Stephen struggled to free himself, but after a few seconds, he determined that it was hopeless. The tentacle which had grabbed him around his right ankle had been joined by another tentacle which wrapped around his right thigh. The superhuman strength he had displayed in scaling the mountain was nothing compared to the power of the entity which had captured him. He tried to remain calm by reminding himself that he had transcended his weak human nature, that his soul had reached a deeper connection to the forces outside the universe, but those thoughts could not extinguish the fear that the his essence could be fully annihilated at any point. He grasped the Three-Point Shooting Amulet which was still on a chain around his neck. Gripping this physical representation of his power soothed him somewhat, and he was, for the first time, able to observe the chamber that he was being dragged through. The interior walls, like the exterior, were covered with minute symbols that evidenced great knowledge, perhaps all knowledge that had ever been known or would be known. Like the rest of this world, the place was lit, but the source of light couldn't be seen. Lifting his head up slightly to look towards his legs, Stephen saw additional tentacles slithering and writhing along with the two that bound him. They extended an impossibly long distance forward and then around a curve in the corridor. Whether they belonged to one creature or multiple, he couldn't determine. When the dragging finally stopped, Stephen was in a chamber with a ceiling so high that the walls seemed to vanish into fog. The tentacles let him go, allowing him to stand up, but they stayed within inches him, ready to grab again if he started running. It was then that he got his first look at what he knew without a doubt was one of the Other Gods. It was comprised entirely of the dripping black tentacles that had taken him here. At the center of the writhing mass was a triangle of three eyes that blinked independently of each other. Stephen struggled to look at the abomination for more than a second at a time; its appearance was repulsively alien. There was no visible mouth, but the God spoke to him anyway. "What is your purpose? Why have you come?" Stephen again grasped the amulet, using its strength to look the fiend in the eyes. "To gain mastery over the art of three-point shooting with your aid." He paused, then added, "And to bring back news of the true Gods to those who I once called my fellow man, so that they abandon their adoration of the lesser Gods." "We cannot help you," the thing replied. "We do not desire worship. But you can help us. To have a human spirit, even one tainted by unwise rituals, would nourish us greatly!" At that moment, the veil of concealment was ripped away, and the entire illusion of the mountain and the great stone city disappeared. As Stephen was thrown back into the void, both his physical and mental senses crashed into each other like the waves of a sea beset with hundreds of storms. Unlike his entry into this dimension, there was no tranquility, only chaos. Every connection to reality was sundered. His sanity was broken. His mind, or what remained of it, could only repeat one panicked thought, over and over: "Where is the amulet?" He tried to see it, but there was nothing to see, not even blackness; it was as if the visual inputs to his brain had been replaced with random garbled signals. When he tried to move his hand to check for the amulet, he found that his physical presence had been discarded entirely, leaving only a consciousness with no form attached. The malefic voice spoke again. "What you observe now is the true nature of this dimension. There is no respite from the chaos. We will let the fear build up on your soul like a plaque, and then it will be devoured, and you will find what lies beyond is not pleasant." Distantly, Stephen could hear screams echoing through the void. The screams of those life forms foolish enough to journey into this dimension and paying the price with their souls. "I refuse," Stephen answered defiantly. "Return me at once to my home!" He couldn't tell where his voice was coming from but suspected that no actual sound waves were being generated. In response to this, an unbearable static noise filled his ears at a deafening volume. It moved up and down in pitch as if laughter. Stephen instinctively moved to protect his ears, but there were no ears to protect. "Such hubris," spoke the voice. "If you wish to act this way, perhaps it would be better to remove you immediately." Stephen cried out as he felt the first fragment of his soul get broken off and consumed. More Gods had joined in the feast, surrounding him, prodding him, driving him to incoherence. In one final act of defiance, he channeled his remaining energy even as it was being sapped from him, and yelled out "I refuse!" as this energy burst out of him. Then, silence. -- "Steph? Steph? Are you okay?"
