PROLOGUE 1
Two Beings spiral through the empty void, crystalline structure glinting in the pale light of distant stars. As they move towards a pale blue dot, already beginning to close in their helix spiral, in the distance, a third approaches from above.
[DESTINATION] The Warrior states.
[AGREEMENT] The Thinker responds, now starting to select worlds and hosts for the pair's shards.
[TRAJECTORY] The Thinker communicates, running simulations and giving Data on where they will approach and the host species.
[AGREEMENT] The Warrior accepts the Data package, using its own precognition to plan an approach and its actions.
{EXCHANGE}
The Thinker halts. Thousands of shards in millions of dimensions grind to a stop.
A Third Entity.
{EXCHANGE} The message is repeated. This time the Warrior notices as well.
[AGREEMent The Thinker states, supplying the Third Entity with Data from the last cycle in exchange for a handful of shards.
The Third departs, its red shadow falling across the Thinker for a second as it moves into the distant expanse.
[QUERY] The Warrior wishes to know the results of the exchange.
data As soon as its reply is sent the Thinker accelerates, but at far too great a rate for a safe landing.
Soon the Thinker disappears, speeding towards the pale blue dot, once far away and now far too close.
[CONCERN] The Warrior sends out into the absence as it slows down for approach.
There is no reply.
[CONCERN] It repeats.
[CONCERN]
The Warrior is losing shards now, it sheds all but a few in preparation for the upcoming cycle, and of those it doesn't immediately discard, it butchers several and tosses them aside.
Finally, it sends out one final message.
[CONCERN]-[LOCATION]-[QUERY]
| LINE BREAK |
A girl woke from a Dream.
Like she had before, she woke screaming, but this time her screams were muffled. A hand was placed over her mouth. A man, her uncle, looked down at her, it was the look in his eyes as much as the hand that silenced her.
"Hush. There are still monstrous ones out there." He whispered in their language.
She nodded, her mind still heavy with sleep and her Dream.
'I want to remember what I saw.' Thought the girl to herself.
[Path to memory: 5 steps]
A foreign thought invaded her mind, and at that moment she knew with absolute certainty that she could recall her Dream with just nine actions.
[STEP 1: AVOID THINKING OF IT]
And just like that, the last vestiges that the girl clasped to drifted away.
[STEP 2: STAND UP]
The girl rose from her bed, following the Path in her Mind with machine-like efficiency.
[STEP 3: DISLODGE UNCLE]
Quickly the girl jabbed at her uncle, speed and precision far beyond what she could have attained naturally guiding her fingers as they struck twice: the first attack into his arm and the second to his ribs.
[STEP 4: GAIN AND OPEN MEDICINE BAG]
The girl stood and stepped forward, grasping her uncle's bag and tearing it open, ignorant of the iron clasps holding it shut.
[STEP 5: SELECT AND INGEST RED PILL]
Grabbing one bottle and throwing the rest away, her uncle only now rising to his feet, the girl opened the container and swallowed the red pill inside.
At that, the concentrated dose - too high for her to take normally and yet not quite unsafe - forced the gentle hands of sleep to grasp hold of the girl once more, and with sleep came the Dream and an echoing sound in her mind.
[CONCERN]-[LOCATION]-[QUERY]
Images flashed behind the girl's eyes. A black tear in the sky, gaping open. A storm of crystal shards falling sideways through it. Her village burning as silver mud ran through its streets. Her uncle stumbling through the ruins till he found her broken body. A flash of golden light and then she was healed. And all the while the alien voices sounded in her mind.
[Path to escape: 1 5 9 3 Steps]
[CONCERN]-[LOCATION]-[QUERY]
Ever since her house had collapsed under the silver mud, and her vision had been filled for a second by a red shadow, her head had been filled with those sounds. Echoing forever into the infinity of the girl's mind. Her eyes were clouded by a red shadow for milliseconds whenever the quieter voice spoke to her.
LINE BREAK
A girl woke from a Dream.
This time she didn't scream and her uncle didn't cover her mouth. This time she couldn't see her uncle anywhere. Unbidden the quieter voice in her Mind spoke.
[Path to finding 'Uncle': 138 Steps]
A girl stood up, and left the ruined house she collapsed in, eyes clear as crystal.
[Path to saving my home: 284 Steps]
[STEP 1: TRAVEL NORTH]
LINE BREAK
A hundred hours later, and nearly as many miles north, the girl finally gives in to exhaustion. Time and hunger did what fear could not and forced her to the ground.
[STEP 185; GET UP]
'I can't.' Thought the girl as, at the same time, an older female voice spoke into her mind.
"You have to."
"But how, I'm just a child, how can I save everyone?" Replied the girl.
"I can give you that power, but you must pay service to me, even beyond death."
"Where are you? I can't see you?" She looked around for the woman who had spoken to her but saw no one.
"Why would that matter? All I ask is that you swear allegiance to me for all eternity."
"If I do that, you'll help me right? You promise?" As she asked that, a piercing pain raked her mind.
[STEP 185: DO NOT AGRE-]
"Yes child, I shall aid you in return for your aid."
"Then I'll help you too!" The girl perked up at the promise of help, and the pain stopped.
"First let us deal with that troublesome parasite of yours, then I shall give you all the aid you need."
As the voice spoke, the girl had a sense that something was happening far beyond her reach, and that the future had shifted for the better. The pain lanced her mind once more and the voice returned.
"I have given you all the aid you will need, your passenger has been brought under my control and will aid you as if it were I, never shall you lack the power to undertake any action, as long as its guidance is followed."
"Thank you, strange lady." She cheered.
"You're welcome dear child, now go forth and carry out my will."
"Okay!" Then the girl set off once more, the words in her head now speaking in the strange lady's voice.
