Not be long now, on the hour. 3. 2. 1. And it is shifting.
The Café was melted and shattered, some glitched clothing and others were wax figures. She seen this when leaving her origin tome, and here it happens again. Often. This area of greater London the outer layer according to the map and even smaller fragments in the most inner parts which is ear marked as the actual city of London which sits on the roman London settlement.
If the soul traits are broken enough in the wrong ways. Beings become tangled in slips these time gaps. It flexed like a snap bracelet and everyone is exactly how they were when the left the portrait gallery. Everyone experiences this moment differently, this happens to undertakers the most and thus experience time in disorderly ways. Some folks like Daniel and Philip will be ahead of knowing what comes next. Jessica will be stuck in the moment. Josh will be left behind. All due to soul traits. Enders are used to repeating time. Cursed soul contracts like the one Josh was tied to by Marcus causes 'lost time' - being left back from everyone else's alertness. It is just them as Laura knew from leaving the gallery, a smaller private table.
Matthew holding her arm like he owns her. Jessica and Josh looking bloody in the dreamscape they wear to protect themselves in. Daniel in his trench coat, his end of tome status. Philip has pulled himself to follow them is a corpse version of his younger prince days, looking like he just escaped the mage tower with gun shot hole. Laura is in her corpse bride tapestry busted clay; evaluating the scene of finished plates remains meat and blood. The main business is gurgling 'monsters', mutant half animal creatures and humanity in their eyes. The smell of plague and dying but a burnt tone of life thriving against the odds and genetic break downs. She nods certain of things. She gets the groups attention from not triggering a fight flight response with the locals. She signals to not smile or stare at eyes. Everyone got that rule quickly, softly she nods and speaks up.
"We are in keeping of the Elizabeth Tower Clock. The Bell that everyone knows as Big Ben will shift us to the next available zone that we fit in. Not always to our favours." She watched around for any listeners, none that she can tell for now, "There is micro skips in some areas due to those places controlled by dangerous other factors, but the big ben bell is our main counter. There is several versions of death to avoid too." Philip tilted confused and she eye rolls, "Several broken tome versions of insanity took responsibility in these time stop zones. This is where many versions the animal side of Death go for hunt, the corpse seeker types." There some nods by the Enders of the group and Jessica is lost, "The black death is a certain guaranteed history event. A cog event as we oddities know it as. As is the walking on the moon, that is a cog event. Cog event define the era and time period." She slips another check, "We are not in any tome owned by you lot. This is a godless universe, where the twisted ones experimented. There is no saving these tormented ones. Not even me, but here they belong and live." She leans up with acting calm. She pays the needed table bill to the deer headed waitress. They pick themselves up and ready. Gas masks back on and she check them over another go.
"I don't understand." Matthew looking towards the echoes of the gods that are on him. They whispered madness, knowledge and riddles. Needed and useless. He knows not to look at anything in the eyes, looking at the way this world functions.
"I will talk of the Plague away from public listening. Everyone knows what happened to them... they don't need out of city clean bloods poking mockery." She pulls Matthew to evade a dangerous one. She makes sure everyone pairs up and followed her lead. She stopped short with evading a bad tell of her own.
"Miss Seer, mail." Shinigami, her brother's accessory of advisor stepping from a door frame that just suddenly appeared. A red velvet material card id presented in left hand which she knew was from death's so called 'wife'. She uses coloured paper mail while death is a practical man. It isn't a stretch for the goddess to take claim of throne here. It is a literal game of thrones between the monster factions that want London. Blood, assassination and dishonesty. The common people are barely humans at all in this time zone.
"Is my brother monarchy of the order?" She asked the reaper to be sure of the deal. She softly got the group back to the table temporary to blend back in among. This was so she can read this mail.
"Yes. A puppet to goddess." She nods getting that he is a vessel or follower of madam death. Her left hand takes the mail, paid plenty a pouch and reads the content openly at Matthew side. She sees only waffling and formalities. Business bargain. A quest to help death put his sanity back together. Nothing jumps to her as out of the script. Matthew breathing hitched several times in seeing her letter. She play poked his nose for being to nosey of her private business. She is plenty sure that death's wife and Death would be unpleased of Omen's follower being to knowing.
