The Ocularum

THE OCULARUM

Location:
West Dream Analytics

Overview

- This page is intended for RP threads taking place at or in relation to the Ocularum! Additional information regarding the organization and its workings can also be found below. -

On the outskirts of Pumpkin Hollow, where the rural Northwest Hollow meets the edges of Lockwood Forest, there is a cottage. A thatched roof with wooden detailing houses a tall brick chimney from which a rich pinewood smoke rises in plumes. Warm and inviting windows glow with lantern light. A red door with a golden knocker is seated below a sign. "WEST DREAM ANALYTICS," it reads. This is both the home and the business of psychic dream therapist Neil West. Indeed, it is also the meeting place of the organization which he founded--- the Ocularum.

You must be invited to attend either by another member or by Neil himself, though they don't tend to be picky. Moreso they are cautious. They've been burned before for speaking out against the church's way of doing things. But they are committed to action. The Ocularum believes that they can settle the issue of Pumpkin Hollow's haunting once and for all, and that the Temple of Sacred Roots is doing nothing but hindering progress. But if you earn their trust, they will show you the secrets which they believe are key to finally undoing the curse besetting the island.

Membership

Initiation | Due to their poor relations with much of the island, the Ocularum is slow in its induction process. Start with a simple orientation and earn the trust of its members over time to learn more.

Benefits | Those who work with the Ocularum will find themselves less impacted by the effects of the curse and better prepared for what the island throws at them. This is in part due to Neil's occult expertise and strategies taught by him for dealing with these things, but members also find themselves passively having better luck as well.

Drawbacks | Neil's outspoken views against the Temple's methods and ongoing feud with Dahlia Leeds has not made the Ocularum particularly popular. Joining them may occasionally earn you the ire of others. There are also sometimes murmurings about "costs" among the members, implying that there may be some financial expectations.

Philosophy

The Ocularum believes that the solution to Marrow Isle's problems lies in occult knowledge and direct action. Whether the result of an angry ancient deity, restless spirits, or a leyline of dark energy beneath the land, there is some terrible magic plaguing the island. It can be treated. It can be harnessed.

However, the Temple's insistence on waiting around for dead or apathetic goddesses to answer the prayers of the people is putting this on hold. The Historical Society is no better, focusing on reactionary measures gleaned from dusty old books. And the heretics in the forest are respectable folk but are exposing themselves to unnecessary danger. The Ocularum needs bold and dedicated truth seekers who aren't afraid to step into the unknown for the sake of protecting themselves and their neighbors.

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Neil pokes his head out from the office, visible from the door via the hallway. "Yes! Just in here."

"Right..." Tarantulas takes his coat off and folds it over one arm as he enters the room, looking around with mixed curiosity and poorly-repressed anxiety. It feels very strange to be this nervous about attempting a new experiment, and he's worried Dr. West will think him rather pathetic for it. He's done surgery on himself before, after all! He's done surgery on himself many many times.

So with in mind he tries to stiffen his spine and smile, saying, "Quite the cozy set-up you've got here, doctor."

"That's the idea," Neil agrees cheerfully. "You need to be comfortable and relaxed in order to sleep. That's already a challenge in an unfamiliar environment, especially considering that you're being monitored. It's tricky to make yourself relax enough to rest. These are all just aids to the process."

He stands aside and lets Tarantulas take a good look around.

"I'm going to step out. You don't need me looming while you're trying to quiet your mind. But I'll return in about an hour, and when I start seeing signs that you've entered your REM cycle, I'll join you in your dream from that chair there. Alright?"

Neil has the right idea. Just being told that he won't be monitored right away has Tarantulas's posture loosening, his discomfort diminished with the news that he won't be observed while he's actively trying to fall asleep.

He smiles at Neil a little more easily and nods, sitting down to take his boots off. "Then I'd best get started," he says. "Unless there's anything else you need to tell me?"

"Unless you have further questions, I believe we're all squared away. Shall I leave you to your rest?" He seems just as chipper as always, but more serene somehow, as if he's winding down as well.

"Yes, please. I'll try not to take too long."

As soon as Neil has left, Tarantulas immediately tries the tea, sitting down on the edge of the bed to slowly sip and calm himself down. This is an experiment, he reminds himself. Even if it goes poorly, that will still be important data.

