Raising Hell

[evilpii]

On 20 February 2010, an experiment in dimensional transit went awry.

Two professors attempted to summon a group of travelers to study their method of crossing the Void.  The travelers purport themselves as explorers in the outer reaches of experience, demons to some, angels to others.  Known only as “cenobites”, these beings have appeared numerous times, summoned by the twisted mortal desires.

The following account has been compiled from the testimony of the surviving professor and transcription of the logs from the events in Test Bunker 1 at the College of Physics on the campus of Brother Anon Chanel IV University.

* * *

Dr. W. R. Y. Memes shook his head.  He had been waiting for the past week for the adamant glass enclosure to arrive from Pentinon Π, and his frustration was starting to show.  His lips pursed to the side while he crossed his arms, watching the transport crew unload the translucent cube.  His finger tapped slowly on his upper arm while one of his eyelids lowered slightly.

A Terran man of just over thirty years, his auburn hair had already started to thin on the top of his head, leaving a little bald spot.  In recent memory, the doctor had been spending much of his time reclusive in his office, working heavily on his research.  He had great hopes that this experiment would yield great results, and the delays had begun to agitate him.

Memes sighed and adjusted his glasses, turning his brown gaze to the lady standing at his side.

Dr. Nerti Ro Pii, a Pentinian woman of comparable age to Memes, kept her attention on the data tablet in her hands.  With each wave of her hand, a new page of text appeared for her feline, gray eyes to absorb.  Much in the custom of her world, her long, blond hair was tied in a vixen's tail behind her head, gently swaying with each motion of her head.  Her elfin ears were clearly visible with her hair back.

“You've been overly careful, Nerti,”' Memes said.  “We're behind schedule.”

She grimaced.  “I'd much rather be too careful now than regret it later.”

Her eyes narrowed, focused on the diagram currently on her tablet, the Elysium Configuration.  Memes glanced at the image, his brows furrowed.

“Why are you so intent on that?  We're using the Lemarchand's original puzzle box, not that.”

She smiled to herself with a sigh as she looked up to him.  “As I said, it's better to be too careful.”

A heavy clank drew the attention of both researchers to the large glass case standing before them.  Immensely heavy, four industrial hover-lifts were used to unload the assembly from the transport freighter, one at each corner.  The supervisor handed a data pad to Memes, who promptly signed it.

“Thanks,” Memes added.

“No problem, Prof,” the supervisor replied.  “It's not everyday you get to move stuff from another universe.”

“Well, at least not around here,” Memes noted with a glance to Nerti.

“Indeed,” Nerti commented, “but we do need you and your crew to leave as soon as you can.  This experiment is potentially very volatile.  We don't want any of you in danger.”

“Got it, Doc.”  He motioned to the cube.  “Not that you should worry.  That thing could take a nuke or two.”

“True enough,” Nerti answered.  “Thank you again.”

She shook hands with him, as did Memes, before both the supervisor and his team loaded the hover-lifts and departed.  Memes approached the cube and touched a small panel on a nearby face.  The opposite face parted from three of the adjacent four, hinging upward on the fourth.  Once the interior was open, Memes slipped inside and knelt within the thick, glass walls.

He scoffed.  “Are you sure we'll get good readings from inside this?”

Nerti nodded, “Yes, the armature is equipped with a full sensor array of its own.  Also, the panel on the cube is connected to a few secondary nodes at the corners.”

“Alright.”

From the pocket of his lab coat, Memes produced the Lemarchand Configuration and gently set it down in the center of the enclosure.  He scurried out of the cube while Nerti tapped a few keys on her tablet.  A nearby door opened, and a skeletal mechanoid stepped forward.

The armature itself gleamed in the bright overhead lights.  Across the silvery curves of its torso, several sensor nodes stood out, black discs embedded into its metallic skin.  Its blue-lit optics coldly eyed the enclosure and the puzzle box inside, each step of its simple arched feet pinging against the floor.

The gaunt machine walked past both Memes and Nerti to the cube, entering the interior.  Memes returned to the side console of the glass case, and with the press of a key, the cube was sealed with a hiss of air.  On the panel, he nodded at the green indicators, each showing a tight pressure along the seams.

“We're good,” Memes announced.

Already, the armature knelt and took the Lemarchand Configuration in hand.  Nerti took a slow breath, her hands gripping her data tablet nervously while Memes watched eagerly each manipulation of the machine.

A button was depressed.  A tab slid out.  A segment split away and moved up.  With each motion, a tune chimed from the little device, simple and enticing.

A voice whispered in Nerti's ear, “... such sights...”

She shivered, glancing around the room as the temperature dropped from 21ºC to 10ºC.

With each piece of the solution performed, the whisper grew louder and more clear.

“Little Nerti Ro, ripe and ready to play...”

“Professor,” Nerti's voice called out, but already, the armature was performing the final step:  pulling the box apart into two diagonally cut pieces, rotating them, and pushing the halves back together into a star-like pattern.

