Fragmentary Passage: Mercade

Fragmentary Passage: Mercade
Date of Scene:	16 June 2013
Location:	??? Destati
Synopsis:	Let the pieces fall where they may. A dream twisted out of shape provides answers.. and choices.
Cast of Characters:	Mysterious Voice, Mercade Alexander
Tinyplot:	Fragmentary Passage

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Mysterious Voice has posed:
It's a pretty terrible sneeze.

It can be felt coming for almost an hour one way or another, one of those prickling and unpleasant sensations like one is GOING to sneeze but not actually managing it. It niggles and pokes at the edges of perception like an itch that just can't be scratched, an itch that spreads to ears and underneath the scalp and is more or less completely intractable.

And whatever happened, if Mercade had been trying to sleep or lost in daydreams or doing something to take his mind off things, the actual sneeze comes without warning and it brings unconsciousness with it like a sandbag.

There is none of the gentle floating downwards through a dark ocean but rather a plummet as if gravity had reversed and he was now falling upwards into the sky which was full of falling stars much like Giza Plains.

The endless winking ceiling of sky he was falling up into until there is a perspective shifting SPLASH. The sky becomes the 'floor' while the ground he had left so far behind is shrouded in fog. A ceiling of stormclouds and dark mists with the 'sky' an ankle deep pool through which patches of Stained Glass can be seen.

But the water is murky and indistinct.

..So.. a taking of stock. Stained Glass floor beneath. Darkness presses close, an almost impenetrable cylinder with a ceiling of dark clouds overhead.

A voice murmurs from the darkness. It is undoubtably that of Avira, though her voice is so faint. As if calling from far away. "So much has been done....the road ahead..."

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Sometimes Mercade likes to take a nap, is that so much to ask?

The Detective, however, finds himself on a bit of a journey once more, however. He hits the watery ceiling, looking upwards and downwards (or is that downwards and upwards? Does it really matter at this point?)

He slowly readjusts his perceptions, wobbling on his feet. "This... This is different." Mercade says to himself quietly. He checks his surroundings once more, wondering... What he could possibly be seeing next. It didn't matter if this was a dream or not. It felt real enough. Perhaps more real than some things in his own life.

"Avira!" Mercade calls. "Where are you?"

Mysterious Voice has posed:
He can hear her, but the words are so distant as to be completely muffled except for the intonation. The general feeling of her voice, the way it fell into the empty silence of the surroundings.

The ground trembles and there is a CRACK like splintering glass, not beneath his feet but above him and a shining crack opens in the cylinder of darkness. Moving around a bit there is a turn of perspective. A shifting as if something was reorienting itself underneath his feet and so stained glass flows upwards from the darkness below and flows upwards in a lazy spiral towards that imperfection.

Avira's voice again. "..sleeps within..you.." And there is a sense that these words have been said before, have been distantly heard before.. but now it seems like a distortion lay over everything, twisting the recollection slightly out of shape.

And at the top of the spiral lay Dark Manhattan. Only .. shapes protrude from the empty, hollowed out streets. A rain of hundreds, thousands... hundreds of thousands of blades protrude from every inch of the broken city like the quills of a porcupine.

Ancient blades embedded in the cracked concrete. Some of them proud. Some of them simple. SOme of them intricate... all of them dull and lifeless and broken.

The only light is a twisted streetlamp straight above the crack, which is in the side of a building near the TDA building in Southern Manhatten. Or.. what was Manhattan.

A voice. Having NOTHING to do with Avira. A nameless vaguely male voice at Mercade's elbow says frankly.

"Where do you think this path leads?" There is a pause, and the voice continues, illuminating a titanic anomaly of the landscape already twisted and gone awry. A luminous Clock stands in the middle of it all. Violet Fire illuminates the place where numbers are. Something flashes across the lit face as it begins to rain. A hooded figure in a dark cloak.

"Where this place has always led. Wonder.. and Ruin."

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Andthen everything changes. On a logical level, Mercade can draw the parallels and process the similarities between his previous dream and this one.

The problem is that logic has flown right out the window in a hail of OH GOD WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE. Mercade reacts reflexively as everything breaks and the land reforms around him. He crouches low, seeking a better center of balance, his body tense and on alert to be attacked. As the spiral forms, Mercade looks upwards, his eyes following the glittering path. His feet follow.

He walks. He doesn't know how long he walks. Time seems to be sort of an abstract in this place. All that matters is he moves and makes a decision. A decision to move forward.

He turns, watching the gleaming dark majesty of the fallen Manhattan. And the world turns.

