That's the thing about prisms.

The days pass. You may be losing track of how many have passed this way; whether that's due to your sense of time being irreparably skewed or just the sheer monotony of being down here is difficult to say.

Your bodies seem to have stopped changing, in that the alterations you've experienced haven't spread since the death of the Shimmer; however, those alterations don't seem to be fading at all, either. It seems, in that way, that the Shimmer succeeded in its goal; you are no longer entirely what you once were - something new has been created.

And the longer you're down here, the plainer it becomes that whatever you are, you aren't being released. You may have changed, but the situation is not; the chances that it will are low.

If you're going to leave this place, you're going to have to make your own opportunity.

One question remains: Will you?

The next chamber you'll see isn't a chamber at all; rather, it appears to be the cave opening proper, leading to a view of the mountain proper. The crystallized trees and other flora that have been touched by the Shimmer are burning, those bright white flames reaching skyward, more and more patches of them going up as the fire seems to stretch upwards from the ground, almost as though trying to burn the sky itself.

For the first time in a long time, the sky is dark above you.

It won't take long before it brightens with fire and smoke, but the soft colors of the iridescent aurora that have been marring the sky with the Shimmer's light have gone. The repugnant glow of the Shimmer is dead; from what little can be seen of the foot of the mountain, the boundary no longer exists.

All that's left is this world, and all that belong in it, and you.

You're all marked by your time here, however; all of the changes brought down on you physically are still present, and even those with no drastic physical changes will notice at least one - namely, the irises of everyone's eyes have gone bright and prismatic, ringed with that same iridescence you've just spent the last while destroying.

The Shimmer is dead.

The Shimmer is with you always.

The mountain burns, and you may as well watch it.

And for a time, there's nothing else to do.

You don't know how long you're alone, but eventually, there will come the knowledge that you aren't alone anymore - the relative quiet of the night is broken by the sound of something approaching, something large and mechanical, vehicular in nature. One sound turns into many, and it isn't long at all before you're greeted by a military convoy.

The transport stops just short of you, doors to the back of one of the vehicles slamming open as numerous soldiers emerge, quickly taking their places and aiming their guns at you. Within moments, you're surrounded.

You won't have to wait long for an explanation; two more people emerge from a different vehicle to the first, and the soldiers part to let them through easily. The first is unfamiliar to all but one of you; he's a tall man wearing a military-inspired uniform in all black, one hand glowing with powerful dark magic. The shorter woman beside him is all too familiar, however, someone you likely aren't pleased or surprised to see.

Vitali is here.

She stands before you, straight-backed and formal, dark uniform standing starkly against the flames; her gaze is hard as she looks over the group, and she tips her head to glance at the man beside her.

"They've got fifteen. Better than the last group that came out."

Her attention is returned to the group then; she doesn't smile.

"I have no idea what you guys did, but the boundary's down. We're here to bring you home, and since this little party isn't a democracy, I don't want to hear any whining. Put your weapons down and come quietly. Hubert - make sure they don't do anything too stupid. Either they come with me, or they don't come at all."

You heard the woman.

The doors on the back of the military transport are heavy, when they close and lock behind you; it's dark. But at least you're all being kept together, even if you've been thoroughly disarmed.

You might want to take some time to reflect. To talk. To do whatever it is there is to do back here on the way back down.

After all, there's no telling what will happen next.

The further in you go, the thicker the calcification becomes.

The crystals on the walls are difficult to make out now, having been encased entirely by thick white growths encompassing the walls like spider veins, like roots; their energy, however, can still be felt if you wander too close to the walls, or if you spend too long recovering yourself after something sufficiently stressful has come into your line of view. This may be more for a problem for some of you than it is for others; some of you are holding up surprisingly well, all things considered.

It isn't a failing on your part, when it hits you.

It's hard to say precisely what "it" is - a sudden fatigue, a seizure, an abrupt swirling of the world beneath your feet; all you know is that you're here, and then you aren't anywhere, and it takes a moment to place what brought the feeling on, or even what the feeling itself is. It will come to you eventually, however, once your eyes refocus and the cavern comes into view again for you properly - it feels like that first week you were here. Like reawakening after a long stint asleep; like being disoriented after realizing that you're not where you should be.

The difference this time is that you are, for all intents and purposes, still where you should be.

You don't seem to have gone anywhere; it doesn't feel like you've lost that much time, even, if you've lost any at all. But the fact of the matter is that something feels different, and it feels wrong, and placing how proves to be difficult.

There's a bend in the path, and suddenly it becomes all too clear.

You aren't supposed to be here, are you?

This place can be anything and everything - the hallway in the upper floor of your house, the bar you frequent, that place where all your comrades are buried. What matters is that it's somewhere you weren't sure you would see again, but the fact of it is that you're seeing it here, and you're seeing it now, and perhaps some of the others with you are seeing it too. Perhaps there are others here, those that have been on your mind for the past few days; perhaps you're all alone outside of whomever is questionably fortunate enough to be experiencing this with you.

Whatever you're seeing, however, something remains present in your mind, driving you onward and encouraging you to move through this, and quickly.

You don't belong here.

You need to leave.