At first, there was silence.  Memes frowned, disappointed while Nerti nervously looked about the few shadows in the room.  The Terran sighed and turned to his colleague.

“Well, that was...”

A roar burst from the puzzle box as the circle in its center opened, spewing light into the enclosure.  The metal walls on either side of the bunker warped into stone archways while the artificial lights overhead flickered and died.  Embraced only by the brilliant light from the box in the armature's hands, Memes and Nerti could hear the tolling of a bell, a deep bass resonance, a death knell.

Memes lept back from the enclosure as the knell silenced in favor of a different sound, rattling and clinking chains.

“What the bloody hell?!” he cursed.

“I think we... succeeded, professor,” Nerti commented with a motion toward the archways.

Through each, a vaguely humanoid figure stepped.  However, Memes's eyes widened at the sights he saw.  One seemed female, but her larynx was opened for viewing, each layer of flesh peeled away and held open by dissecting pins.  A male had no lips, the muscle and sinew of his mouth pulled away from his bared teeth and gums by thin wires attached at the back of his head.  A few others followed these two, all draped in black leather vestments, all approaching Memes and Nerti.

Nerti took a step back, her grey eyes watching them carefully while fear rippled through Memes's gaze.  Still, he extended a trembling hand to the female cenobite.

“Welcome to Earth 559.”

Cold and silent, she looked into his eyes while another voice answered him, male in tone.

“We have been here before, and shall be again.”

A final male cenobite stepped out.  His skin was pale white, shorn and smooth.  Dressed in black vestments like the others, sections of his cloak had been cut away, allowing the bloody piercings and chains embedded in his body to be clearly seen.  Yet, it was his head that was the most easily recognizable.  Across his scalp, a perfect grid pattern had been carved and long since scarred over.  At each perpendicular intersection, a jeweled pin had been carefully driven into the bone, completing a local set of axes.

He carried a professionalism, a grim nobility, as the others parted the way for him to stand before Memes and Nerti.  His eyes were wells of black, glossy and hollow, empty.

“You called us,” he spoke again.  “Here we are.”

“Y-you have been here before?” Memes stuttered.

“Oh, yes,” the leader commented.  “When the pleasures of this world, of any world, cease to satisfy, all turn to us.”

He raised a hand at his side.

“And now, we welcome you both.”

The rattling chains grew louder.

Memes shook his head.  “Wait a second.  We called you here to learn about how you travel.”

Coolly, the leader answered, “And, your curiosity has served you well.  You will learn not only that, but also the limits of the universe, through your flesh.”

Chained hooks shot out at Memes and Nerti, but the blond woman slid forward, wrapping an arm around her colleague.  In the motion, she raised her hand to the ceiling, and the pair was surrounded by a translucent, white barrier.  The chains clawed into the bubble around the two, already starting to pull and tear.

Surprised, Memes looked up to Nerti's face while she glared hotly at the leader of these cenobites.

That cenobite passionlessly commented, “You struggle bravely.  Your suffering will taste that much sweeter.”

“I've heard those words before, priest,” Nerti hissed.

Her eyes then widened.  She could feel the hooks tearing at her spine, feel them constrict around her arms.  Though the barrier kept the physical chains away, grapples were digging into her consciousness and perception.  The blond gasped while the “Priest” narrowed his gaze at her.

“Telepaths merely destroy the mind, girl.  We tear apart souls.”

Nerti's eyes erupted into a golden flame when she yelled back at her foe, “Get out of my mind, bastard!”

The lipless cenobite's teeth began to chatter softly, a twisted glee evident in its mutilated face.  The female cenobite rasped her breath coolly into her flayed neck, though her eyes betrayed a similar anticipation.

“The soul made flesh,” she whispered, “flesh to endure for eternity.”

“No god can save you,” the priest added, “not the one you praise, the one you condemn, nor the one you never knew.”

Memes watched as Nerti tensed, her focus on the twisting and compressing feeling rippling through her.  Around them, the gleaming hooks tore deeper into the barrier, carving into the ethereal construct more with each clinking tug.  The flames in the blond's eyes flared brighter as she concentrated on the priest, her breath slow, deep, and controlled.

The Terran glanced down thoughtfully before he nodded to himself.

“Figures,” he said.

Nerti blinked incredulously while the lead cenobite turned to him.

“And, what of you?  The little man whose curiosity has damned both himself and his colleague.”

Memes slipped out of Nerti's grasp and stood before the priest with a distant grin on his face.

“You're right,” he admitted.  “I bought the puzzle box.  I coaxed Nerti into this.  It was my desire that brought you here.”

Nerti shakes her head.  “Don't...”

“Take me,” he said, “and let her go.”

The priest considered this silently while the blond researcher whispered to Memes.

“You don't have to do this.  I have a way...”

“I have a plan,” he whispered back.

The cenobite leader glowered to the pair.

“Conspiring?  It is your flesh that we want, not your schemes.”

“I wasn't as thorough as Nerti,” Memes stated, “but I did read up on you.  I wanted to see you, not her.”