The crumbling buildings, decrepit and hollow, fingers jutting into the sky in a testament of hubris and fallen light.

A turn.

The ruined streets, where only the wind travels now, not even the litter of habitation to give it the appearance of life.

A turn.

Finally, Mercade crests the spiral, standing to look down the path before him. The innumerable blades catch his eye, and he glances to them with a faint frown. He's missing something here, but what?

The single pool of light in the darkness draws his gaze inevitably, his eyes tracing the cracked and crumbling insignia upon the building. Emotions flood through him once more, thought banked and dead. He grimaces, but then with an effort, he takes hold of them and holds them back. His expression smooths out, though his eyes show what lies inside.

He steps forward, stepping into the pool of light. He hears the Voice, and he turns, suddenly, beholding the massive clock in all of its terrible splendor. The strange, mysterious figure before it causes his eyes to narrow for a moment.

"Who are you," Mercade asks, "To speak of wonder and ruin?"

Mysterious Voice has posed:
The voice chuckles very softly. "One who speaks with the power to end the endless."

In the rain, the hooded figure walks slowly and with measured purpose towards Mercade. Cracks mend. Rust flees from their step and the street heaves and shifts underneath their boots as they approach the circle of light.

They stand slightly outside it, a path of change cutting an obvious furrow in the harrowing chaos of the empty city. The hooded figure gestures and another streetlight turns on, twisting to provide a corridor of overlapping illumination to the steps. To the actual building and inside the TDA Offices.

The hooded figure bows slightly and gestures to the doors. "But I find, unlike some, that the answers you provide yourself are more likely to be taken seriously than the answers given freely." The hooded figure loosely clasps their hands behind them and shrugs.

The luminous clock begins to move ponderously. A pressure wave ripples through the city as the giant metal hands move forwards to 'I' -- "After all." the voice intones, with a faint familiarity.

"Everyone has an agenda." The voice chuckles very softly and disappears as if they were made out of smoke.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
To end the endless. That has a lot of meanings, and this is no Stairway to Heaven. Mercade, with a lack of information to make a decision, watches and waits as the man apperoaches. The area repearing itself around him causes him to blink. Interesting effect, that.

He tilts his head at the man, considering his words. A hand reaches up to adjust the brim of his hat. He still can't tell who or what this guy is... And when the clock hits, he feels the pressure wave coming. Mercade braces himself, and is staggered, knocked aside into the wall as it roars past. He looks up, shocked at the clock, as he blinks.

Doomsday Clock.

Mercade grimaces at the thought, and he looks over at the man moments before he dissipates. With a lack of any better options, Mercade looks towards the next pool of light, and moves from light to light, entering the ruined TDA building.

"What makes the measure of a man." Mercade mutters to himself.

Mysterious Voice has posed:
Inside there is another feeling of pressure but much milder this time as he steps in. There is the faint sound of the door (which had been lying on the steps) closing behind him and a faint click.

A look behind reveals the door completely whole and standing, looking out onto that grim nightmare Manhattan . The Clock, though it SHOULD be obscured by the corner of the building, can be seen in the distance here with it's Violet Fire still on 'I'

The inside of the office is pristine, cast in a vague and otherworldly illumination. Everything is in the places it should be.

There are a number of colorful sticki-notes on objects around and about the office. On the Phone. On the Refrigerator and the Sink. On bookshelves and desk and table lamp.

And if any of them are read, they are in Mercade's handwriting. There is a faint feeling of distortion around each one of these objects which warps the prisine office very slightly. As if touching them would disrupt some surface tension keeping these faint bubbles of dream reality in abeyance.

There is one at eye level on the wall near the door. It reads. "There is never time for everything." And these are the ones that can be chosen.

Victory -- A yellow stickinote on a bookshelf.
Endless -- A blue stickinote stuck on the phone.
Zero point -- An orange stickinote stuck on a window.
Utter Silence -- A green stickinote on the fridge.
Wayfinder -- A stickinote in pink on the counter.
Tower of Voices -- A stickinote on a lamp.

Dark Margin -- A white stickinote left on the desk.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade steps forward into the area, and he looks over the ruined office. There is a frown on his face as he considers the area. The dangers here... Are not the usual ones. Mercade's gaze goes to the Clock in the distance, and then back to the sticky notes that brightly point themselves out. He looks over them,, his hand moving close to one, but he stops as he feels the... tension... around each of them.

He's being asked to make a decision. He looks over the notes, considering what each might mean in turn. These decisions are not the same as the last dreams. These are more complex. Harder.

