Shadows in the Erd dimension in the style of Abstract Expressionism, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.
Chapter 27: Shine a light
Special Circumstances headquarters, Mikla metropolitan area, Confluence dimension
Year 42 of the Confluence Republic (local time)
While the agents planned how to capture one of the shadows attacking Erd, the Erd author wrote another interlude, labeled ‘V’. As expected, it was another horror story; the two communicating parties seemed to be moving towards an attack on the shadows. Discussing their next move with the SC board, who was entirely supportive of the attempt to capture a shadow but cautioned that maybe the thing should not be dragged back to the Confluence dimension, they talked also about what those interludes might mean. For one thing, it was not entirely clear when the communication took place. The juxtaposition of the interludes with stories about the SC board and agents seemed to indicate that the two were happening at about the same time, but that was not necessarily the case. Nothing was known about how much time passed between the manipulation of the Erd simulation – the communication itself – and the Erd author writing about it.
To capture a shadow, it was first suggested that they should lure it into some sort of trap-construction that would close in on its prey and contain it – but this tactic was complicated by the possibility that the shadows might be able to move through walls. Investigating the data they had collected, that seemed to be the case – the shadows were not hindered by physical objects. This raised several questions. One underlying issue was why the shadows had any physical manifestation at all – why not just have them be strictly magical constructions invisible to physical senses? Salome suggested that this inexplicable fact might be connected to the other poorly understood aspect of these shadows, namely their ability to use stolen energy to replicate themselves. Watson thought this replication ability in some way resembled looping, perhaps in combination with a contingency measure, but he had no explanation of how this might be linked to their physical manifestation.
Whatever might explain it, the fact that this magic manifested as physical shadows was very fortunate, as it made them vulnerable to light. Indeed, light seemed to be their main vulnerability, although they could presumably also be attacked with cancellation magic. Since the shadows would flee from, or be destroyed by, light, the way to trap them was obviously to offer them a dark space enveloped in light.
They decided on a plan that was as simple as it was bold. Bring some sort of lightproof vault or safe into the Erd dimension, attract the attention of some shadows, raise a bright light that they will flee from, and make the lightproof vault their best escape option. Once one or more shadows are in the vault, envelop it in light and study the shadows at your leisure.
There were a number of challenges to prepare for. At first sight, bringing along a physical vault seemed to imply that the explorers should travel to the Erd dimension in their physical form as well – presumably using some variant of Soth’s full-body dimensional shift – but this notion was quickly abandoned when Sophie pointed out that explorers using the traditional Confluence magics would be perfectly capable of conjuring up a physical vault in the Erd dimension out of the dirt that was already there.
Attracting the attention of the vampire shadows obviously incurred the risk that the explorers would end up like Sophie’s previous team. Also, if they were able to capture some shadows in their vault, the explorers would have to stay in Erd – presumably for days or even weeks – while they studied them. To survive, they had to make sure they would not attract any further attention.
Timing Bob’s light conjuration precisely was the first challenge. For the trap to work, the shadows needed to be drawn fairly close to the group – the most obvious way to attract the shadows was to use the explorers themselves as bait – but not so close as to be all over them, sucking away their energy. Since the shadows moved extremely quickly – apparently at the speed of light – activating the light conjuration at a distance of something like a hundred meters required superhuman timing. Bob suggested that the solution might be to tweak his contingency flow so that its final activation was delayed until the incoming objects were at a specific distance.
But was the magical flow itself that precise? The explorers experimented with the procedure in the Kirat dimension, using illusions as stand-ins for the Erd shadows. The speed at which the contingency flow activated was not entirely consistent, but they found that if they set the distance at 300 meters, the light conjuration would manifest when the shadows had between 50 and 200 meters left to go before they were upon the group. In order to trap the shadows, then, it had to be placed at least 200 meters from the group in the direction the shadows would arrive from. The vault also had to be the best, or preferably the only, means of escape, and the light had to be strong enough to scare away the shadows, but not so strong as to destroy them outright.
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Furthermore, while the group wanted to attract the attention of some shadows, they did not want to have a large number of shadows arriving from every direction. Olz suggested they could try selective obfuscation – obfuscating themselves to everyone except a specified group of shadows – and Charlotte suggested that once the shadows were trapped in a vault bathed in light, another vault may be conjured to contain the first vault, so that the lights trapping the shadows were inside the second vault. Finally, the explorers would have to Perk themselves extensively, so no one had to sleep until the whole investigation was completed.