The priest nodded, “Very well.”  He glanced to Nerti briefly, “Her time will come in due course.”

The blond gasped in relief, the torments flowing through the blond's mind vanishing.

“Now, join us and close your bargain.”

Nerti started to speak, but Memes whispered back to her, “Be ready.”

The Pentinian woman furrowed her brows, but conceded.  She lowered her hand, the white barrier disappearing at her unspoken command.  Memes stood before the priest, the hooks and chains writhing loosely around him.

“Ready?” Memes asked to the priest.

“Always,” was his answer.

With a smirk, Memes nodded.  “Good.”

From his pocket, the Terran scientist drew a handgrip equipped with a single red trigger.  Nerti's eyes widened as she slid away from her colleague.  The priest glared passionlessly at Memes while the man depressed the trigger with these words.

“Catch me if you can.”

Around Memes, a burst of bright green enveloped him.  A gust of force pushed back at Nerti and the cenobites before then pulling back toward the center on Memes.  The blond covered her eyes, her clothes and hair whipping around her while the cenobites stood firm, their vestments flapping around their twisted flesh.  Within the emerald light, the Terran man disintegrated and vanished into the luminance, gone from this existence.

As the light dimmed, Nerti blinked, her eyes readjusting to the dull ambiance left around her.  The priest, displeased, turned his attention to her.

“Does he believe he can escape us?”

Nerti eased back on her left foot, the golden fire in her eyes sweeping cautiously over the priest and his entourage.

“Do you?” the female cenobite added icily.

The blond glanced to her before she eyed the priest.

“I want nothing to do with any of you.”

“That is hardly your choice anymore,” the female commented.

Nerti cracked her fingers, white sparks arcing over her fist, as she retorted to the female.

“I've studied you, out of precaution, not obsession.”  She turned again to the pin-adorned priest.  “You have been defeated before.”

Around her, her white barrier reappears.

“Stalemate at best,” the female cenobite hissed through her throat.  “Your abilities do not change your situation.”

The priest listened and watched coolly while his subordinate debated with the Pentinian researcher.

“Memes and I studied the Lemarchand Configuration,” Nerti said.  “It's a dimensional key, bridging the target universe to your Labyrinth.”

The priest raised his hand, summoning the puzzle box to his grasp.  The female cenobite narrowed her gaze at the blond.

“What of it?”

“Lemarchand's second design was a dimensional lock,” Nerti continued, “meant to seal your way home and bathe you in light.”

Interested, the priest inquired, “The toymaker created several boxes, many for us.  Of which do you speak?”

Nerti's eyes flared gold as she raised her arms at her sides.

“This one.”

The spherical field around her bent and flattened, becoming cubical.  Her brows furrowed as she remembered the Elysium Configuration, its lines and patterns.  The white outline of her barrier became etched with those very patterns, each line and curve scrawled by her mental pen.  Meanwhile, a black mark painted itself onto her right cheek, clawing its way across her skin.

The female cenobite glared coldly while her fist gripped.  Chains rattled and flew from the shadows into the box around Nerti.  However, upon contact with the white cube, the links and hooks dissipated into dust.  Confused, the female turned to the priest.

A grin crossed the pin-adorned face.  His hollow eyes gleamed as he turned away, back to the stone arches around them.  His minions followed him, though the female remained, still confused.

“She is only flesh.  She will tire.  We can take her with us.”

“It is not her desire which called us,” he answered.  “It was Memes.”

The female glanced back at the blond's bright white cube, the flaring gold of her eyes, the mark upon her face.

“We were here to collect his soul, not hers.”

The female cenobite nodded and followed along, though the pins within the priest's lips twisted with the grin on his face.

“Though, she has proved... informative.”

Soon, the cenobites vanished back into their archways.  Within moments, the bunker reverted to its original shape, the lights above flickering back to life.

Nerti sighed hard.  The Elysium barrier around her, the flames in her eyes, and the mark on her face all vanished while she caught her breath.  Still, she eyed the walls cautiously.

Then, a spark burst from the ceiling.  She glanced up to see a single sheet of paper float down toward her.  She snatched it from the air and skimmed it, a relieved smile appearing on her lips.

* * *

Unfortunately, in the aftermath of this incident, no data was recorded from the numerous sensors throughout the room.  As the sensors were intact and undamaged, this was not due to overload. Further, the devices were activated and streamed data from the moment the armature was activated until the start of the incident.

At present, there are two likely explanations for this occurrence.  First, the energy utilized by the cenobites is of an unprecedented type for which the sensor arrays could not detect.  The other possibility is that the cenobites' extra-dimensional nature masks their energy output, using some hyper-dimension as a conduit.  This latter notion is partially corroborated by the way the cenobites can summon weapons from seemingly nowhere.

While this experiment did not yield definitive results, the authors would like to leave a warning to others who would pursue this or a similar goal.  These beings, these cenobites, are very dangerous and should not be actively studied.  Even with the precautions taken here, one researcher was lost to run the dimensions, chased by those very entities.  Please avoid encounters with these cenobites if at all possible.