Even so, it takes him a while to finish undressing and settle under the covers, his extra legs wrapped tightly around his body. When Neil returns, he might notice that the part of Tarantulas' face not being crushed into the pillow is crunched in a stressed-out frown, as if sleep is an unpleasant task he must endure.

Neil returns with impeccable timing, just as Tarantulas has entered REM sleep. He seems to almost have a sense for it. Perhaps he does.

He takes a seat in his comfortable chair, takes a few minutes to drink his tea and don his pendant, then folds his hands over his lap and closes his eyes.

For a few moments, there is only the sound of soft breath in the room. And then the world fades away. The body of Neil becomes a latent vessel separate from himself, whose only job is breathing and remaining upright. The true self, Neil's essence, is beyond him now. Not asleep but not awake. He wanders the fringes of a nearly barren landscape. Sand dunes at night, a full moon casting silver light down on the roiling liquid ground. Neil steps across the glistening sand with no footprints, gliding, as if the shifting beneath his feet is of no consequence. Like walking on water. There is deafening silence.

And then, a threshold is broken. He steps across an invisible line. And he is transported somewhere else.

The transition is a subtle one. Silver sand turns golden-brown, and the dunes begin to climb, twisting into great crumbling peaks that claw at the blistering sky. The air is hot and gritty. There's no one in sight -- but somewhere far away, someone is screaming.

Between two looping dunes, a shallow trough has been dug, surrounded on either side by deep yet narrow fingerprints. Something was dragged through here -- but as Neil follows the tracks, his attention may be drawn by the looming spire that slices through the sky. The sands churn and the air boils around it, but it stands immovable. Concrete, in this protean landscape.

At its base a purple spider scrabbles at the wall, claws jabbing at a keypad until an enormous door, many times the height of a human, finally opens with a pneumatic hiss.

Edited 2024-02-23 14:59 (UTC)

The sky above is a sickly teal, spiralling with wicked pink clouds that swallow the moon from the previous scene, and for a moment Neil is slightly jarred. Not by the frightful scene--- that's the part he's used to. It's just rare that the environment bears even a remote similarity to his own subconscious.

Neil is still very much in control of his position in the space. The spines that slice through this otherworldly desert do not impede him. He remains a few paces away from the action of this dream, unnoticeable until he takes an action to become a participant in the dream rather than a bystander. For now, he will watch. Reconnaissance.

The spider drags itself through the doorway, leaving a trail of acid-green fluid that is quickly swallowed up by the sand and air. Once it's passed the threshold it shakes itself, nearly convulsing before it finally spits up more fluid and then -- unfolds --

The spider's body splits apart and inverts itself, fur giving way to shining metal and whirling gears. The machinery grows and rearranges itself, until a new body, humanoid yet profoundly alien, stands in its place.

The robot shakes his head, slowly at first and then harder, finally whacking himself in the temple with a fur-covered claw. The impact makes a sound the rings up and down the spacious corridor, and then Tarantulas speaks: "Confusion...disorientation...but still lucid? Why?" He looks around -- the arrangement of orb-like auxiliary eyes on his forehead is the same, but his primary eyes have been replaced by a yellow, glass-like visor and his mouth has become a vertical slit, surrounded by mandibles.

"There was...what was I doing? Some kind of experiment? Oh!" He stands up straighter, visor brightening slightly in the same way First Aid's does when he's excited about something. "Yes, the therapy! A novel technique, magic taking the place of needles and wires...but if this is a dream..." He glances around again, this time paying particular attention to the floor, before sidling up to the doorway with visible reluctance and poking his head outside.

"Doctor West?" he calls, obviously concerned despite his alien face.

Impressive! Tarantulas has surprisingly good control over the transition between conscious and subconscious thought. And what an interesting appearance! How strange that he chose the look he did rather than something more like his usual self. Perhaps he simply took the chance to try something new when entering Pumpkin Hollow.

Neil takes a step forward, allowing Tarantulas to become cognizant of him. "I'm here. I typically function as simply a witness until the dream becomes distressing, but your subconscious was particularly quick to become lucid and recall your waking life."

"Was it? Ah..." Despite his lucidity, Tarantulas still appears impaired; his speech is slower than normal, with only a tenth of his normal manic energy. He moves more slowly as well, with exaggerated care as he goes down on one knee and leans over Neil's smaller body. "It must be my, hm. My many years of practice at maintaining my mind in adverse conditions, hyeh hyeh..."

