"You want to shake hands with the devil, that's fine with me. I just want to make sure that you do it in hell."
- Eugene Kittridge, Mission: Impossible
"Excuse me. Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"
- Batman, Batman
The ancient sunken city of Thor really hammered down the "technological wonder from a lost era" thing. Electricity lit up the entire city like a giant pearl at the bottom of the sea. Every building housed relics of strange and foreign Magitech unlike anything Cless and his three adventurous friends had ever seen. But the greatest invention of Thorian society was the library tower rising above all the other structures.
The inside of the archive was decorated with shimmering fiberoptic stained glass windows that depicted an abstract and fragmented timeline of Thor's history. The rise of technology, thousands of years of prosperity, and the eventual catastrophe that ended society. This single building was the base of all of Thor's research, including the time gate Cless and his party needed to pass through before they could confront Dhaos.
The city's original inhabitants were lost to history, leaving everything in the care of a single immortal AI. He materialized as a massive polygonal face hovering between two power conduits fashioned as angel statues. His expression was blank and mysterious. His eyes were ever watchful and calculating. He was the Thor database's primary OS, aptly known as OZ. He was great and all-digital.
He peered down at the team of unlikely mortals who had awakened his motion detectors. The angels flanking him lit up with pale green electronic fire as he spoke in a harrowing voice.
"Stay where you are, mortals. Only one can be granted access to my data grid. Which of you is the most deserving?"
"I wield the Eternal Sword made from Thor's technology," Cless answered.
"I used a unicorn's horn to heal the planet's mana so I could get Thor's power generator working again," Mint answered.
"I channel the planet's mana and use it to control fairies, gnomes, and amphibians," Klarth answered.
"I can do a flip on my broom," Arche answered.
OZ made his decision in 4.03 nanoseconds.
"You," he boomed toward Mint. "The divine scholar of pure heart and fair of skin. Step toward the central dais."
Nervously, the cleric walked in front of her group and made her way across a floor of flickering hexagonal tiles. As she came closer to OZ's statues, a floating screen with the dimensions of a wardrobe mirror appeared in front of her. It displayed the image of an empty black dress dancing on a blank background. Mint reached forward and touched the phantom dress on its sleeve.
The screen instantly disappeared. A red ring of death appeared under Mint's feet.
Holographic flames spiraled around her straight up from the floor and licked ten feet into the air, searing through Mint's chaste white robes and burning her like a witch on a digital stake. She remained frozen in a trance as the heat rose around her, never shuddering in pain or screaming.
The holographic flames faded, leaving the holy mage with a bit of a blackened look. Her white gown was now black with gold embroidery. An ornate metal cross was chained around her hip with black and purple skirt shawls that matched her draping purple sleeves. Her mitre was replaced with a gypsy tiara with a violet silk veil. The end of her staff was adorned with a small pumpkin decorated to look like Cless for some reason. The front of her gown was cut far down her neck and closely hugged the front of her chest. This version of Mint wasn't shy about showing off her dual cores.
She turned around to face the other members of the party. With a bewitching smirk crossing her lips, she said something more sinister and depraved than anything Dhaos or one of his demons would ever dare to utter.
"Hi! It looks like you're trying to write a letter!"
"Huh?" said Arche.
"Sorry. I think my programming is a little mixed up," Mint apologized.
She went silent as she appeared to be thinking. Her eyes were simultaneously full of life and clouded with distant mechanical logic. Her spirit was sleeping somewhere in the uncanny valley of existence, if it hadn't been erased entirely.
She blinked when she finished thinking.
"Greetings, visitors. Welcome to the Thor administrative cathedral," she said in a soft and polite voice. "I am the resident system operator/keeper application, GUInda. I am required by local custom and electronic user licensure to ask you the following question before I can assist you: Are you a good bioproteon, or a bad bioproteon?"
"Huh?" said Cless.
"Thank you for your confirmation. I am now allowed to impart my knowledge onto you," the analog oracle said cheerfully. "Now, what troubles draw you to seek my aid?"
"We need to get the time portal working again," Klarth said. "And let me guess, you want us to collect some sorta statiophonicoxygeneticampli-…"
"Ten iron ingots are all I need," Mint said before he finished.
"Well, we can just go back to Moria for that," Arche said. She was surprised by the simplicity of the request.
The party members started to head out the same massive doorway they had entered. Cless, Arche, and Klarth left together, but Mint remained standing beside one of OZ's energy conduits.
"Hey, Mint. Aren't you coming along?" Cless called over his shoulder. Mint's expression changed to a slight frown as she answered.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I've calibrated this organic neurovascular unit into an electromagneticpseudospousal arrangement that's scheduled to last 5.28 ragnahedrons."
"Huh?" said Klarth.
"She's my secretary for the next 3,000 years," the voice of OZ thundered.
Klarth and Arche shrugged it off after giving it some thought. Mint was kind of a bore that dragged the whole party down anyway. Cless was the only one who seemed completely heartbroken.
"Don't worry," Klarth told him with a friendly pat on the shoulder. "There's always other fish in the sea."
Cless sighed and nodded. The three of them looked back toward Mint before they left.
"Be careful not to disturb anything while you're in the city," she softly warned. "I pray you won't cause any harm to OZ's firewall. I'll be watching it like a hawk."
Her expression changed from a helpful smile to a subtle menacing grin. The end of her jack-o'-lantern staff blazed in a ball of flames, while the same flames flickered in her eyes.
Cless, Arche, and Klarth glanced toward one another in fear, then quickly shuffled out the door.
Author's note: I decided to embrace the fact Tales of Phantasia and all of the Star Ocean games were technically made by the same studio by combining Tales of Phantasia with how most of my Star Ocean fanfics usually end.
Author's note 2: So I found out about Red Dwarf a couple days ago.