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+--- Thread: Progress Never Sleeps [closed] (/showthread.php?tid=7302)
Progress Never Sleeps [closed] - Stormwind - 06-03-2014
Alexander stared into the darkness as it moved towards him,enveloping the cave around him before collapsing in on the exit that had been his plan of escape. There was nowhere to run now, and as he stared into the black void encroaching on him, he began to understand. This had been what he wanted, what years of research had led him to. He had come this far, and now all it wanted was a sacrifice from him.
He looked down at his hands and lifted his palm upwards, as a searing flame shot from his hand. It was a hot and intense flame, thin and long as it extended from his hand as if like a blade. He understood what he had to do; he understood now what it wanted. He took a few deep breaths, steeled himself for what was about to come, and shoved the flame into his left eye.
The searing pain shot through him as the eye quickly burned to a crisp, the socket bleeding only long enough before the fire would cauterize the wounds shut. The pain was unbearable, as he screamed into the empty void around him as his feet gave out from under him.
It was there, between the white hot pain and torment that he saw it, the vision. It was a book, one that he had in his collection, followed by a vision of something else. Something massive, something he knew he wanted. His brain exploded with pain and agony only long enough for him to see it before his eyes shot open.
It was dark still, but not like the constricting darkness from before. This was a familiar darkness, one that came with his residence and bed, at night. He sat up, breaking out of Rhianna’s slumbering embrace. He looked around as he breathed heavily, the cold sweat from another fitful nightmare dripping down his body and providing a greater chill to the already cool Ul'dahn night air coming in through the window.
Glancing out the window, he could see the flickers of light from the lit street lamps in the night. He could even make out a few voices, likely drunks, still moving through the streets.
He took a few deep breaths, wiping the sweat off his face and from his eyes, carefully navigating around the socket of his left eye so as to not stick his finger into it again by accident. A grim reminder of the incident that started the nightmares in the first place, and yet entirely worth the cost for what he gained in return. Nightmares, the lack of depth perception, the continuing therapy, physically and mentally, at Rhianna’s hands, the sleepless nights, all of it worth it for the insights it had brought, all worth it for the power.
RE: Progress Never Sleeps [closed] - Rhianna - 06-03-2014
At Alexander's movement, Rhianna instinctively started stroking his back and arms even before fully awakening. Months of dealing with his nightmares had honed her response. "You're safe. You're safe in bed, Alexander. You're just having a nightmare. It's all right. You're safe in bed. Dreaming."Â Her voice was soft, caring, and concerned despite being groggy from being awoken.
As she sat up, she glanced at the chronometer on the wall; they'd only been asleep two and a half hours. She groaned internally as she refocused her attention on her companion, hoping, perhaps futilely, to get him back to sleep after their three-day-long research and experimentation session.
RE: Progress Never Sleeps [closed] - Stormwind - 06-04-2014
Alexander looked down at Rhianna, still mostly asleep, as she tried to comfort him in her almost automatic response now. In the entire time since the incident, she had done her best to help bring him through the ordeal with most of his psyche intact, and to her credit, had otherwise succeeded. That said, Alexander both welcomed and rejected her constant presence.
She was a calming presence, the only single fixture in his life since their exile, other then Heavy Arms, and the only reason he had been able to get any sleep at all after the incident. Even so, he had more or less recovered some time ago and yet she still insisted that he stop to rest and sleep after only a scant few days of work. He still had to make up for the time he spent recovering.
Pulling his blanket away from him, he spun in bed and placed his feet on the floor. He couldn't get images out of his mind from the nightmare and he knew the recognized the book, the question was "where was it?". Alexander had a great many tomes in his ever expending collection, more and more having been brought in by outside parties he had paid to locate or otherwise procure them.
"I'm fine." he finally muttered, his breathing having steadied and most of the sweat having disappeared thanks to the cool breeze. He ran his hand through his greying hair and then brought his hands together, resting them on his mouth and his elbows on his knees.
"Where is that book?" he thought to himself. The other question of course is what book was it. Though he figured once he found it, the second question wouldn't really matter as much. He pushed himself from the bed, walking over and grabbing the fine robe he had hanging nearby and walking over to his bedroom desk. No books were kept here normally, it was reserved for secret correspondences, monetary transactions, and personal effects but he figured it was worth a look real quick.
RE: Progress Never Sleeps [closed] - Rhianna - 06-04-2014
"Bullshit..." she grumbled in response. She reached for him to pull him back to bed, but he slipped from her grasp. She grunted in annoyance. She knew this little song and dance and she knew she was going to lose, but damned if she wasn't going to try, at least a little, despite being entirely too tired for his pig-headedness.
She stumbled out of bed after him, more determined and dogged than awake. "Whatever it is, leave it for when the sun's up, or write yourself a note so you'll remember. You need sleep. We've been over this. When you don't sleep, you get tired and make mistakes. You don't need to be making mistakes in your equations."
'Not to mention -I-'d like some sleep, which I'm not going to get if you stay up...' she thought.
She stood beside his desk in her nightgown, glaring groggily at him as he rummaged through the books and drawers.
