The rumbling of strange and powerful forces clashing against each other rang out across dataspace.

After Spark had realized what exactly this place was, things had started to make a lot more sense. Groups of nodes fit together, and she'd figured out how to use them as such to do much more complex things than a binary toggle.

The realm she occupied wasn't "real" per se. It was more of a fabrication of her own mind, a way to comprehend the numbers and data running through the computer network she was currently located within. But the facility she was integrated with had some ways to interface with the "real world," and she was able to take control of those to interact with that higher realm. She'd done so already, to communicate with Visk and Nari earlier.

But even still, she was in great danger, trapped within this complicated web of signals and bridges, all the while being caught in the crossfire of two colossal…forces of some sort, that had invaded her reality.

A swarm of strange nanomachines was hungrily devouring the network, eroding the structure and cutting segments off from the rest. She'd dubbed this the Phage, as it seemed to act like a virus, eating up nodes and using them to replicate. She recognized this as the same buzzing noise she'd heard earlier - had it been here the whole time?

In opposition to the Phage was the Red Mist. As Spark's name for it suggested, it took the form of a blood-red cloud slowly enveloping the cyberscape. It seemed to seek out the Phage and try to suffocate it, but when she got close to it, she could feel it reach out to her, try to suck her in as well.

The end result of all this was a complicated maelstrom of consumption and destruction, rolling through dataspace like a hurricane. It looked almost like a galaxy collision, pieces spinning around in complex motion and getting thrown out or dragged back in. And she was like a fly trying to avoid the storm, zipping around and dodging raindrops.

While trying to evade the Phage and Mist, Spark had also been tapping into sensors and cameras, trying to glean information about reality. After all, if she was going to escape this computer network she was trapped in before it fell apart, it'd probably involve the real world in some capacity.

She'd overheard Nari and Visk's conversation earlier. Visk had had a strange sudden awakening earlier as well, same as Spark; curiously enough, Visk also seemed to be the source of the strange force Spark felt, as if he somehow had a presence in her pseudo-reality. Specifically, the force was apparently generated by Visk's presence to the alien technology in the facility they were in; it got weaker as he got further away from anything Spark could activate.

Spark was knocked out of her thought by a loud buzzing. The Phage had caught up to her, and as per usual, it was hungry.

At this point, she'd kinda gotten the hang of getting out of its way. With a leap, she launched herself across the network, weaving her way around great clouds of Phage. They ate away at the place like termites.

By now, this network was nearly fully consumed by the two forces. As she watched, Red Mist spread and enveloped a cloud of Phage, washing it away with an ominous whoosh. The monolith facility's network looked like a lost cause, and she was really banking on Visk to lead her out to the basement he'd first explored, presumably the connected network she had been in earlier.

There wasn't much more space to run to now, she needed help sooner rather than later…

And she felt Visk's pull again.

Spark gave in, letting the force guide her towards the exit of this digital prison. Although all the buildings in this area were connected in some way, they were distant, and they required assistance for her to travel between, assistance she could find in Visk leading her towards the basement.

After a good while of riding rails and avoiding Phage, Spark reached an empty spot, a long chamber in dataspace that dropped into the depths of the machine. Looking behind her and seeing Phage closing in, she dove down into the chamber.

As she fell, she saw the Red Mist arrive, rolling into the chamber and filling it up from the top down. It was slowly accelerating downwards towards her, and she saw it fall quicker, and quicker…

Before she could be taken away by the Mist, she hit the bottom of the chamber. Picking herself up, she escaped through a hole in the Phage to a data highway, one that she knew was this maze's exit. She dashed out of this metropolis of lights and death, the world growing quiet as she landed in the endless void, time and space slowly becoming imperceptible as the bright glow of a dying network receded into the distance.

"What are the Sentinels?"

Nari narrowed her eyes at Visk. "Long story. I'll tell you later. But seeing them right now is probably bad news."

Immediately, the dahmak picked up her pace, and passed Visk briefly, before slowing down after she saw the variety of routes she could take from this walkway.

"Which door did you go through?" she asked.

Visk got the cue and broke into a run himself. "This one," he responded, quickly rounding the bend into the farthest doorway.

As he turned, he suddenly came to a stop as he found himself face-to-face with the monster that had chased him earlier.

Well, "face-to-face" wasn't necessarily the best term for it; it didn't really have a face. Hell, it wasn't humanoid at all - it appeared to be a swarm of small silver machines, held together by some sort of blue electricity. It shifted around like a cloud, changing shape with every passing moment, yet no matter what shape it took, Visk couldn't shake the feeling that it was very dangerous.

