"I…I don't think that's meant to be possible within Euclidean geometry." Pomni stuttered nervously.
"Heh." Jax chuffed. "You really haven't been here long, have you?" He finished, motioning casually to the monstrosity before them.
The space within the big top was as cavernous as it was eclectic. The vast area filled with random assortments of supersized toys, games and other child-centric paraphernalia. A jack-in-the-box the size of a building was to Pomnis' right, and phasing through it was a creature her eyes were struggling to find the edges of.
An almost blindingly white form that cast no light on the surrounding area was twisting and writhing, passing through the floor and surrounding geometry. The pain in Pomnis' eyes as she looked at it reminded her of harsh sunlight, reflected off mirror surfaces on a cloudless day. The form was crisscrossed with flowing silver veins that shifted at random. It lacked the polished smoothness of chrome or quicksilver, passing wrinkles and shadows over its surface.
Pomni had to screw her eyes shut for a long moment, the action was painful, but she found a sensation of catharsis in the burning darkness.
Opening her eyes again, Pomni instead turned them towards Jax. He looked back at her, his bright yellow eyes billowing a mustard-coloured smoke.
"Real great at giving you a headache isn't it? Though I think it's just cleared my sinuses." Jax said, reaching a hand to his face and running a finger over the smooth area where a nose should be.
GGRRROOOAAAAALLLLL!
Pomni jumped, pressing both hands to the side of her head as an ear-splitting roar shook the ground she stood on.
"What?" Jax shouted back, raising a palm to his ear in a mock attempt at deafness.
"Jax! Stop antagonising our non-euclidian friend here." A familiar voice sounded.
Popping into existence and hovering directly between her and Jax, the chattering teeth form of Caine appeared. The ringmaster floated around to the front of Jax, admonishing him with the gold-tipped cane he held in one hand.
"Honestly, Jax, I wish just once you would greet your colleagues with open-minded enthusiasm. Why, look at Pomni here. She arrived merely a day ago and has already completed more adventures than you did in your first week." Caine emphasised, sweeping a hand up and down Pomnis' jester form.
"Right…" Jax drew out slowly, rolling his eyes. "Well, before you dive into what I'm sure is going to be another of your fantastic adventures, you mind telling me what's going on with the uh…"
Jax reached up and tapped twice on the side of his smoking eyes, his finger making a hollow, glass-like sound.
"Oh that, yes, well…" Cain began.
The ringmaster spun in the air to face the bright form, his eyes also beginning to smoke from where they floated in the middle of his chattering teeth.
"Since that little incident we had yesterday, I figured it might be prudent to provide some challenging enrichment to my young wards."
Cain threw his arms wide, motioning towards the piercingly bright being.
"And having an old colleague turn into an inky eyeball monster and chase us around whilst also dealing with an army of body-stealing primary school shapes wasn't enough, huh?" Jax asked sarcastically.
Caine somersaulted in midair and flew in close to Jax's face. Pomni wrung her hands nervously as the two were smoking eyeball to smoking eyeball.
"Quiet you." Caine snipped before pushing back and lounging as he floated.
"The gloink queen was constrained by regular geometry. It was predictable, plain, boring! But I am nothing if not introspective; as such, I've come up with an entirely new idea. And as you so expertly pointed out, Jax, your poor friend Kaufmo did go through a rather nasty abstraction and grow a multitude of eyeballs all over his corrupted body. Hence, my solution to both these problems-" Caine spun and thrust his cane towards the being. "-Mortiz." He finished with a flourish.
GGRRROOOAAAAALLLLL!
"That things' name is Mortiz?" Jax asked, sounding unimpressed.
"Well, it could be," Caine responded, lowering his cane. "To be frank, I don't speak non-euclidian, so your guess is as good as mine."
