4.30 Point A to Point C

"La Mer?" The lady, Doctor who-really-cares, stares at Acheron with intense curiosity. "Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time."

Get me out of here, some voice inside Acheron screams. Cheesy Star Wars references are more than anyone should have to endure.

The body he's in barely flinches, though.

"Cayenne La Mer was the best healer this sanctuary has ever seen," she continues. "She wanted to teach her magic to others, but none were capable. We determined it was a magic unique to beings of... how do I put this... light magic. Our mages continue to disagree about how such beings exist."

Acheron tilts his head. "I'd imagine it's genetics. Like all magic."

"Yes but... the primordial species connecting our world with light magic have been gone for a long time."

"Seems they found a way to keep their influence around regardless." It's all Acheron can do to keep from rolling his eyes. "Do you know where I can find Cayenne?"

"Her brother was captured by... you know. Them." Her face twists angrily at the thought of the supernaturals who suppress their own. Some are traitors, but many are victims... of course it's enraging to think about.

"Uh huh." Acheron's face does not change.

"She left the Falls after that. She said she was a danger to us. She and her brother had a... metaphysical connection. She said if the fairies figured it out, none of our wards would save us."

"Aha?"

"So I can't really... help you."

That can't be true. This has always been part of the sequence. He must be here for a reason.

"Sequence," he wakes up with this strange word on his lips. It's mental shorthand a much older person uses to parse their life. It's a word he's never encountered before.

 "Ruza?"

"Uh huh?"

"Will you play outside with me?"

"I can't, Acheron... I'm studying."

Acheron pokes slowly at his own homework, not interested in it at all. He's a bit younger than Fairuza, and his assignments are more simplistic. They're also tremendously boring; he feels like he's seen these same questions a hundred thousand times, somehow.

"Ruza?"

"What?"

"What does... sequence... mean?"

Fairuza's face scrunches up in a frown as she overthinks the question. "I 'unno. I'm no good at maths. Ask Orazia."

Acheron looks down at the math homework he's scribbling on. "It's not a homework question. I just heard it somewhere. Sequence. What does it mean?"

"Oh. Um, it means something happens after something else. Like a whole bunch of things. They all go in order."

"I see," Acheron squeaks.

He thinks over her words for a moment, then chuckles. "I think I get why he was so annoyed."

"Who?" Fairuza questions.

"Nobody. Me? I don't know. Doesn't matter."

"You're weird, Acheron."

"Yeah, well, you're failing your test tomorrow. You might as well stop studying and come play outside."

"I'm not failing my test."

"You are," he says, with the innocence of absolute certainty.

She has no comeback. She just glares at him, and he feels bad.

"I can tell you every test question, and every answer, right now." Acheron's pleas to get out of school don't get him anywhere. His mother scoffs at his every hint of knowing things before he's supposed to. Hints are just not good enough. He will have to tell her.

But he won't do that, because every time he tries that in the dreams, bad things happen to her.

He hasn't figured out how those dots connect, exactly, but he has the unsettling suspicion he will hate his older self when he does. That can't be healthy.

Orazia's budding mage identity is coming along pretty well, though.

Here she is with her latest crafted potion. Izalee will be so proud.

 Carlos still tries to supervise. Though he is not sure what's going on.

Milo helps his sister in law with her workout routine. He fears she's going to get herself in trouble, with that PI career. What if some guy she's investigating for infidelity notices he's under surveillance and tries to hurt her? It would make Milo feel better if he personally taught her how to kick some ass.

Dysen tries to destroy his mother's office. No one is sure how he got in here.

Instead of disciplining the brat, Lela appears to be enabling future destruction.

Werewolf child, werewolf doll.

"It's hard enough to sleep without YOU, ya know." Acheron is pretty sure Dysen understands him. Especially when the toddler looks away and makes a dismissive hand gesture.

Sharing a room totally stinks.

"Such beautiful music," Ceth praises. "Carlos says it should wait for morning, but I cannot stifle such artistry."

"I had a bad dream," Acheron mumbles.

"Oh, honey," his mother is instantly sympathetic.

"I kissed a lady. It was gross."

Despite Acheron's weirdness, his relationship bars with Milo's two daughters are full green. So the author feels the need to point out that they do, in fact, all like each other.

Dysen, though, has always thought Acheron smelled suspicious.

Fairuza fails her test. 