"Well I have no out right wishes to play the game of thrones. Nor do I care about the factions. I am an outsider for all these matters you make between the lines." She shuffles to the next page and this page sounds more like the proper mail she was expecting. A personal letter, wrote like a dotting mother in law. Asking how the kids are. The shift of personality and the honest relationship she expected of the wife to death. A new tea recipe for her to brew. A warning about the idiots making issues in the tome, that there is some influence outside the goddesses reaches and proving to be authentic mail is that it smells of ocean and herbal tea.
The honest soul letter was more her fit, and she couldn't help herself to the smile and little laugh in how the goddess actually is. She brought out a sheet of paper and makes her own reply. She stated the obvious facts like being a broken time being and always being a little lost in what is going on.
She however isn't confused about the conditions all souls are in her watch; including Death, the lady herself and their children. She even soul tracks these side aspect souls that help the collective of being a god aspect. She has no wish to interfere and just get what she wants regardless of outcomes. Unafraid of consequences. She will try the tea recipe and unscramble what she can of deaths insanity if they come across each. It isn't a guarantee but it is hopefully a comfort. Unscrambling a broken mind and heart is just said and done. It's labour and care from long time friends.
"And..." she seals this. Then bothers to write another five versions of this letter. Each a slight twist of the same content and neutral ground. She addressed them to each version of whomever reigned the death god order or whom ever is the title of death. She writes to her brother in this current time zone. She doesn't bother of versions of him otherwise for other time zones. She stamps all the letters the same seal; proving that she isn't some joke - the one of her abyss identities. She draws a little on each corner and she gave some of these to the Shinigami to take. She raven sent others. As some are to actually death himself in other zones. She isn't fazed of the currency she rewards for each message passer including the Shinigami.
"Are you an reincarnated goddess?" The Shinigami looking at his fair payment with disbelief. Bewildered of holding a valued material in a minted coin. She dismissed him with a waft. He leaves with his abnormal door gate, it turned to vapor upon disconnection to here. They all get up to leave as a group once again. She a dotting worrier, makes them put the gas masks back on with double checking gaps.
Stepping into the hostile Pavement of Trafalgar square. The Victoria monument and fountain isn't as you see it. The lions are golden scaled dragon hybrid chimera. The queen a faceless idol in laces of symbolism of perception veils. The stone the idol is seated her throne perch is obsidian black with evil red marble embossed words. Comparing to the normal world; that water fountain feature in front of the national painting gallery isn't so creep. Bronze lions, a normal queen Victoria and has it own breath taking hidden details in stood in person. Both versions do exactly what they made for; a message to all and ageless against time itself.
On what gives this square its name sake is Nelson's pole. The Waterloo general who won the navel war. A very tall pole of which he stands at the top. He is holding all his refinery and holds reputations of his achievement. This pole here in the creepy zone is at a glance unchanged. But the fact his a fish man and his achievements are scripted down the poles sides in ancient Atlantis script. There is a grubby oil sleek about Nelson's pole that everyone evades from it. As if it is a creature itself that is hunting walking passer-by.
"Ugh, that looks horrible." Philip muttering likely about the public around them then the monuments. Daniel being protective gears Philip up in better gear, spares he took from Leana. She helped quickly hiding Philips shadow powers and his faces. She had for everyone else, petting his face when it was sorted, "Why?"
"It is impossible to evade the sight of gods." She hissed softly, "And this creepy version of the world you knew is full of them. This is where lost god souls end up when they left from their tomes. Becoming twisted from the dying divine powers left in their decaying." She grapples his arm, "Being a damned here is no immunity to them not hearing and watching you. I know your world, where they can't by divine law. There isn't that law here." She really checked inside those eyes, "They hear souls too. But we are just noise among noise here. We can only hope we in a zones that are this way. The chime changes everything." She softly eased and studies around. Navigating the sense of this place.
"It is still endless London." Matthew watching his own sort of tells about the world and the way life is the same, regardless of shape or hands. She nods gently at his words, "Where now?"
