Recording #002 | June Log

[the_archive]

WHO | Jon and OTA.
WHAT | DITL mostly, with a few starts in the comments. Feel free to run into Jon anywhere mentioned. He's flexing his Knowing, so if you're interested in dropping some knowledge, that'd be lovely.
WHERE | The Castle, Thorne, the Library, the Dungeon
WHEN | Post-Festival through the rest of June

Realizing that his connection to the Eye is whole again rather soured the end of the Festival for Jon. He spent a day behind the curtains in his room, enduring a headache, but now that's settled down to a mute throb, he's walking off the rest of it while he wrestles with himself.

It's not a surprise, this reconnection. Ambrose told him the respite would only be for a few days. And it's not explicitly unwanted. There are a lot of questions to which he needs answers, and he knows he can seek out those answers, but not without some cost. He knows he'll do it, since the information isn't only for himself. He has to work up the courage.

And he hasn't read a statement in over two weeks now, which is... troublesome. Despite taking full advantage of the dining hall daily (okay, nearly daily), he's aware of a constant vague hunger.

So the walking is as much distraction as exploration. He's going to wear out his sandals pacing the corridors of the castle and the aisles of the library, walking out into the town. He mostly confines his town visits to mid-day, when folk are often too busy to waylay an "honoured guest."

Comments

[rehandle]

Space, bright and alight and alive, empty and teeming and neon and pitch, from one nowhere place to a thousand grasping hands to the inside of his iris as he fall into his own screaming mouth, to stillness.

Angry, violent plains of open void, speckled with great cell structures that swell and pulse, colour cutting through dark space like fractal knives of purple and green as angry clouds of starstuff loom. A face that appears from the darkness, roiling, a gargantuan mask of living rocklike stripes that eddy in waves, two piercing eyes of flaming purple set within them.

He doesn't know what it is when he sees it that first time, but he remembers that journey through everywhere as he returns here later to bargain with that vast entity. Dormammu of the Dark Dimension does not take that kindly, and for it Stephen dies. And dies. And dies. And dies. He bats away flaming rock with sacred mandalas until there is too much to keep at bay. He's engulfed in beams of boundless power and disintegrates to nothing. He's pierced through from every angle by spines of planet rock.

He loses count of the times. Of the ways. Time resets, he dies again, time loops, the spell holds. He hovers once again down from one swollen cell of land to another to face the glowering godthing, offer his bargain, and await an imminent demise.



There's a shift. Pronounced, dramatic, and immediately evident in the look on the stranger's face, the little noise he makes that can't have come from nowhere. There's a struggle going on in the man in front of him, however brief, and when it's over it leaves him looking — unwell.

Stephen's not sure what he'd felt. But there was a marked difference in the sense of the space between eyes closed and eyes briefly open. Before was standing far below someone looking out a window, a general sort of watched that only includes you because you're standing in the scene. Peripheral. The latter was something closer to a spotlight on a dark night, a breath down the back of the neck, the inevitability of being perceived.

Being looked at doesn't do that. Not with one pair of human eyes. His expression pinches into a faint frown, tight with opposing concern and caution.

"Is that a no?"

There's a blunt edge to the question, dry humour devoid of it's usual play. He doesn't move to help, stands rooted to his spot, waiting for whatever might follow. Unsure exactly what it is that he's walked in on.

[the_archive]

For a moment, it's all Jon can do to sit very, very still, cold sweat suddenly sticking his tunic to his sides, acid in the back of his mouth. Have the rest of the fears found him, is that it? That could have been half of them – the Vast, the Buried, the Lonely, the Spiral, the End... It felt like the Unknowing. But the face... and this man. Standing before that unknown entity, defying it.

Not human enough to die.

His eyes open, pupils constricted to mere punctuation as he stares at him, but this time Jon's only a man staring, scars standing out starkly in his face.

He manages to draw in a breath, rubbing his temple with a hand twisted by burn scars, and shakes his head. “Sorry. It's anyone's space. I was just startled.” He's not surprised to hear his voice unsteady. He forces a brief smile, but he doesn't dare look away just yet.

