A/N: Hey all, back with another chapter. I'm pretty excited for this one, elements of this new 'world' were always fun to play around with, and now that Samson is airborne he's got a new way of moving around the battlefield and a way to navigate a crumbling world. Certainly helpful right about now. Metaphysical concepts have always been fun to think about, and applying fantasy elements really adds another layer to the cake. And since this is a world of memories, there's that concept to dick around with.
"Okay, so we've got wings. Now what? How do we get out of here and, despite how much I hate that place, what are we looking for?"
A worthy thing to consider, and much to his dismay, Samson really has no fucking clue. This place is a memory within a nexus, a congregation of many, maybe even infinite memories of others all across time. However, is that really the case? Kronos was the Lord of Time, but he seemed limited to manipulating it around him, not moving between points in it. Either he never possessed the power or his control was really not all that impressive to begin with. So that begs the question; Is this just a memory that can be interacted with, or is this true and proper time travel?
"Fascinating question. How about we don't potentially fuck with the timeline and instead just try get out of here with our prize."
Right. Good point. Let's not making A Wonderful Life a real experience would be a tremendously awful thing. Plus if watching Doctor Who is anything to go on time shenanigans can be pretty consequential.
"How are we going to get around without being seen?"
Thinking back on it, Samson and Mori were able to accomplish complete invisibility between the two of them, however that was back when they both were significantly weaker and still mortal. He's become more than twice as proficient since then, so that means he should be able to power the spell by himself now.
He silently mutters the incantation, and with a snap of his fingers, he's gone completely see through! Samson, before leaving the workshop, decides to take out his camera and photograph all of the diagrams and drawings in Daedalus's workshop. You never know what might be a good invention that'll come in handy later.
"Will you stop robbing from your brother and just get us out of here already?! You know how much I dislike the past."
Samson reaches to his throat, flashing back to the memory he shared with Abigail's death. He shakes his head and makes for the door. Both she and him have issues with events of the past.
Samuel watches Mori craft another potion with a mix of curiosity and fear. Curiosity because some wild shit was happening, like sparks and what might be a Hyena snarling, of which whatever was happening he couldn't see because her back is turned. Fear comes from the idea of having to drink whatever the fuck she's going to force him to swallow.
He feels himself start to sweat and starts looking around the room, trying to find Hylla, or even Sarah of all people. Anyone who isn't bat shit insane like his aunt!
"Hey, so... where's Hylla run off too again? And when the fuck is she coming back?"
"What?" She turns around, something maybe like blood smeared all over her face like something was clawing at her in its last seconds of life, "Oh she's at some big meeting with her sub-leaders from across the parts of the Amazons. Should be back in a few days or so, however long it goes for really."
Mori turns back and the faint screaming and sparks start up again. Samuel starts nervously tapping his finger on the sofa, eyes tracing around the room trying desperately to find something to distract himself with.
His eyes land on an old photo hanging up on the wall, and he finds himself almost shocked into silence as he takes in the old image. It's of a small boy with a big, toothy smiling (missing teeth of course) and a small, energetic puppy craddled in his arms. He sighs sadly at the old photo and lays his head down and looks blankly up at the ceiling.
The horrible sounds of pain and torment continue and Samuel decides that a nice distraction from whatever hell is impending him would be just great.
"Remember my old dog? I was like five when dad came home with the puppy in his arms."
Suddenly she stops, the screams and sparks die down and a silence overtakes the room. She folds her hands in her lap and looks blankly away.
"Silas, a long-haired German Shepard."
"Yup-" He says popping the P, "Where'd he come from anyway? Silas was always so... special. I've never seen a dog quite like him again."
Mori slowly starts back on her work, but with much less passion and speed as before. The screams are barely whispers and at most one or two sparks sizzle over her shoulders.
"We got him from a breeder upstate. Silas was a very expensive puppy, very special because of his parents. Strong, smart and fast. He came from a proper working stock the aristocracy specially bred for hunting in the old world."
Samuel smiles and folds his hands behind his back, thinking back on old memories of his beautiful companion Silas. The way he smiled, the funny way he would tilt his head when you try to tell him to do something. Silas was one of the best dogs ever, and it breaks Samuel's heart he isn't here right now.
"We only had him for a years after you left. Silas got out of the yard one day and got hit by a mail truck. It was... not a good day. The years we had him for were some of the best I've ever had. I don't know. He was just a really good dog. Dad threatened to sue the mail guy into oblivion, but thankfully he didn't. I can't blame him for something that wasn't his fault."
Mori sighs quietly, unsure of how to go forward with the conversation. She's already excused herself from fault with Max's death, but whenever Samuel blames her it makes her feel like she did all over again.
"What was he like, dad, I mean?"
Though, for this she can't help but smile. She has years of trash on Max to go with!
Samson soars through the air with the wings he 'acquired' in Daedalus's shop. The rush of adrenaline through his veins is one of the greatest experiences he's ever had, and he's take lots of drugs with his old Hippie friends back in the day. Even Woodstock wasn't as fun as this!
The wings attach to yourself with straps and they seem to have a connection to your thoughts in some way. Flying up is as seamless as thinking about doing it and the wings follow through naturally, as though they were just another extension of your body.