This is a test of some kind. A test without knowledge of the rules or what everything means. IT has a purity all of its own. You can't cheat on a test if you don't know what it's about.

Mercade looks over them all one more time, and then he turns, reaching out and choosing to touch the pink sticky note on the counter. "Never time for everything, but time enough to do what needs to be done."

Mysterious Voice has posed:
The sound of the ocean.

Water laps over his shoes from a tide coming in from behind him. There is a pressure.. then the smell of water. The feeling of baking sun on skin. The warm and moist winds blowing through the kitchen.

A woman's voice, tinny and indistinct like hearing their voice through a seashell.

"Somewhere out there." The smile can almost be heard in the voice. The hope. And-- behind that.. doubt. Worry. All so carefully wrapped away.

"--there's this tree with star-shaped fruit. And the fruit represents an unbreakable connection. As long as you carry good luck charms shaped like it, nothing can ever drive you apart. You will always find your way back to each other. An unbreakable connection."

Golden sand. A distant and dusky shore comes in for a moment-- and then goes out like the tide. The apartment returns but there is something in his hand. There is an eerie feeling as if the unseen voice had turned their attention away from their audience. As much as could be felt, it was as if the voice was now turned towards him. "None of us stand alone. Remember that."

It's a five pointed star. It's pieced together carefully, constructed well even if it looks flimsy. It's a paper star made from stickynote paper but oddly shining at the same time. Holding it brings to mind the connections made and lost. The paths that have lead to this day and this hour.. and the choices, good or bad, that make up those connections.

The stickinote on the counter has disappeared and all trace and sensory information of that distant beach has gone with it.

There is another pressure wave that disrupts everything in the office and a horrible chime. Four notes. The Clock, when it can be seen from any window now reads 'IV' and the hooded figure is leaning against the wall, arms crossed. "It's true." they say. And the voice is discernably Riku's although.. perhaps in the same way Avira's voice in this dreamspace is not really Avira. It has an odd echoing overlap quality to it.

"..We all stand together in this. We all make choices, and then live with them. What will you choose, I wonder?" --and again, they fade out of sight like a plume of smoke.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Illusions? Or just another reality? Mercade has a hard time figuring that out in these distressingly more common situations. He holds up his hand, looking down at the object in his hand. The... odd charm in his hand. He blinks to himself, a trickle of understanding running through his mind. The stickynotes were... Hmm.

None of them stand alone. That's something that Mercade had had beaten into him the hard way over the last months. With the destruction and restoration of Manhattan, the travails of Avira... It's something he can't forget. With a quick motion, he tucks the starry object into his coat...

Moments before he is knocked onto his back from another unexpected pressure wave. He grunts, getting back to his feet, and looks over at the Clock. Four? Already? Time passes quickly.... Or is it not at all? It's kind of arbitrary.

The voice causes Mercade to turn. Riku's? Or not? Something is off here, but again, he can't put his finger on it. He frowns, about to respond... but no words come.

Instead, he looks over the remaining sticky notes. Four left. He chooses one, it vanishes. Something changes. He's not sure what, but it's clear:

He can't choose them all. That was laid out from the beginning. There isn't enough time.

But Mercade is getting more of an idea of what is going on here. Test and response. If the metaphor follows, than he's getting a better idea of what the notes are and what they mean.

Mercade moves next towards the window, reaching out for the Zero Point sticky note.

Mysterious Voice has posed:
Darkness.

It surges up and around and blots out the office in the span of seconds. There is a sensation of falling, as if the floor had been pulled out from under his feet.

The sound of the ocean.

And an otherworldly illumination. A silvery sphere lays like a sun in the distance, casting a pale light on the beach and the waters and the strange, arching protrusions that form a partial cage over the starless sky. There is a door and it is set ever so slightly ajar as it lay in the surf. A faint light leaks around the edges of this dark door that has been scratched by many claws as if something-- or many somethings, had strained to escape.

Save for that sign of violence, there is almost a measure of peace here. The air is a thrumming silence. A silence so complete save for the movement of the dark waters that thought seems difficult to accomplish and willpower seems to pale and fade like a sand castle being worn away by the sea.

There are footprints along this dark shore being slowly worn away. And it is difficult for a few moments to distuinguish them as his own tracks. They walk along the shoreline and into the distance where a blue haired woman sits upon a dark rock looking out at the ocean.

