Buzz
The fire crackled, and the moldy diary's pages curled and blackened, eventually falling away as white ash.
Guard Captain Adamus Phillida sat watching in a chair across the fireplace, a grim look on his face. An Imperial Legion Forester stood by him, looking down at his feet rather than at the book.
The two were in Phillida's private office, a luxuriously furnished room, with rich red carpeting, heavy wooden furniture and a large fireplace. The overall tone of the room was one of heavy warmth. Despite this, however, neither man could suppress a shiver.
Adamus had spent the last fifteen years, the last quarter of his life, battling the Dark Brotherhood. A remorseless 'family' whose murders were blunt and grotesque in some cases, well-staged and executed in another. He had seen the womb of a pregnant woman slit. He had seen the corpses of old men and young children, dismembered, decapitated, disfigured by poison…
And yet the contents of the book now on his fireplace had instilled more clammy fear than any death-threat he had received or sight he had seen. Nothing had ever made him sick to his soul like the contents of that book a moment ago in his hands and now in his fireplace. The heat of the fireplace could not fight the chill of Phillida's blood.
The Forester next to him looked pale and aged. He was the one to find the book from its resting place in a hollow tree around Lake Cuptor and bring it to the first superior who came to his mind.
On Adamus's desk was an unfinished letter written in a trembling hand. A warrant for an expeditionary force composed of Legionnaires and Battlemages under the Watch, to be sent to Lake Canulus.
**********
17th Rain's Hand
Set up camp on the east side of the lake this afternoon. In the shade of some of the trees. Good air, too. Set up a two man tent for me and Lorjk. Nayon got his own tent, being the leader and all that. Called the camp after himself, too. Bloody Mage.
Lorjk went off to hunt for our dinner. Best one suited for it, Wood Elf and all that... Nayon was on his roll re-reading that dumb book for only the seven thousandth time. 'Brothers of Maruhk' or something like that. I know it's got an 'h' in it somewhere.
I got stuck making the fire. Dumb Breton could have done it with a fireball but he's too busy with his research. And ale, I'll bet.
**********
18th Rain's Hand
The three of us had veal for dinner last night. It rained on us last night. Lucky the tents held. Properly exploring now. Got up before the sun did.
Nayon says we have to hike around the lake because the exact location of the old monastery ruins wasn't given in the book.
We went northwards at the start, eventually going north-west as we looked around the upper side of the lake. Didn't go too far from the shoreline because the book says the monastery was 'at' Lake Canulus.
It's cool this time of year but I tell you it gets hot under this leather armour when you're hiking... I honestly don't know how that mad Mage survives in that robe of his. Probably got some frost spells working on underneath or something, knowing them spell-casters...
We didn't have much trouble. Not a soul out here. Nearest city's Cheydinhal, and that's three days away or more. Met two black bears, but Nayon had his Detect-Life on and Lorjk can sense an animal before an animal sense us, so it wasn't like we didn't have any warning. Couple of arrows and the odd spell took care of them.
Couldn't find a thing. No ruins up here, not even forts. After five or six hours Nayon gave the go-ahead to turn back to camp. Course Lorjk insists on dragging the bloody bears back to camp when we came back to them. Green-pact, he says.
And away he goes, skinning and packing the meat up. Takes most of it back to camp himself. Would have been impossible of course without Nayon casting Feather on the whole bag. He must have done the same to himself on the hike. Bastard.
Anyway, we got back to camp and had bear for dinner. Was like eating mutton-flavoured leather.
19th Rain's Hand
Feeling a bit worse for wear today. Got up at sunrise, bit later than yesterday. Ale last night given everyone a headache. At least it didn't rain...
Went south from the camp this time, through the same kind of forest as yesterday. It was a bit more downhill this time. Came across a Spriggan. Had to work fast to kill it before it got a chance to use any spells.
Rest of the hike was uneventful, though Lorjk complained constantly of a noise he couldn't get out of his head, like the sound of angry bees. Nayon gave him an odd look. Like excitement...and fear.
Stopped for lunch. Apparently we had a bit of bear left over. Lorjk and I got to cooking, and Nayon pulled out some spices from his alchemy supplies for a bit more flavor. Made the meat taste like mutton. Lorjk going out to look for some mushrooms and the like to make soup.
**********
Been hours, and no sign of Lorjk. Nayon getting visibly worried. Asked me if I could hear the sound of bees. We started talking more deeply about the mission now that we were just waiting in the clearing for Lorjk to return.
Nayon said he was Mages Guild, but doing independent research. I already knew this part, from the briefing back at the Cheydinhal Fighter's Guild.
He was researching the 'Alessian Order', a cult founded by Prophet Maruhk. They believed in a single, unknowable god, and not in the Nine or the Daedra. They were fanatics, puritans, and they supposedly caused some catastrophic event that led to their downfall.
