Re: The Pattern Room
Ariadne had only known about the existence of "real magic" for about a week or so now. But she was adapting, she thought, fairly quickly. Admittedly, she hadn't actually seen a whole lot of it yet, she had to qualify. There were a few "magically" lit torches here and there, and certainly stories everyone seemed to tell about "adventures in other worlds" and whatnot.
But, to be brutally honest, in many aspects, Amber felt more like a high end, very expensively done, Renn Faire, than a place of actual fundamental magic.
The Pattern, though, was something else entirely. Still, of course, there felt like there was room for plausible deniability. Sparks and little shocks went up her legs and seemingly into her soul when she walked it, and she felt like the very life essence was being leeched from her body with every step, but that could, conceivably, be from some kind of electrical field, carefully calibrated. It was a bit of a stretch, as explanations went, but it still kind of fit the facts.
Reaching the center of the Pattern, Ariadne felt a sense of accomplishment that surpassed anything she'd ever done before in her life. Sure, it felt more like she'd run a gauntlet of tazers and exposed wiring, rather than a Fundamental Power of the Universe, but it was still damned impressive.
But now...what to do? She'd been told, by various people throughout the castle, that once One reached the Center of the Pattern, One go simply...wish...to go, well, anywhere.
Literally anywhere.
She could go to the Amber kitchens, or she could go back to Boston, to her father's house. To her LA apartment.
To that cool hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Boston's Chinatown, Tung Chow's, where she'd had her first crush. To her old classroom back in Catholic School, Sister Mary Of Constipation, as she and her friends had called it. Wow, she was tempted by that, she had to admit. To magically appear in front of a Catholic Catechism class, and watch nuns' heads explode.
And that was just the tip of the proverbial, magical iceberg. She could also go to any world, any place she could picture, or even imagine.
She could go to a world of futuristic spaceships, or one where the Old Wild West was alive and well, or a world where donuts and bacon grew on trees. Heck, she could go to that world where the Teletubbies lived.
It was a mind boggling idea.
And one that she hadn't really given a lot of thought to, because, frankly, she wasn't entirely positive she'd have survived the experience, especially since she knew so little about what to expect.
Now, though, she was in the center of the Pattern, and could go anywhere.
Honestly, she just wanted to go to her room, for a nap and a bath, and a change of clothes.
And not necessarily in that order.
She thought about her mother's room, where she was staying. The large, luxurious bed, with ornate wardrobe with its secrets, the expensive and fancy drapes and bedspread.
And she thought about it, VERY hard.
It was like falling, in a way. Like she was being pulled through reality, stepping through a doorway, all the while standing still. Like that spot in front of her bed was being brought to her, rather than her being sent there.
It was a giddy feeling. Empowering. Intoxicating. If she didn't think that the Pattern was such a death trap, she'd love to do that again sometime.
Then, she was there. In her mother's room. Ari blinked her eyes, looking around.
"Um...hello?"
She wasn't sure why she spoke out loud. It was as if she wasn't entirely positive that what she was seeing in front of her eyes was actually real, and speaking would knock down the illusion, showing her cousins and the Pattern still there.
Reaching out, she felt the soft, thick bed spread, the one that kept her so warm in this drafty castle. Ari squeezed it tight, gasping in relief, as if the blanket was some kind of lifeline that allowed her to know that what she'd just endured had really happened.
It had really happened. She'd walked the Pattern.
Though, frankly, at the moment she felt like the Pattern had "walked her". Chuckling to herself, she started stripping off her clothing and gear, getting ready to wash a marathon's worth of sweat from her body.
Ariadne paused, and, with a wry curiosity, pulled her cell phone out of her carrying case, and tried turning it on. She wasn't really expecting anything from her phone, something that had been essentially a paper weight for the last few days, but she was curious.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:52, Wed 08 Dec 2021.