She looks in his direction and smiles. She gestures for him to join her and sits with her hands in her lap, feet swinging and bumping against the stone. "I do not remember who I am or whence I came." she says, and the woman's voice is that of the one from the seashell. "But I am glad for the company."

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Togetherness. Unity. Light.

And then... Darkness. There is nothingness around him for a long moment, before he once again registers he is standing upon the beach. He looks up. into the black night sky. The moon... Moonlike object? He can't quite describe what it really is accurately. The door causes him to pause. Something is about that door... That damaged door, but no sign of those who caused it.

Even so, the peace here... He can feel it. The calmness. Not everything in the darkness is threatening and evil. The Detective turns from the door, looking from the surf to the distance, where the woman sits. Mercade approaches, walking through the surf to sit next to the woman. "I admit, if you're going to be lost somewhere, I can think of worse places." Mercade says with a smile. "Has it been so long since you've seen someone else?"

Mysterious Voice has posed:
The woman looks out at the ocean and then over back at him.

"I know I've been here a long time. And.." she looks at him and squints a little as if trying to see past or inside him, looking into his eyes as if searching for something. "And there have been others. From time to time." she looks out at the silvery sphere, then at the crystalline darkness. "..in this place where it begins, and where it ends."

she looks down at her hands. There is a five pointed star made of stained glass. It is pale with the very tips being blue. It is cracked into three separate pieces that she holds carefully in her hands. "And we're all waiting.. All of us who come here are waiting for something. Wishing for something. I just wish.. I remembered who I've been waiting for." she smiles with a painful sadness.

"We promised to stay together but.. They got... lost.. somewhere. But I have hope. Sometimes. That's all you have left."

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade is quiet as he is examined. He has no ideas what this strange woman might see or not see within or without him. But she doesn't appear to be dangerous...

She appears to be lost, much like he is at the moment.

"This place where it begins and ends..." Mercade looks out over the ocean. "What is this place?" He asks.

He glances down at the crystal star, and he pulls the one of paper out of his coat, looking down at it. "Hope is important." Mercade says. "I don't think I'm the one who you're waiting for, but you'll find them." He looks out again over the ocean, holing up the paper star a bit against the night sky. "Or they'll find you. If this is the place where everything begins and ends... They'll have to be here eventually."

Mysterious Voice has posed:
As he brings up the paper star and the silvery light shines through, it bleaches and becomes a smooth white piece of glass. The five edges are no longer origami folded paper but smooth stained glass like a piece of a larger picture. Translucent and almost shimmering. In the center is a strange design.

"They will be." the woman's voice murmurs, again seeming tinny and indistinct. "I just have to believe."

The darkness recedes and the office returns. The hooded figure is sitting on the counter in the same way the woman was sitting on the rock overlooking the ocean. The Clock reads VIII and is preceded by eight chimes and another pressure wave even more fierce than the ones that came before. Large cracks run up and down the surface of the walls and crack the windows.

"An image." The voice says in the echoing voice of Riku. "Preserved in memory. A knight trapped in amber, forever hoping for a rescue that may never come. Will you share her fate? The fate of her friends? They made choices as well. They chose freedom for countless others, and left none for themselves." The voice tsks. "Choose wisely."

Something flashes across the window. The hooded shape flashes out of focus in that instant. It is a phantom shape, a hooded cloak and a feeling of lashing menace. The rain hammers against the cracked glass, a constant low rumble now in the silence.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Mercade blinks at the transformation of the paper star. Before he can really look at it, though, the woman's response causes him to look over to her. Something in him responds, wanting to help her somehow...

But he can't help her. Not like this, not right now. All he can do is help her to continue to believe in them.

Whoever she is waiting for are lucky bastards, Mercade reflects.

He looks back, the office resolving. Mercade's face darkens for a moment as he sees the hooded person. Are they toying with him? What are they trying to do? Is...

He pauses, once more arresting the anger and forcing his thoughts towards more productive channels. It doesn't help to get angry about this right now. There's too much he doesn't understand.

Another chime. This time, Mercade dives for cover, letting it roar into the building. There is another shake, some plaster falling on him. He grimaces as he stands up, looking at the man. Man? Can it even be Riku? How much can he depend on here? "Does it really matter? No matter whether we choose well or poorly, in the end we have to choose. The worst thing you can do is not choose at all."

Mercade's eyes flick towards the window, and in that instant the figure is gone. "Whoever this is, they're good." Mercade mumbles to himself. He looks back out towards that terrible clock, the VIII in the distance. If he guesses correctly, he has one more choice, maybe two at most.

