Samsara

As the team proceeds down the hallways into the server room, T-5 Nanku’s SCRAMBLE optical implant begins to activate, signalling that an anomalous meme is being filtered out. However, T-5 Nanku had previously disabled the visual cue for the warning on her optical overlay, instead relying on the audio cue that accompanied the implant. The audio warning does not trigger at all.

It is not until the team enters the primary server room that T-5 Onru realizes that no sound is audible at all, regardless of the source. Thinking at first that it might be her auditory implant, Onru removes the implant and restarts it, but after establishing that it is functioning properly, she attempts to communicate this with Irantu.

Irantu motions for the team to hold and attempt to discern the source of the anomalous influence. As they do, each other team member receives the warning that their SCRAMBLE filters are being triggered. Munru motions towards the door they entered through, but Irantu motions towards the back of the server area, towards the research wing.

It is during this silent discussion that Nanku first notices movement across the large room. Motioning for her teammates to stay still, each team member begins to hear a quiet whining sound, which slowly grows in intensity. As they huddle up, Munru notices writing on one of the server racks, written in black fluid, that says “SILENCE” and then “DON’T LOOK”. He motions towards the racks, and the team acknowledges it.

Irantu motions for the team to move towards the far wall, and they slowly proceed between the server racks towards the back exit. Suddenly, Onru catches a momentary glimpse of a large entity across the room, and stops her teammates from advancing. She looks around the corner, and sees the entity again as it comes back into view.

The entity is a massive, multi-limbed figure. The primary structure of the entity is a floating, cross-legged, humanoid construct with six legs, eighteen arms, and thirty-six forearms attached to seventy-two hands. Each limb moves independently, gesturing and posing in constant, sudden, jerking movements. The entity does not have a head, but instead has a large, flat, circular structure attached to its upper chest that is covered in a large number of symbols and glyphs, which glow with bright white light against the entity’s dark grey-brown skin. On each of the entity’s arms are a gold band, attached to a chain, which drags the ground when not being pulled around in one of the entity’s gestures. The golden bands are etched with glyphs later identified as being powerful antikinetohazards3, though the chains are broken and the antikinetohazards are inactive. Most notably, a single severely emaciated, severely charred human figure is bound to the flat circular structure of the entity’s head. This figure twists against its restraints, and appears to be screaming, likely the whining sound heard through the entity’s muting kinetohazard4. As the entity performs its gestures, the glyphs on its head illuminate rapidly, often causing burns where the human’s skin comes in contact with them, creating further distress and increasing the volume of the whining.

T-5 Onru also notices that some aspect of the entity is creating a severe malfunction in her optical implants, singeing the circuits responsible for handling the SCRAMBLE calculations. She looks away, ejecting the implants before they damage her retinas, and motions to the rest of the Tau-5 team to not look at the entity directly. The team acknowledges, and they continue to move forward.

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