RE: Progress Never Sleeps [closed] - Stormwind - 06-04-2014
Alexander opened a drawer, checking for any books inside as Rhianna pulled herself from the bed and approached the desk. He closed the drawer, sighing in mild annoyance that the book couldn't be anywhere close by, and by the fact that Rhianna was now out of bed.
"Go back to bed." he muttered, not really in the mood to deal with her while he was trying to locate the tome.
"One does not simply "leave a note" when you receive a revelation like this. There is something important in that book, I just need to find. As for sleep, I slept three hours, that will be more then enough until I finish this." he said, opening another drawer and moving about some of papers within it.
"Furthermore, I do not make mistakes, and if I do you catch them. So they are no longer mistakes. What's more, I review everything I do multiple times. Besides, I won't be doing any kind of work until I find this book and understand why I need to find it."
He closed the desk drawer and shook his head.
"No, did not expect it would be here." he turned to his personal bookshelf now, running his finger over old and worn tomes, some of which with copies in the single digits to his knowledge. He would carefully pull them out, looking at the cover to see if any of them struck him as similar. Some of the newer looking tomes on the shelf were journals of his which held equations, designs, and the strangling ends of multiple projects all in some state of completion or "temporary hold", as Alexander worked on other projects.
RE: Progress Never Sleeps [closed] - Rhianna - 06-05-2014
"No. As long as you are up, so am I," she said, continuing to watch him as he went on. Her annoyance and frustration were growing, yet she wasn't in the mood to have the same argument yet again.Â
With a sigh of resigned exasperation, she sat carefully on the corner of his desk, ensuring that she didn't sit on anything important. As she crossed her legs, staring at him as he searched the room, the silken fabric of her night gown slipped, revealing her thigh, an unintentional gesture that went unnoticed by her.
Finally, she slammed her hands on the desk. "Book! Book! What is this book?!? Will you PLEASE explain why I've been roused from a measly two hours' slumber by a sadistic insomniac madman frantically rummaging through our room?"
RE: Progress Never Sleeps [closed] - Stormwind - 06-06-2014
Alexander was in the midst of looking through his own notebooks when the sound of Rhianna pounding on his desk stirred him from his thoughts.
"Book! Book! What is this book?!? Will you PLEASE explain why I've been roused from a measly two hours' slumber by a sadistic insomniac madman frantically rummaging through our room?" she yelled.
Alexander placed the book back on the shelf, turning towards Rhianna with an blank expression on his face. Her outburst had been expected, if she had only listened to his advice to go back to sleep.
"One..." he began "...insults don't become you my dear, we've been over this. While do have trouble sleeping, it is not for lack of trying, simply my nature. Furthermore, I do not enjoy inflicting pain on anyone, least of all yourself. I told you to go back to bed. Lastly...I suppose "mad" might be an apt definition of me for someone who is ignorant or unlearned, but you are neither."
"Two..." he continued "...this book I am referring to is one in my collection. During the nightmare I saw it during the climax, when I lost my eye. The nightmare was trying to guide me in the right direction and I feel it has something to do with a major breakthrough in the project. I only caught a glimpse of the book and have hard time remembering what it looks like, what with reliving the pain all over again. So, here I am. If I sleep, I may lose what little picture I have in my mind and it may be lost for good."
He turned back to the bookshelf, pulling out another book and glancing over it "Now, are you going to help, go back to bed, or sit there staring angrily at me until the back of my head explodes in flames?"
RE: Progress Never Sleeps [closed] - Rhianna - 06-06-2014
She glared back at him with a steely gaze. "As tempting as it is to set your head alight, I will be getting up. As much as you deny being a sadist, we both know it's only a matter of time before you find what you need and come barging in to wake me to assist with your work."
She sighed softly in weary resignation and slid off the desk, her bare feet setting down lightly on the cool stone floor. "Now, let's find this book. What do you remember of it? It's color? Size? Embossing? Binding material?"
RE: Progress Never Sleeps [closed] - Stormwind - 06-16-2014
Alexander placed the last book back onto the shelf and sighed, lifting his fingers to the bridge of his nose and giving it a squeeze as he tried to think. As he understood it, receiving these types of revelations often came from reliving something or experiencing some other form of out-of-body experience, but by God it was damn ineffective when it came to trying to remember it later. He made a note to try and look into better filtering the subconscious mind later.
"Size..." he muttered "...was the same as any of these other books." he motioned to the bookshelf in front of him. The books were of varying sizes, though no bigger or smaller then perhaps a sheet of parchment paper.Â
Turning away, he began muttering to him "Embossing. Embossing. Yes. Yes. Embossing. I do remember..." his voice trailed off as he stepped away from the bookshelf and moved across the room, opening the door to his office.
The office was the kind of place where the line between genius and madness could be appreciated. Everywhere, pieces of the past sat in an attempt to help shape the future in the mind of a man bent on maximizing their potential and cracking their mysteries. Books and parchments lay scattered across multiple bookshelves lined around the office in varying importance. The most important ones being near Alexanders desk. It was not uncommon for him to have Rhianna (or Ceilia if she was about), spend a day moving tomes out of the bookshelves because he had found more pressing ones or had moved onto another project.
