Second Message [Text | Scratch Paper]

[scramasax]

Does anyone know this story?



A Roman soldier travels to a desert ruin, questing in search of a supposed artifact carrying otherworldly power. He finds the artifact, but as soon as he touches it, the god whose power it holds possesses him. Borrowing its unnatural abilities and turned immortal, he begins preparations for a ritual to summon that god onto Earth.

A thousand years later, a slave dancer in a temple in the forest is left alone and desperate for adventure, and explores. A secret passage takes her to the place where the temple's deity hides, and where she is given another artifact that she is told she needs to hide from the deity's enemies. Somehow, the artifact is magically absorbed inside her. Before she can go back to the surface, the soldier appears and demands to know where the artifact is. When she can't answer, she is killed on the spot.

[A short horizontal stroke.]

That doesn't sound like the end, but that's all that I know. I've tried to look it up in several places, but I haven't seemed to have found anything at all.

I know that it probably doesn't seem important. However, it feels important... I remembered it just after watching what happened on April 5th, though I can't remember where I might have possibly heard it or read it.

Thank you.

[He starts to sign his name - but no further than "Anth" thinks better of it on remembering Davin's propositions and rubs it out.

After Capt. Mass responds, he reconsiders again and signs "Anthony J."]

Comments

[ text; written in neat script, on stationary ]

[secondcomingof]

[ On a whim, and also because he needs a distraction, Casval decides to sit down at his desk and mirror the format of the original message... all with penmanship flawless enough to make even the strictest of schoolteachers jealous. ]

It's not a tale I've stumbled upon, but it's interesting regardless. And even though it may not seem important, if it feels important, it probably is.

[ Casval has been in the same boat before. He doesn't doubt what he says. ]

Is "Anth" really your name? The network is secure, if you're concerned about that.

[Text - cell phone]

[reckless_fire]

Sorry, never heard that one before. What do you think these memories or whatever, are? 'Cause right now, I got nothing.

text, computer

[iaijutsu]

I'm not familiar with it.

But if these incidents keep happening, I suspect the end may come to you sooner or later.

[Text]

[shiromadoushi]

A little. But I don't know what it's from either.

[[Mostly, it just makes him think of that dream-catcher like object he keeps doodling, and that one memory where it was imbedded in his chest.

...Egypt when there were pharaohs had contact with Rome, he was pretty sure. Maybe that was where those items that him was talking about wound up afterwards.]]

Reminds me a little of something I don't know why I remember too.

Text

[icy_heavens]

[It's written crisply, neatly. You'd never guess his age from the look of the writing.]

What is it that happened April 5th?

[Though the question at least indicates he's new to the network.]

[Text]

[chalicejoker]

I've got a weird ancient artifact stuck around my waist. I can absorb it back into myself.

I'd rather just the weird memories.

[He's not sure who this is, but there's no point in being secretive since so many people were there at Lyall's meeting when the stupid belt showed up in the first place.]

text; cellphone

[withregret]

No... I'm not familiar with that story.

I'll keep it mind. Someone somewhere may know of it.

( audio ) late reply but i was waiting on an echo approval!

[argents]

[ Banagher had simply been scrolling through the network late at night, unable to sleep, eyes nearly glazing over trying to parse through even half of what he's seeing. New people everyday, news pouring in left and right, enough to make his heart want to bury itself in the pit of his stomach. It's when he encounters the handwritten story that several words catch his attention and hold it, making him stop, read more carefully.

...Artifact carrying otherworldly power... possesses him... summon that god onto Earth...

Killed.

It happens again. The panic that surfaces when everything he feels that makes him himself empties away, and a pulse sweeps through him, a heartbeat. A name bursts into his mind. A name to put to an object he craves in all his bones to find, to chase.

Laplace's Box.

It takes several moments to calm himself after the occurrence, wanting to respond in kind but finding that he's still trembling too much to do so. So quietly, he opens up an audio channel, trying to make himself sound more steady than he actually feels. ]

I work at the library and I've never heard of it. If you can't find anything, it must be special to you. Like these things we can't keep ourselves from experiencing.

But... there's something familiar about it.

text, cellphone

[elfstoned]

Your story is not familiar to me. But I have a tale in my mind too that won't go away.