[rehandle]

Just startled. Sure. Startled enough to be watching Stephen like he might disappear if he blinks, and not knowing where he's gone would be worse somehow than seeing him. Startled enough to sound like he's been through the wringer more than once and is only just getting his breath back enough to seem as though he never lost it.

This man was not startled. He was something, but startled doesn't touch on it.

Stephen's expression remains impassive, silently taking in the detail of the man before him as his own scarred fingers twitch, ready to move into forms should he need them to. Though really, he can't see a threat here anymore. Whatever had swollen out in this little courtyard seems to have had its lid put back in place, leaving behind...

Well. That remains to be seen.

"What did you do?"

They could beat around the bush all day, but for what? Stephen intends to know the answer to his question before he leaves the courtyard. Why wait?

[the_archive]

No, evading isn't going to cut it. Even with the Eye put back at as safe a distance as he can manage (as if there is a safe distance), Jon can tell that. He gets to his feet, which - doesn't lessen his disadvantage of height by as much as he'd like. The tape recorder which had been hidden beside him remains on the bench, reels quietly spinning.

"I was asking something a question."

[rehandle]

He hadn't noticed the recorder before. A slide of his attention down away from the man himself to the piece of kit - where did he get it? Stephen's not seen anything even vaguely adjacent to his era naturally occurring here since arriving, a flag in and of itself - before raising his gaze again.

It's an answer. Generates more questions, but an answer. Stephen cants his head slightly, disapproval in the tight line of his smile. Come on, now.

"Something." It's a question even without the appropriate inflection. A prompt.

[the_archive]

Jon tears his gaze away from the stranger for the first time, glancing down at the recorder, and he hesitates, hand hovering for a moment before he turns it off.

"Something," he repeats, with a faint sigh, finger still on the plastic key as he takes a second to put together what he can safely say.

"I have. A patron," he says, choosing the words carefully. "And my connection to it was not severed by coming here."

[rehandle]

A further narrowing around the eyes. A patron. There's a strange combination of factors here: the entire foreboding sense that had come over him earlier merges with patron, with the tape recorder, and with the resignation in the face of the man who looks capable or inclined towards no more harm than Stephen would have expected of him had he walked into this courtyard and felt nothing at all.

He's not sure what the overall picture paints.

So, granting a little room to breath, he backs off on the accusatory tone. Judging people too harshly too early without a full understanding of the circumstances has never once done him any favours. He doubts that's the pivotal difference this universe hinges on.

"You brought something with you. A god? Some other entity?"

Direct but no longer demanding - alert, watchful, waiting for an answer or a next move. Edges softened but still on edge.

[the_archive]

"Let's file that firmly under other. It's not here, exactly." He could bristle at 'you brought,' but he's opted not to. Too unsure who or what he's speaking to.

"Does It Sees You mean anything to you?" Not the most common name he's heard for the Eye, but the one most likely to only mean something to those in the know.

[rehandle]

A little crease between the brows.

"No. Should it?"

Yes, if it's worth mentioning. Which leads him to believe that it's either not of his universe or any nearby dimension or it's dangerously well hidden. Though judging from the veritable lightshow of sensory awareness of itself it set off in him earlier, he's not convinced that last one is the case.

[the_archive]

"It's better that it doesn't." Helps Jon's hackles go down, at least a little. He folds his arms across his chest, rubbing Michael's scar through his sleeve with his thumb.

There's still a concern, though.

"I saw a face. And you."

[rehandle]

That's a broad claim. Stephen's expression says as much, the dip of his brow mildly critical. Him and a face? Wow, what an insight. But he can worry about what it was later. Prophecy or backward gazing? The more pressing matter is...

"What do you mean, you saw?"

Understanding what it is that they're dealing with here takes priority over whatever part of his life, past present or future, may have been opened to this man and thing he channels. His patron. It Sees You. Knowing what exactly it can do in more detail than what it says on the label.

[the_archive]

Jon exhales, looking around, though he's sure that here, at least, the walls have a minimum of ears. It's why he chose the shady little yard. "My patron gives me information," he says in a low voice. "I wasn't meaning to learn anything about you, but-" A grimace. "I'm sorry. I let it focus on you for a moment."