And he has no idea what his choices mean or what they might be affecting. He looks down at the glassy charm in his hand, and he runs a thumb over it, testing it for a moment before he is left to choose between the remaining four...

No, five. There are five left. And he has to pick another. His guess on what the notes represented was wrong. He is once more back to square one. Or, perhaps... Square two? Regardless, he is still constrained by the scenario set out before him.

Or is he? He looks out the window. There is always another choice...

He shakes his head and looks back down. His hand reaches towards Victory... And then it stops. Mercade turns away, and looks across at the lamp, instead changing his mind. The Tower of Voices. That will be the third choice.

Mysterious Voice has posed:
The world is white.

It is so stark and blindingly so that is almost painful to see. A white room. There are a number of what can only be called thrones winding up the sides of a spiraling staircase.

Each of them is absent but there is a feeling, a sense of dark and terrible presence in each of these empty seats of differing heights. The stairs continue to spiral upwards. Sometime it will twist and the perspective will shift and what had become the top of the stairs is now the bottom of the stairs.

It starts very subtly. The dark presence increases as each empty throne is passed. It feels like passing through a series of barriers and with each barrier, the voices get louder. People crying out. There is a hopeless desperation to their cries. A need, crushing and immediate, for someone-- ANYONE to answer them.

The sounds of the lost. The sounds of fire, and war and darkness. The sounds of looters and lost hope.

At the very top of the stairs is the last and louder barrier. Beyond it is a small and blindingly sparce white room with a single last throne. It is utterly silent, a ringing silence where an echoing nothing sits-- an ABSENCE so great that it nearly draws the silohuette of that dark presence in the air as a shimming place of void.

Perspective shifts and it's a sword in the stone. A crackling, shimmering something jutting from the throne like power incarnate.

Power enough to calm and quell the voices.

Power enough to defeat all evils and repel all foes.

Power enough to do.. anything.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
White. Endless white. The unending, cold sameness of the white almost sears Mercade's eyes. He blinks, squinting as his vision adjusts to the area, and he looks up the stairwell. There is no other choice. Mercade steps onto the stairwell, walking up the steps. He passes each throne, feeling the presence, the /weight/ upon him. He begins to hear the voices. For someone like Mercade, someone who has a desperate need to help people, the sound is almost intolerable. He wants to help them, he /needs/ to help. But how? His expression grows more haunted as he passes each one. He reaches the top, and he passes through the final barrier, the voices shrieking in his ears...

And once through, he almost collapses against the contrast of the deafening silence. He looks up, looking at that nothingness... And the power draws him forward. He steps towards the throne, looking at the undefinable power.

He could use it to save them.

He draws closer.

He will bring justice.

He reaches out towards it.

And he can be the hero.

Sudden pain erupts from Mercade's other hand, and he draws back, jerking as if burned. He shakes his head as if coming out of a trance, and he looks down at the hand, where he was holding the glass charm... And where he gripped it so tightly that it cut into his hand. Mercade blinks at this.

No one can stand alone. If he had that kind of power, what would happen to his friends? The people he cared about? What would he do to them with his presence?

The Detective turns away, shaking his head. "No. This is wrong." He says, shattering the silence with his own voice. "No one needs this much power."

Mysterious Voice has posed:
Whether or not that is true, the glass charm banishes this vision too.

It flares with a light of it's own and the office has returned. Only.. there is no more TDA Office, or at least not much left to speak of. The entire building has been cracked open, ceiling shorn away and rain falling into the ragged space left behind.

Pieces of wall jut up from the tenuous remains of the floor, most of the furniture having fallen away into a dark and swirling fog underneath.

The entire city of Dark Manhattan seems to have shattered and being rearranged, massive chunks floating over the endless abyss. They flow together and heal as the hooded figure climbs down from a fire escape, asphalt and concrete reforming together. Another light has cast JUST enough light for Mercade to stand in, jutting strangly from the remains of the office. A table lamp with the shade knocked off sitting on a desk. A streetlamp protruding from a broken wall and curling over like a potted plant.

They stop again on the boundary of that light, trash cans righting themselves, cars mending, everything becoming right again in the aura of this hooded figure's presence. The phantom shape is now fully illuminated by the Clock which hovers in the center of this chaotic Maelstrom.

It's face and body are featureless and empty, a heart glowing somewhere within the empty cloak with a fierce intensity. The Clock and it's Violet Fire read XI. Eleven. One sickly violet flame remains still lit on the surface of the clock.