{Step 187: Travel north}
reinforce
As she started walking in the direction that the words told her to the girl felt the energy flow through her body, and saw red lines light up on her skin.
LINE BREAK
A day passed, stars wheeled overhead, the moon replaced the sun, to be replaced again by the golden light of morning. Finally, the girl found what she was looking for.
A veritable sea of misshapen silver flesh spread across the valley in front of her, bodies sticking out of lumps and mounds of grey crystal, some with horrible injuries, some with too many limbs. As the girl moved between them she saw how they got more and more human-like the closer she got to the centre of the valley.
{Step 280: Duck}
As she always did, the girl followed the advice of the words in her head, ducking just before a ring of silver light spread over the valley, originating at the centre. Looking up the girl saw a band of blue light encircling the sky. Soon the ring of silver collided against the band of blue light as it fell from the heavens. The two circles warred against each other, the air crackling with heat as the blue band overcame the argent ring. The ground quaked as the silver flesh bowed away from the blue light, yet the band returned to the sky.
{Step 281: Move forward 20 metres}
Once again obeying the guidance she was given, the girl strode forwards, and as she walked she saw another body. This one however was different, it was perfect – there were no wounds, no misshapen chunks, no extra limbs – and at the same time horribly terrifying, for it was the perfection of a machine, there were none of the imperfections that could give character to the body, no tiny flaws or hidden blemishes. And it was still, stiller even than the bodies of dead villagers that the girl saw.
'What is this, the source of the monsters?' Wondered the girl.
{Step 282: Move to the back of the body}
As the girl circled around she saw a single imperfection on the otherwise flawless being, it had a gaping wound in its back, exposing the bone to the open air.
{Step 283: Raise knife to the body's neck}
project
Before the girl could even say she didn't have a knife, one materialised in her hand, so she dutifully raised it to the being's neck and waited to hear the words again.
{Step 284: Push knife down}
reinforce
Once more the red lines spread across the girl's body and she pushed the knife down as hard as she physically could. In an eyeblink, the knife smashed into the being's spine and shattered into blue shards
At that moment, a hole opened in the air next to her, spilling out kaleidoscopic light. For the briefest of moments, the girl saw a spherical room both empty and full at the same time, and inside the room, she caught a glance at a table and chair, and the man sitting on the chair. The man was wearing strange robes and the brilliant light obscured his features, except for his red eyes – eyes like rubies dyed in blood, eyes that made the young girl, already one of the youngest in the village, feel like a babe brought before the elders for the first time. The girl was also able to see a glimmer of a smile cross his face, a mixture of relief and amusement in partial measure.
H owever, there was something – no someone – else in that space. A woman, young and dark-skinned, with a look of complete surprise and terror plastered over her face, hurtling through the portal as the rainbow of light winked out of existence.
"What, who, where?!" The woman exclaimed, crying out in sheer terror.
"Did the strange lady send you to help me too?" Asked the girl, wondering why the advice failed, and thinking that the new arrival was sent as extra help.
"Strange lady? STRANGE LADY? I wish it had been a strange lady. There I am, sitting in my workshop, experimenting with adding magic circuits to creatures to use as batteries when the Kaleidoscope breaks in, grabs me and throws me here! Dozens of years of work were ruined by the whims of that despicable creature. He isn't even human you know. And who are you, by the way, I've never seen you in the Clocktower before. Where are you from? Atlas? The Wandering Sea? And where are we?" The ebony-skinned woman seemed to talk for an age without even pausing for breath.
"Well, I'm just trying to save my village. Will you help? I need to kill that thing there." Pointing to the silver body, the girl asked the strange woman for help, after all, it worked last time.
"What even is that? No matter, if I can't continue my old research, I'll apply it to something new. Could take a break from stuffing magic circuits into rats for the hundredth time too… All right, I the scion of the great Mater line shall aid you in exchange for the body of this creature." As she spoke the woman thrust one hand out in front of her, index finger raised. "You can call me Doctor Mother, he he."
After reaching such an agreement, the unlikely pair – a humble village girl now acting as an agent of a great power, and a mid-level magus down on her luck – moved over to the body. Impossibly, in the time that they had been talking the gaping hole in its back had shrunk to a small opening at the base of the neck.
"All right girl, now you will witness the great magecraft of the Mater line! Ambitus Activate! Ignis ad base, ventum ad angularem, aerem ad quatuor puncta cardinalia, et aquam ad replendum inanem aetherem! Magna quattuor elementa, ego praecipio tibi, ut obedias mihi. Inimicus iste cadat! CAELUM RUPTOR!"
As the now-named Doctor Mother chanted in a strange language, the wind swirled around her and sparks danced between her outstretched fingers. Suddenly a loud crack sounded out and a blade of burning red wind sprung forth from the Doctor's outstretched hand. It slashed downwards from the magus's outstretched palm, cutting the spine of the being into two halves.
"Well, that was easy. Why did you even need my help?" As she spoke she turned around and saw the wonder in the girl's eyes.
"Can you teach me that? I need to protect my home, and the words aren't as strong as that?" The young girl asked, awestruck by the display of power.
"I can't teach you that, it's a secret – but if you
help me and tell me all about these words you speak of I'll make you my apprentice. How does that sound?"
"Great!"
"Well, then we'll need a place to make a workshop. I refuse to teach or study in a field."
"I'll ask the strange lady then!" The girl cheered. 'I need to make a workshop.'
{Path to making a workshop: 87 steps}
{Step 1: travel out of the valley to collect wood}
"We'll need to leave here, but we can come back later." The young girl told the Doctor.
"Sounds okay to me, while we walk you can tell me about your 'words'. And what's your name? I can't call you girl all the time."
"My name is Fortuna." Replied the girl.