As soon as Stephen's fingertip grazed the vibrant green surface of the portal, everything changed. The warning voice of Steve Kerr disappeared from his hearing, and the subterranean cavern disappeared from his sight. He was being pulled through a void of absolute black, and even his own physical being seemed to have vanished out of existence. Either that, or it had been left behind in the previous dimension. When he looked down, the only thing he could see was the magicked Three-Point Shooting Amulet on its chain. It pulsated like it was alive. Stephen knew what was happening. He was going to the realm of the Other Gods. The gods that existed above and beyond the feeble gods of the Earthly religions. The gods to whom the attributions of "omnipresent" and "omniscient" were laughably inadequate. The gods who were outside of time. The gods who were time itself. The gods who would grant him, Stephen, absolute mastery over the amulet. An amulet which he had the skill to create, but not the power to control. For some reason, Stephen's disembodied thoughts turned to his teammate, Klay Thompson. Klay coveted the power of the amulet, but was too simple to fathom its true nature. How pathetic he was, even when judged against the lowly whole of the human race. Stephen knew that he was about to shed his repugnant humanity forever, leaving behind not only Klay, but all of mankind. The black void resolved itself in his eyeless sight. Colors returned, as did his body, which looked the same as its earthly counterpart. He found himself standing on a wide plain that, aside from some distorted rocky outcroppings, was devoid of landmarks. However, he was unsure if the world he was on was real, or just a creation of the Gods, provided to his mind in order to ease his transition to their dimension. The "Magickal Objects…" volume which had provided so much vital information to him had stopped short of any description of the realm of the "Othre Gods", only alluding to its unknowable and sanity-obliterating nature in fearful tones. Perhaps what he was looking at was a mere veneer over a dimension of utter chaos and malignity. Up ahead was a tall mountain crowned by a grand city or palace marked by towering spires and wide arches. Again, it could have been a sort of visual metaphor for the power of the Gods, but that didn't matter much. Stephen had no way to empirically evaluate the realness of his surroundings. He had achieved knowledge greater than all but a scant few humans over the millennia, but there was still so much to learn. And he felt that the city on the mountain was where he would learn it. — The journey to the mountain took a long time, but it also took no time at all. For all of the trappings of the human experience that Stephen still retained, the sensation of the passing of time was not one of them. There was no sun in this world, nullifying humanity's main visual indicator that time was indeed elapsing, and Stephen felt neither fatigue, nor hunger, nor thirst, which was another such indicator. In fact, the only sensation that Stephen could say he "felt" was the amulet dangling against his naked chest. At the base of the mountain, the whole thing seemed much taller, but those gleaming spires were still visible at the top of the steeply-angled rock faces. At first, Stephen looked for some pathway up it, but when he didn't find one, he realized that he probably didn't need one. Boldly placing a foot on the nearly-vertical rock face, he found the footing inexplicably solid. In that way he proceeded upwards at an impossible angle as if it were a stroll upon flat ground. As he got closer, the amulet seemed to sense that it was getting closer to its true origins, and it jittered. Now Stephen stood at the mountain's peak and was faced directly with some of the mysterious architecture of the city. Gargantuan stone blocks, decorated with impossibly fine and detailed inscriptions, comprised the larger walls. The inscriptions aroused a faint flicker of memory in Stephen, and he realized that he had seen them before in his dreams. Among these writings were the instructions that he had used to conduct the ritual that had opened the portal in the first place. If only he could decipher them, he was sure that here also were the instructions needed to gain true mastery over the amulet. But he knew it was no use to dwell at this spot. The Other Gods were not just going to offer those secrets freely. He was still just an interloper in their realm, and they had not forgotten how the amulet had originally been created: with the influences of mankind's foul, false theologies. Even know, Stephen suspected that the effectuation of his demise was being plotted. To his side was a doorway which led into the complex, which could have been one or multiple structures. It opened with just a small push, revealing a lit chamber beyond. Stephen placed one foot inside. Immediately, a slimy black tentacle grabbed him and pulled him in.
Senare halvan av introlåten är från det lokala bandet DU/GA´s låt, Absent Sanity. Hela deras EP finns på Spotify att lyssna på.
Oracle ( Erik Adielsson ) gewinnt die Telia - Färjestads Jubileumslopp - Gulddivisionen, Final 2012 vor Dileva Käll und Sanity über A - Distanz: 2.140 m in 1:11,3 Einlauf: 7 - 5 - 10 Färjestad (SWE), 30.06.2012 Starterfeld: 2140 m 1 Highlight Brizard ,7j. H 12,600 - 2.010.125,00 € Per Lennartsson Per Lennartsson 2 Iceland ,8j. H 10,200 - 9.478.032,00 € Stefan Melander Stefan Melander 3 Livi Barcelona ,9j. W 10,900 - 3.729.778,00 € Tomas Johansson Örjan Kihlström 4 Eliott Hall ,7j. H 13,400 - 2.129.352,00 € Lutfi Kolgjini Lutfi Kolgjini 5 Dileva Käll ,6j. S 09,900 - 3.750.880,00 € Glen Norman Peter G Norman 6 Nahar ,7j. H 11,600 - 2.445.970,00 € Robert Bergh Åke Svanstedt 7 Oracle ,6j. H 10,200 - 4.271.754,00 € Stefan Melander Erik Adielsson 8 Timetosaygoodbye ,9j. H 10,200 - 4.166.840,00 € Catarina Lundström Torbjörn Jansson 9 Global Investment ,9j. W 10,700 - 6.501.363,00 € Björn Goop Björn Goop 10 Sanity ,6j. W 10,400 - 4.569.180,00 € Malin Löfgren Johnny Takter Mehr Videos unter: http://www.youtube.com/user/EliteTrotting?feature=mhee