Daedalus was a genius, smart enough with his inventions to make a Child of Hephaestus look like a kid playing with Legos. He even found a way to shove his soul into an automaton body that looked no different from a normal human. He conquered death without having to use any kind of Godly magic! From a technical standpoint Daedalus is an unmatched genius with only forging Gods being ahead. Samson works with the mystical but he might find ways to implement the schematics he saw into something useful.
Flying high in the air, Samson can see a sprawling ancient city reaching far around a large beach with a long stretch, almost the whole length of the city, being dedicated to ship docks. Fishing vessels, Warships, trading barges, the city is clearly a Naval Superpower just by looking at it from up high. He maintains a high altitude and looks down on the busy residents of the city, still invisible thankfully, and tries to spot the anomaly or anything out of place that could send him back to the distorted world.
All of the sudden, the hairs on the back of his neck raise and his instincts start to flare with warning. Looking at the city, Samson watches in horror as shadows black as Nyx claw from inside every building. Smoke churns and churls like a living mass as it spreads like a disease across the city in only a matter of moments. The residents don't even react to the eldritch horror growing across the town. In fact, the shadowy mass seems to faze right through them, as though they were ghosts.
"No," Samson says to himself, "We're the ghosts! Then how was I able to take these wings?"
Suddenly the smoky shadows jump high in the air, towers and plumes rocketing high into the air aiming directly at Samson. The Son of Athena curse and beats his wings, aiming down low to gain momentum and speed.
He pulls up just above the water level, wings opening to catch lift and bring him to a safe level above the water with great speed. He zips past the endless stream of boats, zipping dangerously close between them as he tries to put distance between them and whatever is chasing him. He looks behind him and watches in horror as a wall of black void chases after him with increasing speed.
Samson aims his hand and launches a few balls of fire, but the hurling flames just pass right through without even poking a hole or otherwise disturbing the smoke.
Looking forward, Samson's eyes widen in shock as the side of a boat races at him with incredible speed. He barely manages to beat the wings to push him higher, but not high enough. He clips the railing of the boat, and with his incredible momentum he continues across the length of the ship and collides with the other railing before rolling over it and crashing waves below.
Acting quickly, he folds the wings back into the pack, hoping that it's water proof, and swims towards the boat. The smoke quickly rushes over the top of the boat and tops, the center mass of the smoke acting somewhat like a head as guttural hisses and low screams emanate from the churning mass of the main body.
Staying completely still, Samson studies the entities behavior as it quickly looks across the decks of nearby ships. His heart stops when the 'head' turns and looks in his direction, but to his surprise it simply looks away and rushes back over the top of the ship he was hiding in.
"I don't understand this creature," Abigail says in his mind, "It can see us while we're invisible and moving, but not while we're wet and still? How does this creature work?"
Samson gives it a second, his mind racing over everything that happened leading up to this moment. Is it the water that shielded him? If so, then how? Ocean water by itself doesn't have any magical properties without a Nymph or a water god, and clearly direct line of sight mean nothing because his invisibility is still up. The only thing he can see different is... himself? He was shocked, maybe even afraid by the entity, but in the water he was calm and collected. Then does that mean...?
"It detects emotion! This has to be the entity mother sent us after! This thing is raw, negative negativity given form, so it makes sense that it can see using it. Vision has nothing to do with it, its whole existence, even its senses, are ran by emotion. We need complete control of out feelings to hide from... whatever that thing is."
"Then we have a way of hiding from it. Then how are we supposed to fight it? Your fire did nothing, and I highly doubt whacking it with a sword or your spear will do anything. But we have something to go off of. It's related to emotion. Which means our weapon has to be to."
There in lies the problem. Emotion is a good weapon in a society. Emotion can fuel wars, but it's not the thing killing people exactly. It can be used as a reason to kill, but not an actual weapon. So how can he physically weaponize emotion?
Unfortunately, he doesn't know.
"Samson, look down in the water. There's something shimmering down in the water."
He looks down through the crystally water and watches something shimmering deep below the waves. He dives down below the waves, once again thanking his godly body as it no longer requires oxygen to work and also thanking it for somehow giving him incredibly clear vision even under the water. He swims down deeper and deeper, passing by fish and the occasional shark and he nears the shimmering object.
Down at the ocean bed, he comes across an incredibly depressing sight. The skeleton of someone is half buried in the sand and clay, his bones scattered about by bottom feeders with old, worn down wood structures attached to his arms. Comparing the wood to the drawings in Daedalus's workshop makes it easy to guess whose body this was.
"Icarus, the poor boy. So excited to fly that he ignored his father's warnings and fell victim to circumstance. Your wings must've been an advanced version Daedalus worked on after his sons death."
Samson ignores the unfortunate body and starts digging the shimmering object from the sand. He pulls out a single, golden necklace that glows completely unnaturally. Suddenly, the world around him starts to fade as he feels himself being pulled from the world much like how his mirror would teleport him.
He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again he's falling through the air back in the distorted memory world from before. He unfolds the wings and glides across the air, watching as more and more of the floating islands inhabiting the world crack and fall apart from bizarre gravitational forces seeming to run rampant through the strange dimension.
The amulet is gone from his hands when he looks, leaving him slightly confused.
"It seems like important objects are the way to exit the memories. If we go back into one then we have to touch some sort of object that relates to the memory to be freed. I wonder why the amulet was key, though? I would've assumed it would be wings."
"Maybe Daedalus gave this to Icarus? A token for his son? Who knows. All that matters is we have important information, but we still have a lot more to learn if we're going to fight this creature."
"On that, we can agree."