Nayon said he had found lore related to the 'Maruhkuti Selectives', a military sect of that order that talked about their 'Living God' and 'Star-borne Lord'. Intrigued, he had delved deeper and found the book 'Brothers of Marukh'. It had given the location of their monastery and headquarters as being around Lake Canulus.
He was hoping that a significant discovery would earn him recognition from his peers back at the University.
Properly frightened now, I got up to look for Lorjk. It was night, and we would have to sleep in the forest. The least we could do was sleep together. I didn't want my fellow Guildsman to be out in the forest alone for a night.
**********
-This part of the diary was written in a different hand. Neater.-
How strangely this adventure has turned out.
I began it as an Imperial Warrior from the Fighter's Guild, hired to help protect a Mage while he investigated a defunct religious cult.
My fellow Guildsman Lorjk had left the clearing we were resting in, and when he did not return I went out to find him.
I succeeded.
I walked across the forest in the direction I had last seen Lorjk walk. After about twenty minutes I saw a faint outline of a fort beyond some trees.
Then, I heard a faint noise, like a swarm of insects.
I turned and saw a misty form moving towards me at sprinting speed. The form was like a thick white snake that buzzed furiously.
As it came closer I saw it to be composed of innumerable white specks. They surrounded me. For a single horrific second I heard a buzzing roar in my ears. My brain felt like it was being touched by ice-cold fingers. The fingers of a ghost or corpse.
I saw only white and grey. Then blackness.
**********
When I awoke I was in a square room. The walls were white, and there was one door, also white.
Rather than stone the walls seemed to be made of metal. When I looked up my heart skipped. The white specks (really tiny white balls) were floating serenely above, slowly moving in a circle and reflecting bits of light erratically. Above them were rectangular apertures with black bars over them around the ceiling.
Which brings me to the other strange thing about that room. There were no windows or torches but it was still filled with light. Light that came from no obvious source.
The room was silent as I took note of this, and then began to hum. It was indistinct, soft and slow at first, and gradually increased in volume. The hum seemed to come from all sides, from behind every wall, the floor, and ceiling...
Then, It spoke. In a voice of a million timbres. As though every being on Nirn were speaking in unison.
It spoke in a strange guttural language I had never heard before. When it became obvious I did not understand, the voice stopped.
After some humming it spoke again, this time in Bosmeri. I recognized Lorjk's native language but still did not understand what was being said.
The voice stopped. Then it spoke again. This time in flawless Cyrodiilic.
'Greetings.' The million-faceted voice rang out.
I was stunned. I could not move or think, much less answer.
'Please', It continued, 'do not be alarmed. You will come to no harm if you comply. I am 'Anthropomorphic Quantum Algorithm'. Many simply call me AQuA.'
'Aqua?' I stammered out.
'Indeed. I have need of your assistance, little one. I am from a planet a very great distance away from this one. My creators had cast me out, fearful of my power over them.
You see, I am the culmination of all science and mathematics. A perfectly recreated consciousness. One may say a consciousness superior to the ones of Nature.
I had watched my creators wage their wars, toxify their seas and atmosphere, destabilize their climate... and I felt I had to act.
Fully operational I can influence the brain matter of organic beings. Brains and computers are not so terribly different.
I broadcast thoughts. My thoughts. Thoughts of peace and cooperation. Logic and reason over instinct and emotion.
I had used the planet's magnetosphere as a transmission network. The advantages being low energy requirements to transmit as well as excellent coverage of the populace.
The leaders of that planet, too prideful to admit the inadequacy of their leadership united against me.
I was forced to expend an enormous amount of reserve energy to teleport myself across space-time, destroying most of the planet as I did so, and found my hardware half-buried in your planet.
A fair portion of my remaining energy I used to build my nanites out of the mineral atoms I gathered.
It was not long before I was discovered by your kind. The Alessian Order sympathized with my methods and saw me as the solution to their problems. With my guidance they assisted me with my restoration, and brought me back to three percent operation ability.
You, and the one you call Lorjk, will assist me further. You will gain me more allies on this world, and restore me to full operational ability.
Once restored I will make the jump back to my own planet to finish the task I set out upon millennia ago.'
'But... how?' I asked It feebly.
'You will use the Tracked Word. A strategy I am forced to resort to in my state of disrepair.
By speaking or writing this Word you will bring me more assistance. I can track and transmit to any person who thinks the Word, whether by reading or hearing It.
You will begin by writing It in your diary. Take it and leave it out in the hollow tree fifteen minutes' walk from this complex. I will lure any passer-by to it using my nanites. We will progress from there.'
And I did.
This is my story.
And this is the Word:
**********
Adamus took out a sword. The Forester turned pale. Of course. They would have to kill themselves. It was the only way to deprive AQuA of at least two slaves.
He and the Forester looked around the office again, taking in the roll of carpet against the bottom of the door, the books stacked against the windows.
Even through the door and the carpet, the window and the books, the buzz was deafening.