Dr. Hannibal Lecter is ready for the labyrinth

[cook_the_rude]

The door opens, and Dr. Hannibal Lecter looks in.

The door closes again.

The door opens again, and Dr. Hannibal Lecter strides in, wearing sturdy clothing and sensible hiking shoes as well as carrying a small canvas rucksack.

From it, he takes some fruit and leaves them with the bar.







Then, he takes off his coat and has a coffee while he appears to wait for something.



[[meta: ep is open, but all other threads must happen before yrael]]

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[mogget_cat]

Yrael blends right in to the colorless, treacherous expanse of ice, his teeth showing white against pale lips as he grins. "Oh, I do hope it's the one I remember."

The not'shoggoth, or whatever it was, had tasted like salmon, Hannibal. The best salmon one can imagine. And that's really good salmon.



As it turns out, it's not the one Yrael remembers - fewer eyes, more tentacles, a persistent regeneration ability and a tendency towards speechifying - but it's an enjoyable meeting nonetheless.

Yrael chuckles, offering a hand up to the doctor as they reach the bottom of the crevasse in which the Delta-signed door awaits. "I would have thought that ten thousand years would be too short a time to forget what it feels like to be surprised, wouldn't you?"

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal takes the hand, and together they pass to the next world.

"Surprise," he says, "will always take you by surprise. I quite enjoy it."

He closes the door behind them, and looks around.

[mogget_cat]

They emerge into bottom of some sort of pit, a roughly hexagonal space some thirty feet across. The walls of the pit seem to be made of spun glass, organic whorls and webs with no set pattern, reflecting the sunlight high above in miniature rainbows and bright glimmerings.

"It seem the only way out is up," remarks the Bright Shiner, stepping over to touch one of the seemingly-spun-glass whorls. "If these walls will hold us."

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal looks up the tall, shimmering walls. "Now, let us see if that filigree structure will carry us," he says. "Glass can be astonishingly resilient. It is actually a liquid."

He pushes against the wall.

[mogget_cat]

The wall doesn't budge, and there is no sound of creaks or cracks within its structure. Yrael spots a curved end whorl of one strand of the glass or glass-like material some three feet above his head, and leaps to catch hold.

And there he hangs suspended for a moment, the lone strand showing no sign of strain from his weight. Satisfied, he drops back down. "It seems quite solid. There should be plenty of hand- and foot-holds on the way up."

[cook_the_rude]

"Then let us go," Hannibal says, and starts climbing.

[mogget_cat]

If a strand with only one connection to the rest of the structure can hold Yrael's weight when he feels like being solid, the interconnected structure itself should have no trouble holding either of them on the way up.

They climb towards the pale yellow sky that glimmers overhead, seeming to reflect the sunlight high above. The pit in which they had found themselves is a little less than three times as deep as it is wide, and it is sometime later that they find themselves at the top, climbing up onto a smooth, branching walkway of the same glasslike material.

"...Certainly seems like a theme," Yrael remarks faintly disapprovingly, as he looks around. As far as the eye can see, there are multitudes of hexagonal pits fitted together, bounded only by the thin walkway they now find themselves on. Some pits are closed off with some of the same glasslike material.

Given the size of the pits, it's not a theme Yrael likes that much.

[cook_the_rude]

"I do hope these bees are so big they don't even notice us," Hannibal says, walking along the rim as if it were even ground.

[mogget_cat]

"Yes," Yrael says, glancing upward as they walk.

Because he's noticing that the sky is... not a sky at all. Merely a roof so far away as to be difficult to distinguish as such. He won't wonder what the light source really is.

"But, in a rare circumstance, I find myself not curious to find out what meeting them would be like. It would be more trouble than it would be worth."

Bees do not attack in ones or twos, after all, but in swarms, and there is no cover for the travelers here. The pits are presumably wide enough to let a bee in, and would at best be a corner to back into.

[cook_the_rude]

"The next door should be at the bottom of some other shaft of honeycomb," Hannibal says. "At least these are all empty."

There is a sound like far-away buzzing. Very far away. It's like one of those large fireworks the sounds of which carry for miles and miles.

[mogget_cat]

"I would hope there would be a better way than checking each of them in turn," Yrael remarks, looking up at the strange light - sun-like, yet not. Not with the far, strange glittering sky beyond it, a roof of the same comb on which they stand.