"Sight seeing? We are here in London and ahead of schedule. We need supplies for unlondon. But we can make it a pleasure trip. I did promise this was going to be educational." She smiles breaking her human disguise, "You only have this trip to see the worlds I do. I will not be able to repeat this trip for you again." She smiles, "You only get to experience things once. When you have, you ignore the creaks and mistakes you make now." She sighed, "Only broken ones can enter fragmented timescapes. I have temporarily gave you each a crack. When it heals, you will not return back here again. For as long as your soul is repaired and whole; you will never slip out of time and space." She teaches them all and protectively shadow veils each of them in her skins, "Right children, this way. I think we can visit the private body snatchers collection next. He sent me a message about needing me." they looked at each other sharply and had to chase after her as she melted among the creeps. They followed the main paved roads and meet more monuments of twisted nature.
They were crossing a market area when the main city bell chimes. The glitching, the melting and the drifting dust vapor turned into beings and removed people. A computer refreshed the texture pack. It was blood and grime. It is grey and browns now. Everyone around them is wearing Edwardian commoner clothing. Facial hair of the century, caterpillar lips and deep sick accents. The butcher they are stood in front of has hung carcases deer, boar and several pheasants. The neater blood cuts along the trays.
"Greyhound!" She purred at approach, the man stares upon the group with a long confused expression. He felt that his met this strangers in his distant past but he can't figure out when that was. He felt uneased about these strangers and the strange face masks. Their clothing was too well made to be commoners, "Oh right. Sorry. I was excited about your butcher sign. I heard this was the place to go for prime rump unicorn special." She makes a wink and he stiffened up. He looked about them each again. He just makes a defeated sigh. Knowing the higher nobility must have invited a bunch of rich freaks for the corpses in the back.
He leans checking for inspectors or cops. He waved them to quickly come into a side entry. This small store was sharing space with residential and an underground basement access. Clearly hidden from the authorise. Human corpse trading is a morbid profession and plenty frowned upon. This small butcher shop is one of several hidden medical services. No regulations. No hygiene and the only way for modern medical to learn human anatomy.
"You better have sealed lips and heavy pockets." Greyhound in his human days sneers, turned quiet with being thrown a pouch of coin. He lights them a lantern to take with. Closing the hidden door behind them.
"Why are we here?" Daniel asked in knowing what death smells of.
"If you going to face facts about the mutation plague, then you need to see it first hand of the stages the genetic decay that happens. There is no such thing as living forever." She guides them, "You are all have been containment. You can't feel with your skin and temperature starting to not exist. That's only the beginning." She walks them through the corridor, knocked a correct pass code on another invisible door. A being opened it.
"Lady Maria." It clicked, "And you found your clay dust of a husband." it beads many strange eyes through them and about them. Examining each, "Oh dear. They know right?"
"Well, I am here to teach them the truth. Who better but the one seeking a cure. Someone that has jail cells of contained humans." there a soft purr meeting in both women, "My husband is also human, and is going through his first time."
"Ah, that is rare. You trying to prevent it?" the shrug. Leana pays the creature in all the medical equipment, materials of other worlds and herbal cocktails. She makes a massive profit in a bunch of corpse parts and tome pages. Many tomes and jars of souls. They shake on this with right limbs at the end of the exchange, "You met my brother."
"Jackal the robot crystalized guy?" She clarifies and the being nods, "Yes, he controls the Sigil access of laws and boundaries. Keeping peace between spaces." it makes the creature purr to hear their sibling doing well, "He seems to lost from time space. Left his wife and children in some cosmic accident. The same one that brought you to the early 1900." The being winces softly in sad tone, "He will figure out how to get back. You will to." The creature lady lets that sink in for a long time, several twisting expressions. The lady slinks with putting her new equipment away and softly turns to business.
"At the moment I have stages 1 through 4, then a big gap to jumps from there. Depending on DNA collected and adapting with those organs." The zoo keeper slows, posing hand to each private room. Each a stage of this rewriting of DNA. A process that doesn't care about hygiene and human sense. The group taking in the reality of what they are being show, and dawning in way Leana isn't exactly jumping to do the mission they thought were going to do.
"You are very fortuned to have her as a mother. As she has shared her biological signature to each of you people. That you will not face some these stages in pain or even at all. Miss Seer here has quite the cocktail of god eaters and slayers and monsters. Each of them gave her abilities to skip the pains. I walked this path much more... painfully. I was gifted DNA not of earth. I was part robotics for a very long time. How my brother came about... as a physical being. His personality came from somewhere else." The zoo keeper snickered, "It has been a long time now. I am not a human, for sure." the keeper nod to herself.