They found a good spot outside a northern city wedged in between the sea and the surrounding mountains. South of this city there was a sizeable lake penetrated by a pointy peninsula, and the group decided to make a base on the tip of this peninsula and attempt to attract some shadows haunting the houses on the opposite side of the lake. These houses were about 500 meters away, so the vault might be set up at about the halfway point, levitating just above the lake and hopefully serving as a promising refuge for shadows fleeing the light burst.
As the agents prepared for this project, setting up a base and running various tests and experiments in other Erd locations, a smaller group consisting of only two individuals was setting up a similar project nearby. Entirely by coincidence, Isengar and Nurgle had identified a small beach along a fjord they wanted to use as their base of operations on the eastern outskirts of the same city as the SC agents. Unaware of the shadows’ vulnerability to light, they defended themselves with a powerful cancellation shield placed outside their personal defense layers. This was equally effective as what the SC agents were doing, although somewhat less elegant in the sense that it consumed considerably more energy. Furthermore, they needed very strong obfuscation to keep this cancellation shield invisible, further increasing their energy use. But it did not matter much: one of the benefits of having lived for several millennia was that they had had plenty of time to practice their magic skills and to create hoards of stored energy for occasions like this. They had to tap into their reserves to complete their mission, but not by a substantial amount. And they were having fun doing something new, which does not come easily to people who have lived for a very long time.
The Elders’ approach was somewhat blunter than that of the SC agents: they would grab one of the shadows on the opposite shore by force, wrap it in a magical containment field, and drag it over to their beach where they would study it at their leisure. Nurgle in particular had been in the Erd dimension many times before, and did not particularly fear these shadows.
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Both groups initiated their project on the same morning. From their carefully obfuscated base at the tip of the peninsula, the SC agents gazed across a fog-covered lake, seeing nothing of the houses on the opposite side of the lake. But with their detection magics, they had a good view of their surroundings and knew that these houses were alive – with shadowy movement, if not with actual life. They had conjured up a metal box with no openings, and now they carefully pushed this box halfway to the other side while keeping it levitating over the water. All of them were on a mix of Perk, Celerity, Acuity, and Spark, along with a very soft Mellow flow to avoid panic reactions.
With all their precautions in place, ready to abandon the mission at any moment, Charlotte altered her obfuscation magic so it did not apply to three specific vampire shadows haunting one of the houses across the lake. The shadows responded immediately and automatically – at a speed which the agents, despite their enhancements, could not even perceive. Bob’s contingency flow activated as expected, however, flashing a great light at the shadows when they were between the group and the levitating metal box. The light had been carefully calibrated so it was strong enough to cause the shadows to flee, but not so strong that it would obliterate them before they had the time to seek cover. One of the shadows dived into the water, where it moved sluggishly towards the bottom of the lake and then even more sluggishly through the earth; even when the light could no longer reach it, it kept moving, soon going back into the water and then towards the air when it had reached some distance from the group. The other two shadows sought refuge in the metal box, the inside of which was both airy and dark. Moving swiftly, Bob enveloped the box in light then conjured up another metal box around the first. Foggy gloom returned to the land.
Everything had happened so quickly there was barely time to think, but now the agents took a deep breath and started talking over Watson’s Transmission flow. The question on everybody’s mind was whether the debacle had attracted the attention of some other group of shadows, and there were some tense moments as everybody waited and watched. Nothing happened, except that the shadow that had fled into the water emerged back into the air at some distant location and drifted off in a non-threatening direction. After a while, Charlotte extended her obfuscation field to cover the levitating metal boxes, which the group brought back to the peninsula. Unfortunately, they needed to keep the inner box levitating so the shadows could not escape into the ground, and they took turns maintaining this flow – which was crucial, since any shadow that managed to escape would be able to attack the group almost immediately. Maintaining the levitation was simple but required constant focus; it was decided that the person involved in this task should not study the captured shadows at the same time.
Meanwhile, at the other side of town, Isengar and Nurgle had succeeded in their attempt to grab a shadow from the opposite shore, confine it, and drag it over to their base area. Taking good care of their creature comforts, they were now busy dissecting the shadow to study the magical strands it was composed of. While positioned merely 25 kilometers apart, neither group was aware of the other.
Shadows in the Erd dimension in the style of Félicien Rops, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.