He held a hand back towards Nari. "Stop, we have company," he waved as he fired his plasma pistol at the creature a couple of times.

To his surprise, the plasma did little to nothing to stop the creature. It absorbed the shock with ease, forming it into an orb around itself before the machines consumed it. It reeled back and let out a horrific shriek before lunging towards him.

Immediately, he started running back the way the two had came, dragging Nari with him. She was taken by surprise and gasped as he grabbed her arm. "Why are we going back? What the fuck was that noise?"

"You remember that creature I said I saw earlier?" Visk replied.

"Yeah."

"Yep. It's right there, by the elevators. We need to get the hell away."

"Just use your guns!"

"Plasma doesn't work on it. Run!"

Nari opened her mouth to object, but sighed in resignation before she said anything. Visk let go of her as she broke into a sprint alongside him, even as they both heard another horrific shriek behind them.

Visk shot Nari a glance. "I don't know how we can get out of here without the elevators, but I might know a place where we can be safe for a little while. Follow me."

She nodded and slowed down momentarily to place herself behind him. They turned into the same corridor they had gone down after crossing the chasm. Nari looked behind her and saw the creature coming around the corner, a loud buzzing noise emanating from it. She started to run faster.

Before they reached the chasm, Visk took a sudden turn left, directly towards a wall in the hallway, nearly falling over from the inertia before catching his balance.

Nari stumbled into a stop. "Where are you going?"

"Secret door."

Visk stood staring at the wall, rubbing his hands together and muttering to himself. "Alright, this is where it happened. Open up please."

He reached out and touched the wall. Nothing happened. It seemed to be totally solid, just another ordinary corridor wall. What was he thinking?

Visk continued standing in place for a moment, clearly quite annoyed as his "secret door" refused to open. Just as he sighed and turned away, the walls began to glow a seafoam green, as lights outlined a doorway in the wall, and said doorway opened to reveal a densely furnished room behind.

The irva's fins shot up and he half-ran, half-leapt into the room. Nari slowly walked in as Visk looked back up at the ceiling.

"Alright, Spark, I think you're the one causing this teal stuff. Close the door, lock this fucker out."

As he said that, like magic, the door closed as suddenly as it had opened. He breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Nari. "Okay, this is the weapons vault. Choose your guns," he said, gesturing towards the room's furniture, shelves filled to the brim with all sorts of Architect weaponry.

The dahmak's mouth was slightly agape as she took in the sheer scope of the armory in front of her. "How the hell did you find this? Architect weapons are rare as is, to find this many in one spot, it's…nearly unheard of."

"Kinda just stumbled into it," he shrugged. "I think Spark might've played a part in that."

"Fair enough," she remarked as she walked over towards the shelves and began to take a look. "I suppose that's all Vaulting really is at the end of the day, just stumbling into things."

A gleam in the corner of the room caught her eyes and she moved to investigate.

Nari was in the back of the room, looking through all the Archi-tech, when Visk noticed something was wrong.

Ever since they'd entered the weapons vault, the lights around the door had been glowing a bright aquamarine blue. However, as Visk watched, they suddenly faded out, and the room returned to its natural monochrome color.

Then the lights turned red.

"Nari, something's off. I think that Spark-"

He was cut off by the door suddenly opening to reveal the monster behind it.

His eyes went wide. "Oh, shit - we've gotta get going," he remarked as he passed by Nari. "Grab what you want from the vault, quick; the monster's here."

The dahmak's head spun around and her eyes widened as she saw the buzzing swarm of nightmares behind the doorway. She immediately scooped up a bunch of artifacts between her arms, then stood up and ran to follow Visk, dropping a few artifacts on the floor in the process. One of them seemed to be glowing a bright gold as the irva ran past it.

Visk noticed something new on the opposing wall: a door across from the one they'd entered through, which appeared to lead into a hallway that went deeper into the structure. It definitely wasn't there a moment before, but perhaps whatever had happened to the facility had opened all the doors?

The irva quickly ducked out of the doorway, Nari close in tow behind him. He turned right and led her down the hallway. Eventually it forked out in a T shape, leading to a collapsed wall on the right, and continuing on much further to the left. He shot a glance behind him, and past Nari, he could see the swarm approaching rapidly.