For a moment his image flickers, replaced with a smaller and slighter purple automaton, with a grey head and two red, lense-like eyes over a mouthless, mask-like metal plate. Tarantulas does not seem to notice the substitution, stretching out a clawed arm to point at the desert outside the door as he says, "Well then, welcome to my Noisemaze, Doctor West. Or at least what's left of it, hyeh. What do you think of it?"

"It's fascinating." Neil ignores the flicker as well. It's not an uncommon phenomenon. Incongruent self image, former appearance from a time of trauma, an unhealed inner-self--- there are many reasons. "What exactly is it, if I may ask?"

"A prison." Tarantulas stares blankly out at the shifting desert before muttering, "My patron was one of Optimus Prime's top tacticians. He had...so many enemies. Decepticons who wanted to assassinate him, Autobots who wanted to remove him from his place by the Prime's ear...He wanted some place to put them all where they couldn't trouble him anymore. Where escape would be impossible. I never imagined that I would be the first and only person he exiled here."

After a moment he adds, with bitter amusement, "Of course, he didn't know I was wearing a teleportation belt when he had one of his thugs throw me in here. Always be prepared, hyeh hyeh hyeh..."

"I get the impression that escape wasn't as simple as all that. Otherwise you wouldn't live here in your dreams," Neil points out. He begins walking, giving himself a tour. "What is it about this place that has such a chokehold on you?"

"Hyeh, well. It did take me a good fistful of centuries to remember I was wearing the belt, and how to activate it..."

He transforms back into his spider shape, shrinking down to a small enough size that he can easily keep pace with Neil. "The Noisemaze -- the original version, that is -- had an inimical effect on Cybertronian brains. The background radiation, the patterns formed by the terrain, even the colors in the sky are a torment to Cybertronian senses. It was not simply enough that its prisoners should be trapped here; Prowl wanted them to be punished as well. Every second was a torment..."

The corridor opens out into an immense room, the centerpiece of which is a deep hole, over which is suspended a metal tower whose other end vanishes into the enshrouded ceiling. From the gap between the tower and the floor shines a virulent green light, just a few shades off from the color of powdered green tea.

"When I escaped from the Noisemaze, I could hardly remember who I was, or what I'd been doing before I was thrown inside," Tarantulas muttered. "The only clear memory I had was that I'd been betrayed, and lost everything that mattered most to me. Everything else -- my identity itself -- lay in fragments at my feet. I wandered the galaxy for three million years, studying the secrets of the universe while I looked for a new purpose in life. But it wasn't until I discovered the human homeworld, Earth, that I felt ready to begin a new chapter in my existence. I encountered a novel life form, the spider, which filled me with such delight that I felt compelled to rebuild myself in its image. And I found the results of my old mentor Shockwave's experiments with energon development."

Extending one of his long, multi-jointed legs, he invites Neil to draw closer to the edge, holding him secure while the two of them peer down into the gap. The walls and floor of the hole are lined with large green crystals, the source of the light. For just a second, a flicker of movement: Tarantulas, his spider's head severed from its body, grapples with a green-armored warrior. Their anguished shouting is nearly drowned out by the blare of alarms. Tarantulas notices nothing.

He continues, voice quickening, his normal energy beginning to resurge: "Energon is my species' lifeblood. We use it to power our computers, our tools, even our bodies. Shockwave seeded dozens of worlds with the crystals, to avert the famine he saw lurking in our world's future. I found the results of his experiments and improved upon them, creating my obtenteum. A power source of unprecedented strength and efficiency."

He turns in a neat circle, showcasing the rows of computer banks, the monitors, the phantoms in armor with weapons in hand who wrestle with his enlarged body and cut away his limbs. "With the obtenteum, I returned to the Noisemaze and made myself its master. I built a machine that could hold back its damaging effects, and around the machine I built my Tor, a fortress and laboratory in one inviolable tower. Perfectly secret. Perfectly safe. A refuge where I could continue my work undisturbed, and in time recover all that I had lost with interest."

He argues with a white suit of armor, the two of them trading impassioned words and then vicious blows. Tarantulas slumps, his pedipalps nearly dragging the ground. "Or at least, that was the idea..."

