Runa SecretTradition

The Metataxi

3/30/2024 12:56pm

I move as fast as thought. Can it be said to truly be movement?

I traverse great distances, but it is not I who moves, it is the world around me.

Such is the power of the Infinity Jumpsuit.

I explore that which Belphang and Perlatz uncover.

The Metataxi

2/8/2023 11:48pm

"What am I looking at here, Runa?" Rita asked.

This wasn't fantastical or mythological or remarkable at all.

"A dry cleaners?" I respond. "There's a counter, with a cash register, and a metal rack with a hanger hanging from it."

"Yes, I can see that," Replied Rita. "What's it doing... here? Inside a dusty tomb inside a crack in a mountain-sized statue?"

It did certainly seem out of place.

"Well we could just ask for assistance," said Rachel Innocence, walking up to an old tarnished hand bell near the register on the counter.

Rachel lifted her hand.

"Noooooooooooo!" I cried. Everything moved in slow motion.

... ... ...

ding!

The Metataxi

8/18/2022 11:57pm

"Ryung Brightness, you take point. Rachel Innocence, you stay at our six and make sure nobody wanders off."

Rita Pearl sure knew what she was doing, and that was fine with me. As an anthropologist (and one specializing in pseudoscience at that) I had no experience in leading people through dangerous situations. I could barely make to the libary and back without sustaining some minor injury. And I certainly didn't come onboard the Metataxi with any kind of "team."

"Alright, your team's ready," Rita said to me, "and this is your expedition. Lead away!"

"Look Rita," I said, "I'll think we'll be better off with you in charge. Why don't we just... keep walking down this rather large passageway, make sure we don't fall down any holes, and keep our torches trained ahead of us, above us, and to each side, so we can see what's around us. Sound ok?"

Rita seemed to get the message.

"That's a lot of light," she said. "You're not worried about attracting any attention? Seems like lights were the first thing that got us in trouble here."

She had a point. If the outer caverns were infested by giant moths, then what might inhabit these interior tunnels? This particular tunnel seemed manmade... or intentionally carved by some intelligent species at least, just like the giant statues we were within. But there was no denying it was also abandoned, and potentially the hunting ground for who knows what kind of--

"Aw, I'm just messing with you, Runa," Rita said. "We need to see where we're going, don't we? C'mon, let's head out."

The Metataxi

1/6/2022 11:57pm

The Ritual Garments of Heterocera!

"I'm sorry, what?" asked Rita Pearl.

I didn't realize I'd been speaking out loud.

"The uh, Ritual Garments of Heterocera. It's an old story."

"Like 'great caesar's ghost?' Some kind of folkloric exclamation?"

"No, it's well...," I replied. We were on the observation deck, examining the soft cliff The Metataxi found itself adhered to. The giant moth had landed here and climbed into its folds, leaving us stuck to the outer surface. We risked turning the floodlights on to get a better look.

"It's obviously some kind of vegetable matter... like moss," said Rita Pearl.

"I think you'll find that it's wool."

"Wool?"

"The Ritual Garments of Heterocera were woven over a thousand years. The wool of every sheep on the planet was dedicated to their creation, for generation after generation. Use of wool for any other purpose was punishable by death. They were intent on creating robes for the gods upon their return."

"A thousand years? Why have I never heard of this?"

"When the gods did not return, the priests were killed, and the temples destroyed, The past was denied -- erased, except in a few rare apocryphal texts, which were interpreted as myths. And the robes themselves were never found, which was odd because they'd be so large..."

"So they were hidden in a closet made from statues the size of a mountain?"

"The gods were very large."

"All hands, brace for some bumps," Ran Pleasing announced over the speaking tubes. "We're about to pry ourselves off this wall."

The Metataxi

6/29/2021 11:57pm

The whole point of taking this assignment was that I'd be left alone. Who would ever need an anthropologist specializing in pseudoscientific and purely fictional impossibility on a simple trade route? The only reason I was hired was to fill the mandatory "research" position at the absolute lowest rate they could find. Which was fine with me! What could be better than paid berth on a safe and predictable route that allowed me to read and sleep as much as I liked? The pay was crap, but with nowhere to spend it it still added up.

The statues (likely not alabaster but impossible to confirm until we get a sample) were, yes, unexplainable.

"Because who could carve them so high?" asks Captain Reema. "This is completely beyond what any known past civilization could have possibly achieved!"

Captain Reema obviously has a limited understanding of history. The Floating Barons of Chyon 9. The Dream Expenditure Committee of pre-historical Rottweiler. Pim, the Wonder King. I could go on. But there certainly was an atmosphere of incredulity around these statues, glowing white in the moonlight. A whole royal family of them -- a king, and queen (impossible to judge gender assignation through their stylized forms), four lesser attendants, and two more smaller, twisted forms on the outer wings.

Together they formed a mountain range taller than the Hamdurian Ridge. The shoulders of the smallest of them existed well outside the atmosphere.

"Can you take us closer, captain?" I asked.