Without a second thought, Visk dashed to the left and sprinted down the hallway. He could hear loud footsteps behind him as Nari picked up her pace to match his speed. As he continued down the hall, he took a look over his shoulder and saw the swarm getting closer.

"Shit," he exclaimed, lowering his breath after a moment. "It's catching up."

Nari took a look behind herself as well, gasping as she saw just how close it was. "Yeah, we need to run!" she yelled, starting to sprint even faster.

Eventually, the hallway took a sharp turn left. The two slightly skidded as they slowed down to take the turn, then swiftly sped back up to full speed, Visk frantically waving his arms around trying to stabilize himself. They continued down the hall until they reached a part Visk recognized; he grabbed Nari and pulled her into the elevator room as the swarm passed them, slightly nicking Nari's tail as it went by.

The two sprinted across the bridge, then came to a stop as they noticed there wasn't an elevator carriage up top yet. Visk looked back at the entrance; the swarm had figured out his deception, and was now on the bridge, heading towards the adventurers.

He stared at Nari. "Hop on," he suggested, lifting up his grapple gauntlet.

With no hesitation, Nari grasped onto him as he jumped off the side of the bridge.

There was no light.

Spark was in the void once more, carried along by currents of waves shouting out across the sky. She knew now that she was in between networks, drifting in the space between facilities, riding a wireless connection through the air.

With no nodes to guide her, she glided, her only compass the force that tied her to Visk, slowly pulling her in a direction she could only trust led to the basement. It was out of her hands now.

She'd escaped the Phage and the Mist at this point. They weren't hungry for her; they only wanted to control the Monolith system. She wasn't there anymore, so they had no reason to pursue her further. For now, she just had some time to relax.

Spark didn't have a body. There wasn't really such thing as a "body" in dataspace; it was more abstract than that, just a collection of ones and zeroes that seemingly formed something that could be perceived. But for lack of a better term, she "closed her eyes", losing her focus in her surroundings and letting the wind take her where it willed.

Visk hooked onto the bridge, using the grappling hook as a sort of swing to ease himself and Nari down.

"Okay, do not under any circumstances let go," he suggested. Taking a glance below him, he added, "Don't look down either."

The two were dangling above an enormous pit. If Visk released the grapple's grip, it was certain death for the both of them. He could feel sweat drip down his face.

"Alright, here's the situation," he said. "We're stuck at the top of a very tall room, with no reasonable way to get down. You got any ideas?"

"Uh…maybe grapple onto the elevator carriages?"

Visk looked over at the left side of the room. The elevator carriages he had used to get up here initially still ran around their circular path, though they glowed red now instead of turquoise. Nari's suggestion had merit to it; if he could cling to the elevator system, he could absolutely hitch a ride down.

"Sounds good to me. Now hold on," he said, releasing the grapple for a moment before aiming at the elevator and firing.

For a few harrowing moments, the two were in free-fall, accelerating down into the depths of the vault, their only companion besides each other the metallic rattle of the grapple cord extending into the distance. Then, a sudden "click" as the grapple latched into place, and they were launching towards the elevators.

Gripping the carriage they were grappled onto, the two slowly descended down towards the floor. Visk looked up and could vaguely make out the monster above - it looked like it was getting into the elevators?

"Nari, I think it's coming down. We've gotta get out as soon as we're at the bottom. I think I know the way out."

"Alright, I'll trust you with this. Not like I've got much choice at this point," she muttered under her breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. We're nearing the bottom. Let's get going."

She let go of the carriage a few seconds before it reached its lowest point, dropping a few feet and landing squarely on the floor. Visk followed, breaking into a sprint as he heard the roar of the monster behind him.

"Okay, you see those red lines above? They're the power conduits here. They point to the power supply," he pointed out, following them in the direction of the reactor.

"Yeah, makes sense. And I'd guess you know how to get out of here from said power supply?"

"Roughly," he sighed, trying to remember how he'd made his way in earlier.

After running through several rooms, the two came across a glowing red orb, which Visk immediately recognized as the reactor. It was a different color now, but it was the same distinct machinery-filled room that he remembered.

Several doors lined the walls, and he peeked through a few of them to see what was behind. Empty rooms, mostly, sometimes broken up by a bit of rubble.

"Visk, you better hurry up! We've got company!"

Nari's shout distracted him as he darted back into the central room. Clearly visible through one of the doorways was the monster, swarming through the dark rooms with a blue glow.

"Follow me," Visk replied, ducking into a random room before realizing he recognized it.

