II-135 Resurrection (I) (TTF)

Sometimes, living in the Fathoms is like being part of a ghost story, and that, I mean, literally.

Now, as many of you other Trespassers might have noticed, some of us are luckier than the others. Some of us drop in, summoned by gods, to do their bidding, and we get a special little class, up until they don't need us anymore, and then they take that class away.

Some other people, however, get lucky enough to be dumped near a system, in which case we are used as a host. For you System-havers out there, lucky bastards, fuck you, but also hold on to that thing. Hold on as much as you can, because it might be your only means of keeping your own agency.

And then there are the unluckiest of all, there are the ghosts. Well, you shouldn't call them ghosts. It's technically like having a class as well, except you're damaged while you have that class. You're damaged in the way that the fathoms, for whatever reason, didn't process you wholly.

So, whatever state you were in while you were crossing over, and usually we'd hide during a crossover, you find yourself stuck in that state, stuck in that limbo. Maybe sometimes you're bound to whatever thing that came over with you, or to someone else. You become kind of like their personal ghost. Instead of it being a weapon or a piece of armor, you're there with your special ghostly class, but you're stuck to them.

Why does this happen? Who knows? There are no scientists down here dedicated to studying the weirdness of trespasser classes, and I'm not going to lie, we are pretty weird.

But the weirdest thing of all is sometimes the Fathoms just doesn't want you to stay dead. It wants to keep using you, even after you're all spent.

And it’s not up to you. Not even a little.

-The Trespassers’ Compendium

II-135

Resurrection (I)

"Hello? Hello? Is someone there? Is someone inside here? I can't... I can feel you, but I can't see you. What... does it feel like you're standing on me?"

The chorus of voices continued. Their accents were strange, but Wei studied them, tried to detect their presence using his Omniscience. Everything around him was layered in a faint gold glow of source, but there was also something else, a deeper layer of essence. As he turned and stared past Bishop, he saw at the end of the engine room a hollow object. It looked like an archway at first, but then he noticed other rings threaded through it. Then he decided it looked like a gimbal, and it was missing something in between, something it was meant to hold.

It called out to him. It commanded his attention, but his focus was broken once more as the ghosts sang for aid again.

"I can feel you," the ghosts called out. "We can feel you. You're inside. You're close. Please, please, we've been in the dark for so long. It's been so long since we've had food, since we've had water, since we've had a taste."

Rafael was trembling now, flinching every time the voices sang out. He shaped ciphers in the air, and the world came aglow with his glistening spellwork. Yet, even so, they revealed nothing. They splashed against the walls. They formed a weave of power around the lich, but they showed him nothing, nothing at all. Bishop's eyes glistened with psionic energy, but he, too, grimaced, unable to locate the strange entities.

Wei, however, walked past him. He shimmied beside the large trespasser and he made for the Gimbal.

"What?" Bishop called out. "What are you doing?"

"What my spirit is begging me to do," Wei said, and as he approached, he saw his shell materialize within the Gimbal. "We are meant to be here in a certain sense. This place, this thing, it is attuned to us, to our specific essence."

"What source?" Wei asked. He came to a stop before the shell, and it looked down upon him.

"Indeed. But mine specifically, my capabilities especially. I think," the Shell looked at his hands, "I think I can integrate with this. That we can integrate with this. Step inside me," the Shell called out. "Step inside me and let us see what mysteries this vessel has to offer."

"Wei?" Bishop called out, slightly hesitant. "Listen, we haven't fully secured—"

"It's fine," Wei said. He turned and looked at the trespasser. He gave Bishop a nod. "It's fine, Master Bishop. I think I know what I need to do."

The ghosts called out again, begging for the light to return, begging for someone to set them free. And Wei did. He did so as he stepped into the open gimbal. As soon as he crossed the threshold, looping his leg over one of the rings, he felt himself almost snap into place. Slowly the rings began to turn around him, and his shell pulsed in and out of existence, forming over him, superimposed upon his person, transparent and present at the same time.

Bishop's eyes widened. Rafael let out a breath and took a few steps back.

Wei let his spirit guide him. And as flowing source oozed out from his body, it lit the different rings of the gimbal. Some became pitch black, others brightest white. But at the very core formed a symbol, the concept core of the Harvest.