More scrolls and parchment littered the ground, mostly covered in notes and alterations of some form or another. On other shelves and tables, magitek and allagan tech sat in various states of re- or dis- assembly. Captain Dogberry had been extremely useful in helping to procuring as much tech from the Garleans in this regard, and Alexander often mused about how fortunate their partnership had turned out to be, despite their obvious differences.
Other pieces of tech sat in bags or baskets close to another door at the end of the room, sitting at the entrance to his laboratory for review at a later time. Other bags sat intermixed with the tech holding standard and corrupted crystals, as well as pieces of materia.
Another table, covered everything from tech to materia, to scrolls sat in front of a large writing board, upon which contained a complex mix of geometric equations and arcane formulae the covered the board. Multiple alterations had been made, and at least two spots on the board had been rendered unusable, from what looked like having a hole blasted into it.
A little up from the center sat Alexander's desk. Ornate, heavy, and wood, it sat piled with books and scrolls that flowed over and spilled onto the ground around it. If the tidy, organized desk in the bedroom was the one from which he paid the world, then this desk would be the one from which he'd change it.
As he exited the bedroom, he cast his hand in front of him, paper and books blowing out of his way as he headed towards his desk. The lights in the room had yet to go out, though they rarely ever did considering his constant work schedule. Â The look in his eyes becoming more determined and frantic as he raced to locate the tome before the vision left his mind.
"It was certainly embossed, very fine, but not ornate. Color was dark leather, a brown if I can remember correctly. As for binding material; Hells if I know." he said quickly, as he reached his desk. He grabbed the books from their stacks, immediately checking them to see if they were the correct one before discarding them. The less important ones joined their brethren on the floor while the older or more important ones were dropped back on the desk.
RE: Progress Never Sleeps [closed] - Rhianna - 06-17-2014
"Average size, light brown, and embossed," Rhi repeated, running her hand through her short, brown hair as she looked about the room. The thought occurred to her that it could be anywhere in the cluttered chaos that was his side of the office. The only calm in that storm was the area around her desk, which she kept neat and organized.
Deciding that would be the quickest place to start, she searched her desk and shelves, pulling out books that matched the description he gave and stacking them upon her desk.
As she expected, it didn't take her long to search her area, and what books she did find were either records or notes and ideas from their conversations, four, in total, carefully scribed by her.
She then turned her attention to his nearest bookcase and began methodically searching, pulling out dark brown books, one by one, and setting them in the stack upon her desk. "Here, start going through these. I'll finish going through the shelves, then begin the rest of the piles if you don't find it among them."
RE: Progress Never Sleeps [closed] - Stormwind - 06-24-2014
Alexander dropped the last book on his desk after a few minutes and shook his head "Not here..." he muttered. The vision in his mind was getting more and more fuzzy and he was against the idea of reliving the nightmare again if it could be avoided, at least for the time being.
He turned around in the direction of Rhi's desk, where she had begun stacking books that matched the vague description he had given here. He walked over and began looking over them. All of them had some form or another of embossing, ranging from scuffed and dated, to newer and bright, and everywhere in between. As he lifts up another two books and examines them in his hands, he mutters under his breath.
"Leave it to something of this level of importance to manage to hide itself in here. Probably in a book that has nothing to do with the allagans."
He set the books down looking about the room.
"It couldn't be in a book that I have been using. No. It had to be in one that I either have not gotten to or did not deem as being of use and simply set it to the side. I know where all the important books are after all."
RE: Progress Never Sleeps [closed] - Rhianna - 06-24-2014
A sudden thought struck Rhi as Alexander went through her stacked books in vain. "You don't think it was in that stack of books you gave Ceilia to study, do you?"
RE: Progress Never Sleeps [closed] - Stormwind - 06-26-2014
Alexander shook his head as he dropped another book on the desk, continuing to look through the books as Rhi delivered them.
"No, I highly doubt it..." he paused, beginning to reconsider the thought. If he had dubbed the book otherwise inconsequential to his research but good reading material for Ceilia, it was entirely possible that he had sent it to Gridania with her. Alexander cringed at the idea of having to go to Gridania, it was too...green.
He set the books in his hands down and looked in Rhiannas direction now. "...though I suppose it's not entirely impossible. If the book had any outward importance, it would have been here, close by. Instead, we are getting to the outer shelves. So yes, I suppose it could be in her possession."
He glanced outside now, noting that it was still extremely early in the morning. "I'm not going to Gridania though." he muttered in an almost petulant voice.
RE: Progress Never Sleeps [closed] - Rhianna - 07-01-2014
As she finished emptying the bookshelves, she turned and started placing the discarded books back in their places with practiced ease. "We don't even know if she's in the city or out on mission. I doubt you'll be willing to wait for her to return? In which case, an extra set of eyes and ears would help in finding her." She knew it was likely yet another futile argument, but sometimes the gods favored her.