She lifted his pant leg up, exposing the skin of the corlian. Without hesitation she bit down on it, tearing piece of flesh off with her teeth. With the chuck of flesh she started again to make more art, this time on the floor itself.

“Skip forward, I do not want to see a mutilation. Doctor.”

The arbiter beeped in time with the assistant’s inputs. When he finally was satisfied the image stabilized once more. This time it was of the corridor leading to the main guard quarters of this facility. A multi limbed creature ran through the hallway, colliding with a squad of guards. It slammed into their hardlight shields, and broke through their ranks like they were nothing. Though, it was never their intention to defeat it, that was obvious to the two watching the projection. They just needed to slow it down to initiate the Certainty Gates, a massively expensive and highly classified counter measure to deal with escaped strands. Their sacrifice worked. The Gates locked into place, coating the room in a strange yellow glow.

The Arbiter beeped again, and the image shifted. “This is about twenty minutes later, sir” the lab assistant started the projection.

Red and yellow smothered the image. Blood and power. Halan was now covered head to toe in red. She was painting and it seemed she was almost done. A massive door of black streaked blood. It was from the livers of each of the guards, a dark crimson. It stood out from the light of the Certainty Gate with a harrowing contrast.

“This is where it comes in.” A beep and the image shifts.

Guards are standing there. Each one with a job to do, and the training and experience to do it perfectly. Not a single one of them was expecting what happened next. A lithe android stepped around the corner. It’s form was shadow. Wisps of grey licked the walls next to it as it strode towards the distracted guards. The Mawine Android lifted its lean arms with a gracefulness of a conductor. With each elegant movement a strange creature jumped into the scene. Starved wolves with fish eyes and striped spines jutting out of their backs in sleek rows. Their eyes had an unnatural gleam in them, that put the shivers down your spine even coming from the grainy projection.

Chaos erupted in the guard’s station. The strange fished eyed wolves leapt into the mass of men and women. The guards could not stand against them. Most began attacking anything next to them, friend of foe. Those who kept their wits about them tried to mount a defense but the creatures kept leaping into the walls only to jump out of another. The Mawine Android simply walked through the frey, with out a single wayward step. With a flick of its wrist at the control console the Certainty Gate was lowered.

“The Arbiter had trouble capturing the meeting. We have not been able to get sound from it, Sir.” The assistance seemed nervous.

The floating screen showed the android and the artist. They stood in the hall of blood before the door of red and black. The two appear to be speaking, but no sounds are heard. With one last bloody slap a handle is made. Streaks become doors and doors become exits as the android and the artist walk to freedom.

“The timeline is going too fast. We are not going to be ready.” Director Silver mumbled under his breath while rubbing his temples. With a stern look to the assistant, “We need to find a secondary location. Soon. And get me the safety specifications on the Prime. Now.”