"So the god eaters, slayers and monster of the abyss were actually humans?" Philp rolled in some realizing.
"Well," the zoo keeper makes a clicking in thinking about choose words.
"It is just another truth that many souls ignore." Leana tuts, "I collect tome pages. The zoo keeper collects intelligent ones. Twilight mothers the lower end... but they aren't stupid. Their worlds that seem empty, but not. The existence is just out of grasp of the sense we assume. I have learn that the more new organs being discovered is another world among us of the hidden veils. That we closer and further away from understanding the universes."
"I like the solid stone theory." The zoo keeper purred, "That we are living in pockets of crystal in a granite stone. We adapt more new organs to enter the other portions of stone density. Blocked off by limitations of soul or mass."
"I thought you suck to medical researching only." Leana tuts.
"Well since your here." The zoo keeper pulls her along to a private area of paperwork, crystal panes of solid carved stones and an active computer laptop that doesn't belong to the 1900. Matthew came in too while the rest stuck around looking at the cocoon stages and madness that they will face being soon.
The zoo keeper turns to a comfortable language that is easier for the being's body to speak. As speaking like a human is become increasingly harder to speak these days. Leana follows just fine in the clicking language as all god eaters and Slayers speak this aquatic world language. Matthew inspected the reasercher notes, coming in contact with orginal scripts he seen muesem relics as a Clothus. He see the uncesored huamn language about organs. He seems stuck in place by a whole corner of books... written in Leana's secret picture language. He pulled her translated versions of each races that claims to exist the afterlife. Demon court guides. Clothus schooling science experimental logs. Angelic order's universe creation. He brushed a guide book of death and his many faces. Opening the strange detailed tome of the death's many versions. From Hades being a tome recorder and soul counter. To the creatures that erase souls from places. A page flipped is another valued understanding the depth of death. He slams is closed as it when into Ender languages of other unknown writers making their own entries. He puts the book back and spotted that the mirror of death is life... and life has two books? He picked both up and skims this faster and less engrossed of the details it offered. He sees it is her picture language to a point and it is ender tongue after.
"You shouldn't have read those." Matthew skittered himself away from a gloomy ghost stood, crossed arms and peering into Matthews soul, "I doubt you have any use of learning what you did. You shouldn't meddle in the domain of god powers, Human soul." The being makes check, "Actually, you aren't even that. You soul isn't part of the normal system." this death god ghost looked to the echoing bodies of Huggin and Munnin. They exchanged physical objects and the death god is settled, "A repaired saint soul, a soul whom should have rose up. You were tainted by Omens and Clothus... and you are unqualified to what you should have been." This god ponders, "She did a good job of your soul language matrix... making you translated here." the god backed a step to hidden once more, "Keep chasing her, Matthew. You will make it." the gloomy god was gone.
"Leana! The guy in four stopped breathing!" Philip came in.
"About time." Both women back hand. Philip froze up at that.
"Dormant period is being a living corpse. You stop using human organs like lungs and heart. But you are not dead. You are a living bio mass by that point." Leana explains, "Some folks fight this stage and extended this break down to long. It makes or breaks. The sooner you accept being a goo puddle the quicker you will reconstruct. The less you have to reconstruct from scratch. A balance act of how much can you let go and keep. You do need to keep the image of who you are constantly during this goo stage." The zoo keeper poses that Leana is exactly right. Nodding like a scholar. Philip blinked several times, and goes back the group.
"Will that child hand that?" The zoo keeper asked low tone whisper.
"Philip is a corpse puppet anyway. Gore is will past his trauma depth. Several of the older enders are past the dying things." Leana collected her Matthew up, "I can understand why you started looking into scenery overload and science for why the unseen is report time and time again. But leave those phantoms to their lives. Don't bother... we aren't worth their dust." She looked down a little, "Fear the day that we do become the attention of such phantoms." The zoo keeper nods understanding, packing up all these pages and books away to crates.