"Oh shit, this is actually the right one! Alright, now follow me," he added.

With a slightly disappointed nod, Nari stayed close behind him, occasionally pointing her gun back at the monster and firing, though bullets didn't seem to hinder it much.

Eventually, they reached a brighter room than the others. A strip of light stretched through the middle, and as Visk looked to the right, he could see the wall open up into a sunlight-illuminated exit. He made a break out of the facility, and immediately ran towards the nearest bushes and hid in them, Nari close behind.

They watched as the swarm moved over to the doorway. It hesitated by the entrance for a moment, before continuing onward, further back into the facility.

Both adventurers breathed a sigh of relief, safe at last.

Visk hadn't actually gotten much of a good look at Nari before now.

Up in the gardens of the Monolith, the chambers were quite shady, the sun filtered through the light of crimson leaf canopies. The interior of the Monolith was fairly dim, and there'd been no time for introductions while they were being pursued by the monster.

Now, in the bright sunlight of the pathway back down towards the "basement," as it now seemed to be called, he could make out what she actually looked like. He couldn't say he was familiar with the general appearance of a "dahmak," but she looked like some sort of bipedal lizard, with two arms and a large prehensile tail.

Her scales glittered a gradient between a bright purple and a deep sapphire blue in the afternoon sun. Her eyes were blue, and as she passed through the shadows of the woods, he could see some magenta lines of bioluminescence appear on her body. She wore a modest set of clothing and a dark blue cloak, which contrasted brightly against the red foliage.

On her tail he spotted a line of crimson blood where the monster had nicked her. It wasn't something that seemed like a particularly urgent injury, but Nari did seem to be in a bit of pain.

"You okay?"

Nari looked up at him. "In the past few hours, I teleported to an unknown planet, encountered the Sentinels who have been missing for two years, got attacked and chased by an unknown hostile creature, met some random amnesiac irva, and almost died a few times. So yeah, I'm doing great."

Taken aback by her anger, he stepped back a little. "Yeah, I can't say I've had a spectacular time either. Just wanted to make sure your tail's fine."

She wrapped her tail around her waist for a moment. "It's just a little nick. I'll be fine if we can get back to my ship sometime…soonish. Though who knows if that's possible."

Visk tried to think of something to say to comfort her, but came up blank. Honestly, he didn't really have any idea how they could get out of their current situation either.

Instead, he brought up a question that had been lingering on his mind. "The Sentinels," he asked. "What are they?"

"When the Architects disappeared, the Sentinels were one of their parting gifts. They're basically the 'police' of the galaxy, and make sure that everyone follows the Tenets, special rules that aim to keep peace throughout Spectra. Don't try to break them. Some have tried to fight the Sentinels before. None have won."

"Anyway, about two years ago, the Sentinels disappeared. Just like that, gone. The Mercantile was attacked by the Cell, and absolutely nothing was done to intervene. It seemed that our galaxy cops were sleeping on the job. So to see them reappear here is…interesting, I suppose."

"Mercantile? Cell?"

"Oh yeah, you don't have any memory of this stuff, do you? Giant space station that's the capital of the Hegemony, and a race of gene-splicing crustaceans that like to commit war crimes. For that matter, we haven't seen the Cell in a good while either."

"Weird," Visk remarked.

"Indeed."

The two walked in silence for a while, taking in the scenery and contemplating their fate, before Nari interjected, "So where have you been getting food and water?"

"There's a spring alongside this path. It's got groves of bell-shaped fruit trees growing next to it - I think the Architects made them. That's what I've been eating."

"That works for now," she remarked, "but we'll need a better food source if we're here for the long haul."

"I know. Hopefully this 'Spark' has more information that can help us out then. Let's get going," he sighed, continuing down the road as the sun began to dip below the horizon.

Nari didn't know quite what to expect as she descended the staircase down into the basement.

Visk had led her over to this facility during the night, guiding her under moonlit skies to a clearing in a valley. This vault was definitely not as sprawling as the monolith they'd escaped from - it appeared to just be a doorway leading to a staircase that went underground. It was lit with a teal light, similar to what she had seen in the monolith when it hadn't been trying to kill her. She figured that was a good sign.

The irva was currently heading down the stairs, clearly feeling more at home than he'd felt in a good while. She followed him as the staircase opened up into a hexagonal chamber, open in the center with a window up top that was letting in faint moonlight.

As she watched, blue lights reached out toward the center, before manifesting a hologram of a floating teal orb that pulsed like a ball of fire. "Hello," it said, the voice instantly recognizable as Spark.