"Many questions, yes. But also.. many more answers." the voice no longer sounds quite like Riku, but a more cultured.. more sophisticated voice, with a dry edge of humor. "Answers that I am happy to point you towards. Never to tell you outright, but for you to make your own decisions. Your own interpretations." They gesture idly to the surroundings. "Others tell you things. COMMAND that you believe. That you obey. That you submit. -- I find that crude and unneccessary and insulting." The hooded figure chuckles softly.

"Heroes, after all.. deserve respect when they've earned it."

Mercade Alexander has posed:
Time is almost up. Manhattan is shattering under the influence of the Doomsday Clock. Another vision? Or a premonition? Mercade can't tell anymore. He stands in the tiny pool of light, pitiful against the darkness and destruction that rampages around him. The Detective looks out over the abyss below them, and over to the strange reconstituting effect of the dark man, the one who has the power to command destruction to halt.

He looks upon the dark man, a hollow shell in a black coat. A spectre of darkness that makes an offer at the eleventh hour. A man who is not a man, a man who seems to have no form of his own.

Mercade does not move. Where would he go? All that exists on the edge of oblivion is what which is in the area of the man. "I haven't earned anything." Mercade says. "I couldn't be there to save my world, and I was just one of many who worked to restore it. Who or what are you, shadow?"

Mysterious Voice has posed:
"A seeker of many things."

The shadow says dryly. "Knowledge being one of them. Perhaps you have earned nothing. And perhaps you have. Respect at least is yours, and that is the foundation of many things. Words are powerful things. They can heal the suffering. Extuinguish delusions and false hopes. There are things even the sorcerers are afraid to say. They cower, afraid of the past while the present suffers and the future is uncertain."

The empty cowl shakes from side to side.

"They remained silent as your world fell. They scorned you and your efforts by their apathy. Let the nightmare end, Detective Alexander. It can be ended, and ended for all time. Their foolishness has set this cycle in motion. This cycle which has crushed hopes and bent dreams and trapped knights in amber. Step forwards, and we can save them all." The figure extends a hand towards Mercade from the threshold of darkness. He does not demand. It is not a command.

It is an honest request.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
The man's words were compelling, Mercade could give him that much.

He listens to the request of the man. He listens to the scorn heaped upon the sorcerors. Mercade remembers Mad Madame Mim, the tempremental Merlin. There were others, as well. How much suffering could have been negated if they shared their knowledge instead of being obstructive?

There had to be another way. A better way. Mercade looks at that outstretched hand. "All right."

He reaches out and takes the hand of the shadowy man. "Let's work together. Let's save these people."

Mysterious Voice has posed:
The light flickers and dims as the gloved hand pulls Mercade across the threshold, past the boundaries of the light. The streetlight goes out leaving only the light on the desk.

The Clock overhead in the center of the maelstrom strikes XII. The last violet fire goes out and the pressure wave that SHOULD come and annilihate what remains of the dark city does not come.

The clock goes silent, fading into the spreading fog that rolls across the buildings and the streets. There is a flash of lightning and the dark city is shrouded in gloom. The darkness that rolls over it is that of the dark shore. A memory eating silence. The peacefulness of unchanging eternity.

The field contracts further until all is returned to that cylinder of darkness from which this all started. "Very well." The hooded figure says with calm certainty. "Then seek me... here." There is a picture, a image, a flash of rolling green hills and a white expanse of castle in the middle of that green. Castle Oblivion to those who know it's name. A forgotten place of memory to those who do not. "And we shall begin..."

That last desk lamp goes out with a snap of the filiment breaking.

Let the pieces fall where they lay..

Destiny or distortion.

Dream or prophecy or nightmare.

All things in their places, and at their own times.

And with the snap of the filiment, it ends.. and the detective awakens.

And in their hand still in the smooth glass of the white star, turned red at one corner by blood.

Mercade Alexander has posed:
"Mercade."

"Hey, Mercade."

"No, I'm seriously, you can't sleep down here."

"-zzzzzwhahuh?" Mercade's eyes flick open, having almost passed out in the middle of a meal at the bar of the Cloud Nine. Bleary eyes look back and forth, as if registering the area for the first time, and focusing on the blue-eyed man working the bar tonight. "Ugh. I must have overworked." Mercade mumbles, rubbing his eyes with one hand.

"I'll get you some bandages."

"For what?" Mercade blinks, and then he realizes his hand hurts. He looks down, and he sees the white star in his hand, Mercade holding it up in sleep-fuzzed wonder as he considers it.

A memory flashes back to his mind, and he snaps fully awake. Right.

He's going to have to look for that strange castle.