"They will make it." The zoo keeper exclaims as Leana goes to leave. Leana nods to that, like it was a promise. She walks up to how everyone seems weeping over the bio mass.
"Between stages 3 to 4 and often past stage 10. You're brain is being also cut and added. So you're alive but you sometimes loose memories. Some have to learn to walk again. Some pretend to act human to make up for the lacking the brain tells. Some gain conditions mental or spectrum related issues. Common conditions are ADHD or Dyslexia. The fighting ones loose so much. They become animals... primal instinctive living." She mops faces up from them crying, "And then it just zips up... you gain back all those lost things. You become that human you were in a body that isn't you. You have this mental dysmorphia complex as a result." they shiver, "He fought a long time because he thinks he was dying. It wouldn't matter if we explained it to him or not. He was to angry and afraid to be reasoned." Philip tilted in deep thoughts.
"If you just told me this without showing us, I don't think I would believe I wasn't dying." Josh speaks up.
"Exactly why we don't tell folks whom don't have the mental fight left. If they do (it without knowing) on gut instinct, they have a better outcome. Stressing them will only make them recover longer." She pulled Jessica for a hug, "But you all have the battle to accept. You know how to control your inner beasts. You become them as Enders, so you know how to survive. This knowledge will not be forgotten now." the hard gulp, "Come along, this wasn't the corpse keeper." she takes them back to the corridor, the hidden door is fleshed to the wall hidden once more. Matthew realized that was a drawing eclipse. That those folks are in the 1900 butcher basement. He mulled over this secret. She gets them through and right as she goes to the real door.
The London chimes, time melts... the group is changed lost and shuffled. She looked back of how she is alone. She looked about her body, a broken plague mutant. She felt the hunger... and knew why she would come here as a mutant... here for the hidden corpses here. She hears a swat team or some sort of military boot above her. She can hear them clearing this building. She came in to the basement dust. She achieves the proteins she needed to make her more human. She sees magic clouds, a casting life searching. Someone is sending magic radiation to seek for her soul signature. She doesn't have trust that this isn't a bunch of people to kidnap and experiment on her. She collected all sorts of helping tools, needed materials for survival and things she will trade sigil with. She knows there's a elevator rope shaft that she can crawl to escape. As how else did they hull the corpses out of here once they did the research was noted.
"We lost the Trickster." She was at a basement window vent, hearing the team snarling, "She might have used a tunnel through into the underground."
"No magic is able to detect life." the caster snarls, "This corpse eater is a handful." They whistle as there was someone finding something. She recounted that she blaming some cultist hidden in the healthy population. That she was on some back stabbing pay back to a bunch of folks making her life harder for making her a public enemy. She is however hazy if that was undertakers, her families or some god issue with Omens. They likely found her photo threads of her own investigation against those after her. Her foil hat room. She sees that it looks all clear and busted the vent through, crawling out of the dirt. She slips the vent back over and rans on fours. Taking a damned corridor to get her head adjusted, she feels her links shadow cloth skin. She lost Matthew like always. She has the other four, marked in her tome with the abyss watcher tattoo. She checked them, untainted and not part of her current life cares. She checks what is, not much.
"Lea!" She slide hid in the nearest small space. Her skin altered to camo with the walls. A young face of shadow huffed in rushing right where she was. Panting out of breath and looking about confused, "Damned the weird woman. Raven is looking for you." She slips out of hiding and collected the shadow child, carried onto her shoulder as she settled with the new carry weight. The child pointed for her to go. She does a smell test and some mark checks. She trusts the strange kid to be her guide back to Raven.
"Where have you been?" She stepped into the light, shifting to a clay surface. Lowering in putting the shadow part of Arthur back to the ground, seeing the mask returned back to the human, "What in the frozen worlds have you been doing to be so filthy?" She eye rolls and settles to be around Raven, inspecting the mage crew around here and the school trip this is.
"Welcome to the relic museum." A tour guide shouted ahead to this gathering, she slips seeing this was some sort of trip for Arthur's youth to learn normal history. It was a dull affair and nothing that schemes death trap yet. She looked back of how a swat team of mutant hunter nearby are only scanning owned mutants. Raven clipping a GPS and credit Card collar. It also has a very flimsy lead attaching, which is clipped to his wrist. His wear a version of the collar as a bracelet. She shakes in getting her body adjusted to this event of things. Being proactively on guard for abnormalities. On entry through the museum doors, she sees a time piece that controls this museum. She deeply stares as a sudden pane of sigil pop up to her view. The central museum gear clock is this eclipse zones stability zone. She stuck as a mutant in this area. That isn't a bad thing, but she is able to put together that this was year after the lake accident.