[cook_the_rude]

"We don't want to leave where the bees leave," Hannibal says. "We don't want bees at all, if we can help it. I don't know from how far I might be able to smell the magic of the door, but you might be able to sense it? Make it resonate with yours?"

[mogget_cat]

"I have not yet found a magic of other worlds to resonate with my own," the not'cat muses.

Then, in an idly curious manner, he whistles a quick, complicated series of notes. Not even a half-tune, but they echo oddly for such an open space. As the echoes fade, a faint, iridescent sphere of light appears before him.

"A wayfinding spell," he explains. "To find one's path when all other markers have been lost. I am not sure if it will work as it should, within the labyrinth, but we shall see." Yrael steps forward, tracing a precise, equilateral triangle into the center of the sphere.

[cook_the_rude]

The sphere hovers for a moment, then drift off in the direction of the faint buzz they are hearing.

"Of course," Hannibal murmurs, swiftly following. "Sneaking in and out completely without contact would be against the flow of the narrative."

[mogget_cat]

"I have heard that a good story must not include unnecessary elements."

There is a name for it.

"So if the bees are there to possibly encounter," Yrael says, striding alongside, "they must be encountered."

However much Yrael would... rather not.

[cook_the_rude]

"Then we must make sure to encounter it on our own terms," Hannibal says, following the wayfinding spell.

[mogget_cat]

"Yes," Yrael nods. "I am curious about their light source. There is radiant heat and light, and energy being consumed, but it is not the same as what a star might give off. It is smaller, closer, and feels... somewhat organic in nature."

They soon crest a slight rise in the gently undulating combscape, and can see what lies beyond.

In the distance, the comb begins the rise in a gradual slope, up, up, more and more steeply... until it becomes as vertical as a wall. Upon that wall, is a busy group of their good hosts. The fuzzy bodies of the bees are over ninety feet long, almost thirty feet wide. But where their bodies are clearly organic, the bees' heads and extremities are not. The buzzing vibrations of many wings, each like a clear, stained glass window of enormous size, is loud and clear now. And over the buzzing can be heard the sharp sounds of large, metal jaws, and the glittering of their many-faceted eyes is clear.

[cook_the_rude]

"Of course, they are half-robotic," Hannibal remarks as he keeps moving towards them. "I wonder if their in-hive sun might be some kind of reactor, some sort of central communicator, or both."

He looks up at the light source.

"These bees are so large, they might not end up noticing us, the way we don't notice dust-mites in the carpet. Unless one of the cyborg worker bees is allergic to us..."

[mogget_cat]

"It is certainly something to keep in mind," he murmurs, the wayfinding spell leading them up the gradual beginnings of the incline.

"I would like to know more about the process by which these creatures might be made. The traditional way would not seem to apply, despite the ubiquity of honeycomb." Metal circuitry and mechanical hinges do not happen naturally.

[cook_the_rude]

"They are probably grafted when young," Hannibal speculates as he follows the incline. "These combs seem all empty. They can't be pleasant in larval stage, either."

[mogget_cat]

"Grafted by whom and for what purpose?" muses the Bright Shiner, glancing again at the sunlike light before going back to watching the busily buzzing group of workers above them.

"They must be of some value to someone or something, to make the effort worthwhile."

[cook_the_rude]

"The continued existence of a potential hive mind?" Hannibal suggests. "Unless there are bee-keepers. Both theories aren't mutually exclusive, either."

[mogget_cat]

"Whatever 'honey' they make may act as fuel, perhaps, for their sun to burn," Yrael murmurs, for they are reaching a point where they are going to have to begin climbing again, drawing near enough to the worker bees above them that extraneous noise could possibly alert the gigantic creatures to their presence.

[cook_the_rude]

Silently, Hannibal climbs. He is quite nimble, creeping along the steep edge.

[mogget_cat]

It is not like climbing a mountain, no loose stones to fall and clatter, no leaves underfoot to shift and crackle. They climb in silence as the steep incline becomes truly vertical, and they continue to follow the faint wayfinding spell that guides them, towards the lumbering creatures above.

They are nearly level with the strange, sunlike source of illumination for the hive, when without warning it gives a bright pulse of light, casting the travelers' shadows starkly upon the comb wall. Above them, the pitch of the buzzing rises sharply in agitation.