(Rose)
Eldorado was closer than expected. One of its borders at least.
We were in between slopes and cliffs, high in the mountains, when we reached it.
It felt like reaching the great gate of a city-state domain in Antiquity. The monunt was just there, in the middle of nowhere and visible from great distance.
It was a big monolith of blue granite rock, sculpted in an entangled shape, like a giant knot, a few tres tall. Sothing akin to a European galith in so ways. The sculpture could have been human made, since there was nothing surreal to achieve there.
But given its biological look, the location in the wilderness, and a few other details we could notice, we understood it was most likely not the work of humans. The artist and architect here were sothing from the city of gold.
Rather than gold, we should say gleam.
Nightmare and Blu could see so sort of ley lines, invisible roots of T.I. that reached as far as here, and no further.
Over the landscapes from this plateau, we could notice a few other crashed monoliths like this one, scattered over the land. And they could see they were sohow connected to a wide and invisible web below.
N – It’s one of us.
B – These tendrils are definitely the kind of structures we do as we focus on spread over the land.
R – So here begins the domain of another god. Can you communicate with it?
B – Not really. This one hasn’t achieve any consciousness I can detect. It feels closer to a plant than even a real plant would be.
R – What do you an?
B – Even plants have so form of intelligence to adapt and communicate. Here I detect nothing. It’s an approximation of life without feedback. It’s closer to an automaton than a plant even is, intelligence wise. It’s huge though obviously. It spreads over dozens of kilotres.
R – Well, bottom line is, is it safe for us? Or do we risk angering another pantheon?
N – It’s just a plant. Nothing to worry about.
We enter the outer edges of its ramifications.
We enter its land.
~
The weather is a little softer behind the border of propagation. The vegetation is also slightly more lush. Not a lot, but enough to be noticeable.
We pass by other monoliths along our way. They look like bluish granitic boulders that have been carefully sculpted and carved into round shapes crawling and rolling over themselves. Like intestines maybe?
It’s the only similar picture I get to mind, but these rocks don’t look nearly as grim.
We eventually notice they are all slightly leaning toward our destination. So are broken.
B – I think they are sothing like seeds and anchors. They’ve been thrown around as far as possible from the city, and the city grows slowly catching the way back to them.
It reminds of the ti I attached a weightless thread to my arrows.
R – So it sends fishing lines blindly away, and grows over them as they beco anchor?
B – That’s what it looks like to currently. That this thing only sense of perception with the outside world is through this manner of reaching out.
R – I hope no rocks of this size falls on us. Though I guess it would only try to extend the borders further away then?
B – Probably yes.
Maybe we’ll see rocks fly above soday.
For now we reach small woods, and shrubs bearing fruits. A good find for us.
As night falls, we begin to notice the gleam of a light behind the next mountain.
It does feel a little like a real city could live behind.
It’s a little.. bittersweet.
Because I know to the human , it’s a mirage.
Whatever makes this light glow in the night, it’s nothing human. It’s too unlikely.
Despite looking a little as if that could be the case from here... It’s false hope.
But I quickly get over that feeling.
R – What can you feel?
Nightmare looks as if she’s listening to the wind. Her hair has grown a little over ti.
Blu uses her spores to look through the T.I. what’s around.
It appears that like they both used to do in their own tis, there are magical blood vessels or roots that are stretched through the land, buried in the ground.
The monoliths clearly act as nodes and landmarks for that network.
More than showing the outside limits of this thing’s territory, they give it spatial awareness of itself in reality. It’s throwing stones attached to spools. They’re not for us or anyone else, they’re just there to help it grow and get so more awareness of space and reality.
B – It really doesn’t speak nor even think. It’s clearly alive, but not detecting nor reacting to us. I don’t think it’s able to perceive our presence in any way or form.
R – Definitely closer to a machine than a plant so?
B – Indubitably.
It always makes grin when she speaks like that.
We see a couple more of roses lizards, running together in the distance. So it’s a species thriving around here.
Our journey continues forward peacefully.
At night, maybe it’s my imagination, but the stars look brighter than usual.
Space appears closer. Maybe I’m already inside a dream.
Of that ti lost between my past and my original’s future, the one thing that amazed the most, was the unreal extent of our knowledge of the wider universe.
These pictures of stars and galaxies, in a universe in reality far too wide to describe. A vertigo of futility for us, and infinity for the universe. I rember that mont very well.
I will never forget that feeling, from that very mont when I saw, just a glimpse, of the entire universe.
Humanity saw that. Hundreds of years ago. That still is and will always remain probably the most fantastical thing I ever encounter in my existence. The pictures of galaxies. Too many to count, far beyond ours, in every direction...
As I look at the stars, I feel that vertigo again.
That sparkling void is limitless.
And at tis... I haven’t felt that way in a long ti; I feel a vertigo as if I’m about to fall out there.
Fall into the void that is the sky.
As I lie on the ground, I hold myself to the grass next to my bedding, my heart beating faster. Sowhere, I’m still that child afraid to fall into the endless void of the sky.
The dizziness fades as I fall into slumber instead.
Ahead of us, sothing bright and mysterious awaits.
~
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