The submarine shuddered and its insides changed. The narrowed corridors vanished, and a wide-open expanse materialized, an expanse that resembled Wei's Realm of the Harvest. Yet the shape of the submarine was still retained. 

It ran long, tubular, and the engine room suddenly became the core. All around him were sprouting eyes. But more than that, above, rather than there being clouds, there were people there. People splashing, swimming in that black and white sky. People trapped in the source. People bound to the soul of the submarine.

"Wei?" Agnesia cried from ahead. She stood next to her mother, and they whipped their heads around, taking in their surroundings.

As the young master's gaze ran far, he used his Omniscience to take in the newly transformed submarine and found its shape altered to be that of an extended scythe. Its head held a curve, and that curve was lined in strange cylinder-like objects. He blinked, and he recalled diagrams of those objects. He saw those before. Bishop showed him. What were they called? “Torpedoes,” Wei breathed.

"Torpedoes?" Bishop looked around. "Where? What the hell did you do to the sub, kid?"

"There!" a voice came from above. "There! There's life! There's..."

And one after another, the people swimming in the sky descended. As they came into shape, Agnesia flared her draconic avatar, and it loomed over them as if a leviathan seeking to swallow drowning prey. The aerial swimmers paddled faster, and they fell from the air. They crashed against the ground, and their bodies bounced off of jutting scythes. As they rolled toward Wei, he took them in.

There were twenty-eight of them in total. Twenty-eight of them, and they all looked starved. Their faces were gaunt. Their bodies were thin. Their uniforms barely hung from their withered frames. But inside their sunken eyes, Wei saw the light of hope. But more than hope, it was the light of source itself. Blackness surrounding a pearl of white.

Something struck him about their ages. A few were old, their beards thick and grey, seeping into the black. But most were young, some even younger than he. Their features were soft by age but harsh from survival. And as they looked up at him, he felt their beings drawn nearer to his. They were bound to the source somehow, reshaped by it, altered in a way he couldn't fully describe.

"Where... where are we?" one of the youngest choked out. "And who... who are you?" He looked at Wei. "Who are any of you?" His eyes darted between Wei, Bishop, and finally Rafael. And then the boy's expression turned terrified. He flinched back, scrambling on his rear and limbs. "No, no. Death. Death is here. Death has come to claim us. Death!"

Rafael flinched back, "Death? Oh." Rafael realized the boy was talking about him. "No, no, no. I'm not death." Rafael held out his hands. "I, like you, am not dead."

One other soldier pulled out a pistol. He fired several times at Rafael, but the bullets failed to manifest. Instead, they speared through the lich, painting faint traces of whiteness. Faint traces that impacted nothing, broke nothing, killed nothing. Those traces folded into the oscillating gimbal rings around Wei, fueling him with power. And as the young master noticed that, so too did all of the soldiers.

"What was this happening?" the pistol-bearing soldier muttered. He was an older man. His beard flecked with strands of white. As he regarded Wei, he took in a breath. "Who are you?"

"Who are you?" Wei asked in return. "Are you the soldiers that once guarded this vessel?"

"We are. We were the crew. And now we are..." He looked around, and his expression suddenly turned confused. "We are lost. I think I remember how we got here. But it's been so long. We've been in the darkness so long. Just swimming. Swimming. There's no food. No air. No water. We suffocated. We starved. We thirsted. And there was nothing. Nothing but each other. And then... and then... and then we were here. There was no more water. We were in the sky, in this desolate place. We are..." And slowly, the soldier found himself being drawn toward Wei. "What is happening?"

"I think... I think you are a ghost made from source," Wei said. It was only a guess, but it was the best one he had.

Each of the soldiers glistened, black then white, oscillating between the two extremes. More importantly, he could feel all of them. He could draw upon them somehow. As he gestured, they moved. They moved not as if telekinetically flung, but as if pebbles carried upon a turbulent wave. They drifted around, and as they sailed across this expanse, they returned to their original stations. The submarine returned as well, its form condensed in shadow and light, and Wei's concept core of the harvest faded from sight. Even so, however, it remained present, lurking in the backdrop.