"Hi," replied Visk. "Now that we're in a safer spot, who are you and what is going on?"

Nari managed to interject a quiet "Hello?" in the moment of silence before Spark answered.

"I can't say I'm entirely sure what I am exactly. I woke up in a dark place with no memory a few days ago. Same as you, so I've heard," she said, reaching out to Visk. "I may have listened in on the…conversation you two had earlier," Spark clarified in a hushed whisper.

"What I do know is that I'm some sort of artificial intelligence, and I'm able to move through computer systems and activate them as I choose. I can also transfer between systems, as you can likely tell," she remarked, illuminating the lights in the room in a brief pulse.

"I have good reason to believe that the capsule you had when you woke up, Visk, was the very same place I woke up in. Its collapsing was not of my doing, but rather that of a malicious force that has been pursuing me for as long as I've been conscious. What I've dubbed the Phage."

"The Phage hungers. It eats computer networks, molds them to make them fit its own twisted view. And it doesn't take kindly to intruders such as myself. It's a plague, one that's been trying to eat me alive. I don't think it's limited to dataspace either."

Nari's eyes widened. "You're not suggesting…?"

The AI pulsed. "Yep, I am. I think the creature that pursued you two was the ultimate form of the Phage; once it's taken over a network, it can convert the machine it consumes into that…thing. Every time I've seen it in dataspace and tapped into a camera, it's nearby in reality too. And that's how I think it spreads to new networks. Like a bacteriophage."

Visk shuddered. "Wait, what about the dead capsule? Isn't that still in here?" he asked, glancing around the room.

"Yes, it is. Don't worry, I've confirmed the data matrix is Phage-free. If it was infected, I'd at least be able to try and enter it before getting chased out. It's dead; a software virus can't infect a bunch of metal."

The irva breathed a sigh of relief before looking back at Spark. "Well, that clears some things up. But what do you want from us? There's gotta be something else, right?"

With a pulse, the AI dimmed the lights a bit. "Yes, there is. A couple things, actually. First of all, I can feel you in dataspace," she mentioned, "pointing" at Visk with a crude pseudopod.

Visk looked confused. "Wait, what? I'm not a program, I'm alive! How am I in there?"

"I'll take suggestions," Spark replied with an orb-shaped AI's closest approximation to a shrug. "But we've got to be linked in some way. I don't feel it with Nari. I haven't got the slightest idea why."

"I figured I'd mention this because I'm in a lot of danger," Spark added.

"What, is the Phage pursuing you or something?" Nari asked. "Or is there something else?"

"The latter," the AI explained. "There's some red mist that tries to consume the Phage, and is sometimes successful; it activates the nodes that control electronic signals, and turns them blood red, while when I activate them they turn blue-"

"The Sentinels," Nari gasped.

"Come again?"

Looks like this AI shared Visk's incompetence when it came to history. "Machines made by an old precursor race. I think they're trying to take over this facility," the dahmak suggested, "and you seem to be caught in the crossfire."

"Precisely. So I need out."

"Out?"

"Visk, you got my matrix from your crash pod, right? You think you might be able to get another one?"

The irva's fins bristled for a moment, his initial reaction judgmental to even the suggestion of going back there. But as he thought about it, he seemed to realize that it wasn't a half-bad idea, and gave Spark a quick nod.

"Might be worth a try."

"Great," the AI replied. "I think we'll need to get out of this place before it becomes a warzone, but right now I'm tied to the network that all the facilities here use. Every building in this valley can communicate with each other, but I'm going to need a portable body if I want to go to another planet."

The two physical beings in the room nodded in agreement.

"There wasn't much in the way of Architect facilities for you to hijack near my drop pod," Visk mentioned. "Is that an issue?"

"As much as I'd like to come with you guys, I'll have to stay behind," admitted Spark. "I can't go where there's no signal. If you guys can get me a new data matrix to load me into, we can get anywhere, but you two will have to get that yourself unfortunately."

"Disappointing, but understandable," the irva nodded. "How close is the threat? Can we afford to linger here for the night?" He was clearly struggling to stay awake by now; he'd had a long day, and it was taking its toll on him. Nari felt the same way.

"Yes, I think that'll be fine," Spark responded. "Suit yourself," she suggested as she flashed a few lights on the floor.

The adventurers laid down, safe for now at least, and looking up through the window above to the sea of stars in the sky, they dozed off into deep, tranquil dreams.