[rehandle]

Information. Alright. Any severity in Stephen's expression eases, the tension of the unknown giving way with at least a little light shined on the situation. It's not really his place to begrudge anyone an accidental glimpse of his life when he's not so long ago taken over fourteen million strolls through fourteen million instances of the lives of others.

Which isn't to say he wouldn't like to know what was seen.

"Okay. A face, you said. I'm going to need a little more than that if you want an elaboration."

[the_archive]

He nods, and frowns, the expression directed inwards as he sorts through what he took by accident.

"Dormammu," he pronounces, the name unfamiliar. It doesn't even draw an echo in the Eye, as far as he can feel.

[rehandle]

There's a brief twitch of a frown around the brows as that name hits and passes. It's not comfortable to hear it out of the mouth of a stranger in another world now that he knows it so well. Knows what it belongs to, what that power can do. He wonders for a moment what he'd do if Dormammu found a foothold in this place, what trick he could pull this time. He's stronger than he was then, but without the time stone...

It passes. He gives a little nod.

"The Cosmic Conqueror." Wong had used that name once. It would sound quaint if it weren't entirely accurate. "A primordial entity who rules over another dimension. With any luck, that's the last you'll ever see of him."

[the_archive]

The tape recorder clicks itself back on while Stephen speaks, and Jon immediately picks it up, turning it back off and taking out the tape to put it in his pocket. That's enough of you.

"What kind-" he starts, and then stops himself before he can ask another direct question. He takes a moment seeking alternate wording, and sighs. "I have questions," he says frankly. "But if I ask, you might not be able to choose how you answer. It's not entirely under my control."

[rehandle]

He watches the little encounter with the tape recorder with interest. Well, that explains that - modern or not, its place in time doesn't seem to be as important as whatever else it might be, no doubt wrapped up in the thing that looks out through the man who just resolutely denied it the option to listen in. It says something about him.

As does the fact that he asks. Asks if he can ask, anyway. It's not the most reassuring setup, can I or can I not briefly infringe on your autonomy, but it does give him a choice.

"Go ahead."

Worst comes to worst, he has a contingency. Though if they're about to go stumbling into an eldritch game of twenty questions -

"Dr. Stephen Strange."

They may as well know one another's names first.

[the_archive]

"Jon Sims. The Archivist." It's the first time he's said it here, in this world. But for all he's tried to dodge it, it's still as true as ever.

"What kind of an entity is that?"

[rehandle]

The Archivist. Something to note for later.

"An entity born of pure magical energy. They're called the Faltine after their realm, but Dormammu specifically rules over a dimension known as the Dark Dimension and is intent on subsuming all matter."

[the_archive]

"And it's not a fan of yours, I take it." Which seems to be a recommendation on this Strange's behalf.

"There aren't fourteen of them, by any chance?"

[rehandle]

"I'd assume I've graduated from his indifference to his active ire, yeah."

Stopping anybody from getting what they want would seem to have that effect.

... hmm. Interesting question.

"I don't know for certain. Why?"

[the_archive]

With Strange's words, Jon's shoulders drop a little, posture easing. Not relief, but decision.

"Because mine is one of fourteen, probably, and I'd like to be sure our problems aren't overlapping. That I'm not speaking to an avatar of any of the others."

[rehandle]

There's a pause for consideration. He's been asked no questions, but he's nothing to hide.

"I'm a Master of the Mystic Arts. A sorcerer, not an avatar. And if our problems had the potential for pre-existing overlap, there's a 98% chance I'd already know about it."

That's sort of his job. If Sims' patron were of his universe, influencing his Earth? He'd know. He'd have to, or what would be the point?

[the_archive]

Oh god, more magic.

"Mine hasn't had a chance to get very far here - and I'm doing my best to keep it that way - so what it can tell me about this world is still limited. Mostly to things in my general vicinity, things I've seen." His flat little smile is apologetic again.

[rehandle]

The suggestion of apology is acknowledged with a brief upward pinch of the corner of his mouth, more a nod in the face of an inside joke than a don't worry about it. It's done, he's not holding a grudge.

"Good to know we've got eyes in the sky." So to speak. "Even if it doesn't sound like it'd be a good idea to rely on them."