And there in the engine room, the young man that fell before Wei remained. He remained, and he looked better than before. His body still glistened with source, yet he wasn't so gaunt anymore. Instead, he looked fuller than before, fuller while Wei's source diminished. He realized he was feeding this young man somehow, and the young man realized that at the same time.

"We've returned!" He held out a hand, and though it quivered with shadow and light, it was solid. He pressed it against the surrounding mainframes, and he winced as the heat burned his skin. But as he turned away, he swallowed, and Wei thought he was about to start crying. "I'm back. I have returned. It looks the same. It looks like... No. No." 

He started staring at a particular corner of the room. It was a corner behind Wei, and the young master glanced at it using his omniscience. There, however, he found a patch of something, a shadow of someone. It was the outline of a body slightly pasted against the ground. It resembled a smear, but Wei sensed something else, something that reeked of death and decay.

And the young man let out a quiet sob. "I was—I think I died there. I think I perished."

"Right behind me?" Wei asked.

"Yes. I remember—I remember—I remember this room melting, being sealed in. As we sunk, I begged them to let me out, but they refused."

There came a noise, boots slamming hard along the length of a ladder. A man came down, and it was the one who shot at Rafael earlier. He stared at Wei with wide eyes, and he swallowed. His gun was in his hands as well. Unlike before, it gleamed bright. It, too, was solid, and immediately the young master flung his glaive at the man. He didn't strike him fatally, however. He simply speared the cloth between his neck and shoulder to the wall behind him. The impact caught the man by surprise. The gun flew out of his hands, and a second thereafter he was pinned there by Wei.

The man barely reacted. He was slow, impossibly slow, impossibly mortal. He tried to force himself off the wall, but the young master held him there casually. The older man winced. There was nothing he could do against Wei, nothing at all. And Wei released his pressure slightly as he heard a crack pop from the man's chest. They were fragile, beyond fragile. Human. Wei didn't remember what it was like to be human. He didn't remember because he probably was never this human.

As the young master took a step back, the man rubbed at his chest and wheezed slightly. "I'm whole again." His eyes blinked. He looked at Wei. "What? How did you do this? How did you bring us back?"

"I don't know," Wei replied, "but I can feel you." And as Wei held out a hand, the man trembled, his body shaking with source. "I can feel you." And as he offered the man some more power, his wounds faded, his chest expanded outward, and the damage that was just inflicted was nothing more than an illusion, a memory.

"How did you..."

"You're part of me now," Wei said. Somehow, he just knew that. "You're part of me, and I..."

And as the young master took a step, he found himself back in the ship's communication center. There, several more soldiers turned and noticed him. The Trespasser who was passing through was present as well, and he looked as surprised as anyone else.

"Okay, what the fuck just happened?" the Trespasser said.

"I believe I've integrated the submarine with myself on some level." It constantly drained at Wei slightly, but the amount it sapped from him diminished with every passing second. It seemed like it was something he charged with his source, rather than something that constantly sapped from him. And strangely enough, he felt some of his essence flow back from the others, returned as if a refund from an overflow.

As the soldier stared at Wei, and Wei stared back at them, he waved his hands again, and they dissolved into smears of source. Just then the young master's breath hitched. He waved once more, and he pulled them back. They were rematerialized, gasping, clawing at their own bodies.

"Don't do that again!" one of them cried out. "Please, never do that again! I never want to go away again! Please don't! Don't!" They were on their knees, gripping Wei's pant legs.

And he stared. He stared at them, at his own hands, at the power he now wielded. Power over life and power over these people trapped between spaces. What was happening anymore? That was his question.

But just then, he felt someone board his submarine. He felt them enter like a malignant entity sliding into his flesh. And that was how he realized his senses were further attuned. The submarine practically felt like an extension of his body now.

And a loud whistle sounded through the submarine. Greatest entered the room, and he folded his arms as he regarded Wei. "Well, you sure integrated fast. I must admit, I didn't know that was going to happen, but—"

Wei waved a hand at Greatest. And the Prince of Pride's mouth briefly twisted into a frown as he was cast outside, displaced by Source.

“Okay,” Greatest called from outside the submarine. “Kind of rude. But how the fuck did you do that?”

The Young Master blinked. "I don’t know.”