Neil listens with interest, but doesn't really look at Tarantulas, his eyes wandering around the space. He also notably doesn't really ask Tarantulas to elaborate on names or strange words. He simply stands, looks, listens.

And then, when Tarantulas concludes, he jumps directly into the hole.

"Ah! Doctor West!" Startled, Tarantulas dives after him -- and passes straight through his own scuttling phantom self, now trying to bodily drag the struggling green warrior out of the hole.

"Ostaros!" Tarantulas calls in tones of deepest despair. "Wayward child! Why won't you listen to me --"

He stops, shivering hard. Odd little devices appear on the largest crystals, numbers counting down --

"No," Tarantulas hisses, "This is my dream. I don't have to see it again." He coughs, straining. For a moment the dream fragments, splintering off into strange little squared off-colors as if forced through a sieve that's also a prism that's also a window, a set of bars, a computer screen...

Neil watches, expression unchanging, as the dream splinters. He had landed with graceful ease at the bottom of the hole to investigate and had been watching placidly, and the same blank look remains on his face as he turns to Tarantulas now that the scene is interrupted.

"If you have so much control, what do you need me for?" His question is genuine, but there is a tinge of accusation there.

"Hnngh -- it hurts --" Tarantulas shudders, forelegs awkwardly bent to clutch and scratch at his head. The scene begins to deteriorate further, nearly losing its color altogether before he finally, with what is clearly a heroic effort, forces the dream to reset itself. The hole and crystals reappear with perfect clarity, minus the bombs or struggling phantoms. Tarantulas sways and almost slips right off the wall before righting himself and letting himself down at a more controlled pace.

He transforms back to bipedal mode with an agonizing grinding of gears. "I do not consider this control," he says archly, voice tight with pain and the kind of anger that waters its roots in confusion. "If I were in control, I wouldn't have to relive the worst day of my five million year long life every time I fall asleep! Lucidity may have given me an escape hatch, but it doesn't make the pain any lesser! Do you have any idea --" He stops himself, breathing hard.

"Please excuse me. I'm not myself, right now..." He glances around at the crystals -- many of them even longer than he is tall, dwarfing Neil West's human body entirely -- and asks, bewildered, "What did we come down here for?"

It seems that he can either steer the dream or he can hold an in-depth and impassioned conversation, but not both.

Edited (grr frigging typos) 2024-03-31 19:24 (UTC)

"You were giving me a tour," Neil says easily, as if nothing happened. "If we are to make progress, I need to see the dreams you struggle with play out naturally."

"Was I?" Tarantulas stares at his own reflection in one of the obtenteum crystals, eventually resting his forehead against the smooth surface with a small thunk. "Ah, yes...My obtenteum. The second greatest of all my creations, apart from poor, dear Ostaros..."

The scene begins to blur again. A figure in heavy green armor begins to descend from the lip of the hole, lowering itself down with a thick yet strangely indistinct rope. Not a true memory, then, but rather an invention of Tarantulas's mind: the way he thinks things might have happened, based on what he knows of Springer. Ostaros. Springer...

Hmm. Talking about Ostaros seems to draw out the images Neil is looking for. And Tarantulas seems distracted with talking.

"Tell me about Ostaros."

"My dear child...the triumph of my intellect," Tarantulas murmurs, thoroughly distracted now by his sorrow. The green figure flickers as it begins to move around the circumference of the hole, fixing explosives -- Neil is perhaps able to work out their nature based on his past life in Providence -- to the walls and largest crystals. Sometimes the figure is clad in heavy armor, other times it is slender as a twig. One moment its face is grim, the other it bears a small, sweet smile. Tarantulas shivers.

"My kind...we don't reproduce sexually. We have no sense of parentage, of bonds that transcend generations. New adults simply appear, either out of designated holy sites or secretive government factories...it is a weakness in our society. With no gentle way to pass down social mores, our government relies on force and indoctrination instead...But that's not way I made him."

"I had always thought myself incapable of love...when I met Prowl, I realized otherwise. But I always knew that my feelings exceeded his. I would never be more than second in his eyes...I was shocked by how much it hurt. I wanted to be first in someone's spark...I wanted to occupy the central position in their life. And what role could be more central than that of creator?" He laughs bitterly. "I didn't learn until much later that children always outgrow their parents...Like little stars fated to sail away from the nebula of their birth..."

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The Ocularum

THE OCULARUM

Overview

Membership

Philosophy

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