So she has her Munnin god follower duties, she slips gaze to her tabs and tell for current life matters. She gets the picture as the group is being taken from lobby, through into the 1st department of displayed memorabilia. It's half a war museum, with WW1 uniforms in used conditions on mannequins. She already knew she has a hidden request here as a creeper.
"Lea?" She often sits down at each mannequins display and appeasing the freaks hidden inside these displays. From putting the hats on a correct way to adding lost objects. She would take the unwanted junk parts that are for other displays. Raven suspected nothing for a while, no one did. It was only broken when she had to lift a whole poster change from one the displays. Raven gasps and looked around in case the security was watching. She finished the swap when he looked back at her. Her foot sinking the unwanted poster into her shadow, "What are you doing?" He whispered with pulling the lead a little to get her to move with the group. She shadow took her payment from the ghost as he check no one noticed this.
"Don't worry about it." She smoothly softly spoke and he skits frozen. She makes him ride her back as he all stiffed up afraid of her voice development.
"Lea, this one too." Arthur knew all along what she is doing, he likely hears the souls pleading for her touch. She brushed Arthurs head playfully, and shadow shifted the entire case to improve. The inner display of this mannequin is pleased, taking all the lost objects from previous cases. Arthur smiles glad to see a prouder standing model, "You fixed his watch." seeing it working again. She pulls Arthur to follow the herd, her shadow material back slapping Raven to be alert again. He got off her and has some composure back. For it to fragment looking back, seeing all the display mannequins waving her away or saluting thanks to her.
"These are just displays we ran out of room for. We have plans to move this exabit into the War museum. We are currently expanding collecting after the revivation." the tour guide was answering a likely asked question and turned to face the group. They turned pale in watching the maniquins putting themselves back to thier display still shapes they should be. The wavered in cold sweat, clearing thier voice several times in trying to be functional again.
"Where are the toilets?" A typical child of the group, "Are we able to take lunch or roam the museum ourselves now?" The tour guide slaps a professionalism back in them and looked at the kid asking. He checks the exit and looked to Raven.
"Meet back right here at 1pm." Raven claps and plenty break off in chat groups. Some go find the loo themselves. Arthur steps with Lea, looking around afraid of the displays. Raven sighs and takes the tour guide closer, "I am so sorry if your displays seem out of place."
"No man, these army suits are cursed. The dead are still wearing them. Even to this day." The tour guide nervous laughed, "They are very active today for whatever reason today." The tour guide sits down on a bench and is trying to get his act back together. Raven mulls over that talk.
"The skin cells of the decease is still stuck on some those whom been killed violently. It is what makes these are by empowered and the trauma of those souls with unfinished business." She explains more with Arthur as a learning Ender, "Many cursed objects have shared elements. A portion of the previous owner; skin, hair locks and whatever. A installed emotional trigger. Most times the easy trigger is regrets of unfinishable business. This is just another version in what you mages count as shadows of damned. Just culture suited to the military war time theme." She purred teaching Arthur, "Restless souls are not always evil. These were good men, following in what they believed was right and fighting for their country. Respect those whom gave us peace." She wags her left hand while speaking.
"Understood." Arthur thinks about this teaching and soon is pale of her being able to speak at all, "What happened to you?"
"My voice comes and goes. This place has enough energy for me to borrow. I have spiritual abilities to replicate human speech." She dismisses this talk and posed that the kids are heading for the next area. Raven sighed and take lead pushing her and Arthur onwards. The tour guide having overhear the voodoo talk thinks over her respect of these creep objects. Reflecting that he came to do this job to respect these once young men when knew no end of war. He didn't understand why they freaked out about their mutant being able to speak, most can and it is common that some gain back humanity with time. The tour guide looks to a near display that means something personal to him, reflecting his family tree roots. Everyone has roots somewhere, like it or not.