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Etc.: Hey, still alive here! Sims 3 has been taking a back seat to my other projects and responsibilities, but I've been squeezing in as much gameplay as possible so I can wrap up what's happenin' in this generation and move on to the next one. I'm excited! And busy! 

4.29 Trial and Error

There are no visible doors, no windows, no handles. Just an endless sea of tiles.

Small tiles, big tiles. Ceiling tiles, wall tiles, floor tiles.

Which ones open? Which ones are more than they appear?

What is a corner? What is a dead end?

It's a labyrinth. A maze. It's a maze put here to drive him insane, he's sure of it.

He could die in here.

Then he sees her, and she sees him.

Help! HeLP hELphelpmEhelpmehelpmehELPMEHELpmeLEtMEout!

The telepathic buzz in his head causes him to stumble backwards.

She pauses. You can hear me?

"I hear you," Acheron says slowly. He steps forward again, courage renewed. He examines a panel on the wall, the only mechanism he can see. The screen flickers rapidly, its symbols shifting backwards, forwards, upwards, downwards, diagonally. He has never seen a lock like this, if it is a lock, yet he has the nagging feeling he should recognize it.

I would have your name.

He is closer, and her voice is louder in his head, though her lips do not move.

Your name.

The woman's eyes seem especially piercing and unnatural. The pupil is too small, the iris is too wide. Part of him, perhaps the part that is human, has the instinct to flee... but some other part of him senses familiarity. It's the second feeling that sends a chill down his spine.

She waits for his name. She is not the woman he normally sees in his dreams. She is not Claire. She's different, and he has yet to discern her importance.

She waits. She waits for his name.

"Acheron," he says.

She looks at her hands. There's nothing in them, but then again, creatures aren't locked away in forgotten places like these for no reason. She could be trouble. My brother said you would come.

Acheron's gaze drifts back to the panel with the changing symbols. "Where is he now?"

She doesn't see the cold, dangerous look in his eyes because she turns away, hiding her face.

He allowed himself to be captured. So he could rescue someone. A little girl, from... from the far past. And she got out, but... he didn't... and... so they... found me. They used our connection to find me. They did this to me... they made me into this horrible thing...

"I'll get you out." He feels the old sense of empathy returning. The feeling is intrusive and unwelcome; he needs clarity, not compassion. Acheron's jaw stiffens as he studies the panel. He does not see a pattern. He does not know where to begin.

How are we speaking? she pries. She has been here so long, but her thoughts remain logical and ordered, and a little too curious.

Acheron narrows his eyes. "I'm not sure. You're confined in a sort of cursed box. Sound shouldn't make it through."

He cannot use magic to get her out. That goes without saying.

Then our spirits speak to each other, she decides. How can that be?

Acheron shrugs. "Maybe Kay is right, and we are just all the same."

Then you really are—

"Don't think of me as Ceth's son. Think of me as the one who followed your research," he says bitterly. "I have taken Lethe's power and I need Loki to tell me how it is wielded."

She must be wondering how he managed to do such a thing, but she says nothing.

"I will use you to track him down," Acheron spells it all out for her, as if she hadn't guessed. "So do you know an unlock sequence for your cell, or not?"

YOU don't know?

"How would I know?"

Acheron should know.

Has he come this far, only to be stopped by this lock?

He presses a finger against the display, touching the first glyph that appeals to him. It stops flickering. Carefully, he drags it a few centimeters to the left...

The pain that follows is intense enough to wake him. He dies in front of that cell, he's sure of it.

This was the sixteenth attempt to tamper with the panel.

He awakens exhausted, dimly aware that his skin and limbs are all where they're supposed to be...

...and yet, somehow very keenly aware that he has failed for the sixteenth time to deactivate the panel. He wishes he could tell the Acheron in the dream not to try to free the trapped lady; it's a little mean, maybe, but what if she's behind that anti-magic glass for a reason? What if she gets out and eviscerates him?

Acheron hates this dream. The details escape him quickly, but the memory of pain and anger lingers.

He isn't even sure why he's angry, but... the older Acheron is always seething behind that mask of calm. Something must be wrong. The Acheron of the here and now just cannot remember what.





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 Etc.: Seventeenth time's the charm???

I know Cayenne's altered eyes there being freaky is kind of... an informed trait, but I have to look at it from a sim's perspective. It would be like seeing someone with anime eyes in real life. Cute on paper, uncanny valley in reality.

If you're wondering why her hair looks so great even though she's trapped in some lab dungeon, the answer is because magic. If you're wondering why she doesn't look her age, the answer is because science.