Pomnis' eyes fixed back on the form. She was still unable to gauge where its surface might begin or how large it truly was. Pomni could determine its edges not by where it ended, but by what she could see behind it. Its silhouette had an out-of-focus, almost feathered boundary that her eyes couldn't focus on. The bright, painful light had a depth that made her brain vibrate trying to comprehend. Pomni couldn't determine the depth, position, or even size of the myriad of wrinkled silver veins flowing about its form. But as they moved and slid about, Pomni could perceive a slight parallax effect.
Some veins were passing in front of others, even if the lack of depth made them appear part of the same vein. Pomni leaned to one side, then the other. The shift in perspective gave her brain just enough information to determine she was looking down into some vast internal space. Far deeper and more distant than should be possible, given that Pomni could see around the being to the rest of the big top behind if she leaned far enough.
The being was like a shifting, fluid-edged window into another space. But despite casting no light, the bright white of the space around the silver veins was becoming progressively more painful as she continued to stare, and she had to screw her eyes shut to protect them. Reaching up, she ground her closed fists into her eyelids, bringing her some relief.
"And as Pomni is so wonderfully demonstrating, Mortiz here isn't exactly easy on the eyes. Therefore, should any of you go sprouting more than your allotted amount of eyeballs, you'll find it significantly more difficult to continue." Caine emphasised in his deep, showman voice.
"So your plan to keep us sane is to-" Jax began.
"Burn out your eyes, that's correct!" Caine burst excitedly, his head spinning like a top, the movement making a rattling sound.
Jax blinked, causing a puff of smoke that floated upwards, looking almost like a smoke signal.
"Wow, great plan Caine. Have you had a chance to show the others yet? I'm sure they'd love to meet it." Jax responded.
His tone was dripping with sarcasm bordering on disdain. And yet, Pomni could detect a mischievous eagerness in his tone. Pomni was quickly learning that Jax liked to act aloof, but he seemed to take genuine joy in the comedy of tragedy.
Whether Caine missed Jax's tone entirely, or chose to ignore it, he continued.
"Ah, well, you two are the first to rise this morning, and if I'm being completely honest, Mortiz isn't exactly ready for curtain call just yet." Caine responded, scratching the back of his head with an embarrassed tone.
"Because of the eye burning?" Pomni asked for the first time.
"No," Caine answered, turning his attention to Pomni. "That's as intended, but you see-"
GGRRROOOAAAAALLLLL!
The ground shook again as Mortiz roared. A protrusion extended out from his ill-defined sides, its shape appearing as a peninsular of land being sketched in real-time by a drunk and maddened cartographer. It rose high above their heads before slamming down between Pomni and Jax.
Pomni recoiled, raining her arms defensively as sharpened ceramic chips flew from the shattered floor tiles. The appendage decidedly solid even as the rest of its body was phasing through the floor.
"-there's that." Caine finished, popping into existence beside Pomni.
"Here, take this." Cain said, shoving a small potted palm tree into Pomnis' arms.
Pomni instinctively grabbed the pot before she could process the situation, adrenalin starting to course through her as the hulking non-euclidian turned hostile.
"W-what?" Pomni stuttered in confusion, looking first to Caine, then the potted palm tree.
Pomni realised the deep blue pot had a pair of cartoon eyes, much like Caine's. Its eyes were smoking and bloodshot, and its pupils shrunk to tiny pinpricks. Its corneas were vibrating erratically, and the poor thing looked utterly traumatised.
"You're not running." Caine stated.
GGRRROOOAAAAALLLLL!
"You really should be running!" Caine repeated emphatically.
Pomni looked up. Mortiz was leaning over them, blocking out the bigtops ceiling. What she could see of the red and yellow stripes was rapidly consumed as Mortiz's bulk descended towards them.
"Time to go red!" Jax exclaimed as he grabbed one of the tails of her jester hat and yanked her off her feet, long legs kicking high as he sprinted back down the hallway.
The mass of Mortiz impacted the ground she had occupied a moment prior like a thunderclap. Pomni screamed in shock, her body flapping in the wind as Jax pulled her along. She ground the pot into her chest, its eyes unblinking as its pupils moved to track Mortiz as it began chasing them down the hallway.
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