[OOC: Welcome to the first half of our week 5 event! For this portion of the event, the hallucinations you've experienced up until now have become far more thoroughly immersive, and can be seen or experienced by others in something akin to a shared dream-state. These visions are likely to delict something from your world that you would find familiar and would have some sort of attachment to, whether that attachment is positive or negative. Monsters or other people from your world can be present here and interacted with, to deal with as you see fit; fighting them or speaking to them are both fair game. Conversely, your personal experience may be exploring or revisiting an area of your world that may or may not be how you remember it...

Please note that the mods will not be NPCing any characters in your visions or answering questions specific to the environments that you create. However, you are free to create as you see fit; time and space have very little meaning here, and your only limitations to your character's personal illusion/dreamscapes are your own creativity. Feel free to post any prompts you may want to play with, and to tag out to others to experience whatever they want to show you. (However, it is worth noting that any physical items you find in the visions will not remain in their possession afterwards.) As always, if you have any more questions about how works, let us know!]

The Shimmer may have left you physically, but it's always with you; it's something it had insisted on yesterday, and it's something that continues to be pervasive even now, both in thoughts and within you in other, perhaps more noticeable ways. The statements that have been made weigh heavily; your surroundings continue to be influenced by something or other - plants you recognize are still present here, even as the trees themselves continue to crystallize, growing glassy white and transparent around mechanical insides - and the changes to your physical bodies are becoming more evident and difficult to ignore.

Perhaps more disturbingly, when you went to sleep in the clearing there were sixteen of you.

When you wake up, there are fifteen.

No matter how many headcounts you take, you keep coming up one short; the fact of the matter is that Rean Schwarzer is no longer among you. There's no visible evidence of where he's gone, and all of his belongings are still here; perhaps in some part of your mind, the possibility registers itself - maybe he's not with you because he went to the Shimmer. Not in the same way the cultists went, and not in the same way the ring of bodies seems to have gone, but maybe...

The thought is difficult to shake; the fact of the matter is that he isn't here, and you probably don't want to stay here. After all, your options are currently either to do what you set out to do, to return to the base and very possibly be killed for your efforts, or to remain here with the corpses.

The hike uphill is steep; perhaps it's fortunate that you're no longer tiring out like you used to. It's easier to keep going nowadays, even if it feels somewhat mechanical in doing so; your limbs know what they're doing, even if there's some reason for your mind to disagree. You seem to be making good time in moving toward the site of the initial impact of the meteorite; perhaps it won't be much longer before you find your objective.

That is, if all goes according to plan.

SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY | FRIDAY

Unlike the past while that you've spent in the Shimmer - that you can remember, anyway - the end of the week doesn't seem to bring with it any sort of town for you to enter; there is no civilization, there are no buildings, there's simply nothing that may indicate that this place has been touched by people anytime recently. It's easy to keep going; the incline of the terrain is becoming familiar to you, and the fact of the matter is that you aren't tiring in the same way that you used to. It isn't that you have more energy, it's simply that you lack fatigue.

It seems almost natural to continue until evening begins to fall, until an odd eerie twilight throws the forest into shadows that are quickly growing longer and darker; you can still see, that's more than simple enough, but the day is wearing on, and as such it's likely welcome when the trail opens up again into another one of those clearings.

Of course, given what you found in the last one, it might be for the best to proceed with caution once you notice the trail starting to widen.

The path you followed to get here was long, but not particularly difficult; the map, rudimentary though it may have been, at least gave you a direction to take at the start, and the path itself seemed decently-worn. Not a paved road, but perhaps it had been something else once - a country backroad, a way to get partway up the mountain that only those in the area itself knew.

You haven't met any people on your journey, however. Any signs of survivors are either nonexistent or too difficult to find among the dense trees of the forest - and they are beginning to become denser now, pressing in a bit closer as you move further up; in fact, it's only the widening of the spaces between the trees that gives you any indication that you've crossed over into a town at all.

It doesn't seem terribly intact; eventually buildings will draw up around you, but they appear run-down and are coated in vegetation - not the crimson moss that at least some of you have come to associate with the dead, but rather the sort that's colored a slick, dark green, coating simple wooden structures that once were one-story homes adorned with porches and front steps, the sort of thing that may have once seemed cozy or comfortable to at least some of you. But there's something else that prevents those sorts of feelings from ever surfacing; it's a persistent, undeniable emptiness, nothing foreboding or silent or even all that unexpected, if you're honest with yourselves - but it's there all the same.

The sense that you're looking at something that once was, but isn't anymore.

What's striking about it, however, isn't the sense of loss and abandonment that comes with the place, however; it's the abundance and presence of things that are still very, very much alive.

This place has become a sanctuary.

The remains of the town streets are nothing more than meadow now, all running thick with brambles and thin vines, the out-of-season snowdrops and the stray orange lilies and the bluebells from your trip up here running heavy to mingle with fluffy camellias blooming large and bright from the same vines supporting wisterias as they wind through the eaves and overhangs of long-rotted porches, hydrangeas pumping their sickly-sweet scent through the air, windows overflowing with bougainvilleas and primroses.

Some of the homes are still standing, but most have been overtaken; it's difficult to tell what all of these buildings even were. But one thing remains relatively untouched, save for the ivy that seems to be almost choking it - a simple church with a tall steeple, located on the far end of the open square you find yourself standing in.

Other than the church, however, something about this place just seems off, in a way that you've likely come to find familiar - you have the distinct feeling that you're being watched. And the longer you look at this place...well, some important details might start surfacing. The sort that imply you're not quite as alone as you may have thought.

You've come all this way. Only one question remains.

Do you want to see?