Through grit and determination, Jonah was able to walk along the walls of the apartment unaided by the third day, only touching the stone every so often. He spent the first day correcting his time keeping, eating as much blessed food as he could stomach, and resting. He learned that Diana had convinced the others that she needed to take care of him on her own. Kalyah didn't listen, checking in from her neighboring room often, mostly after he stumbled. Meeting the other clergy, he thanked them extensively, wishing he had more to give to them than words. The Arch Priestess and the others only cared that he was getting better. He preferred to have Diana and Kalyah with him, the tall and voluptuous High elf unsettled him. According to Kalyah, Niae had manipulated her body into the build of a woman that never expected to leave the temple she resided in. It was incredibly close to the Goddess's body as the mother of all. In his coma dreams he had felt something like pillows pressing into him. Seeing the woman, he understood the sensation.
“You should see Primvene,” Kalyah said, holding her cupped hands up to her chest, then far away. “She’s a Mother Superior, and taller than Niae. Her tits are my arm span. They feel like they weigh ten pounds.” She put her hands together in a hoop of her arms.
The Arch Priestess had just left the room with her children, promising to come back the next day. This was the third day and Kalyah said this apropo of nothing. Maybe Jonah had spent too much time trying to not look at the woman, he wasn’t sure. He was sure as hell wasn’t trying to make contact with the pillows again. His conscious dodges made Diana smile.
“That’s the first time you have mentioned Primvene in nearly a week,” Diana remarked.
Kalyah sighed, hands back on her lap. “Well, spending time with Niae in private made me nostalgic,” she admitted. “She’s got leyline wards cooking for you and Jonah. Why is that?” The change of subject was like a swordsman's feint.
“Precautions,” Diana replied.
“Is that so?”
“Yes,” the princess nodded.
The two women sat on opposite sides of him on the bed and the air was charged with their staring. He was distracting himself by pulling out pieces of the radio from Grayhill. Having already searched through the recordings prior to the examination--Diana wouldn’t let him stress himself for more than an hour or so--he wanted to see if he could handle absorbing more tech. It was nice to have the cloth to set them on and he had a separate bag filled with the radio that Diana had thrown against the wall.
“Jonah, do you know anything about this?” Kalyah asked.
He knew all about the Ash Makers in Alpha, it terrified him to know that Diana had been in danger while he slept. It was one of the reasons that he was so determined. Diana was also afraid they were still being watched and had typed the experience out on his screen. Now he looked to Diana, who gave him a gesture of approval, tapping her arm. She had yet to put anything more on besides a tunic and underwear, determined to inspire him.
He showed Kalyah his screen, Diana doesn’t want to say anything out loud, we could be watched still by Fia. I have an account for you. He had summarized it all, Diana originally wrote out with comments for him included.
Kalyah wasn’t interested, springing up from the bed. “How weak do you think I am?” she asked, digging through her bag. She produced a solid stylus of cloudy crystal. “You go to Niae for the wards when you know that I’m well over eighty. And now you think I can’t write a protection charm against long range Flies… I detected them in my room on the ship, but I couldn’t do anything about them. The closer Fia is, the stronger the enhancement is, the farther away, the weaker it gets, basic magic.” She pointed at Jonah for this tidbit.
She padded over to the door, drawing a perfect circle on it with the pen. The white ink sparked up and burned into the gray wood, sizzling into the finish. “I know, I don’t talk much about the past. It’s pretty boring and I left for a stupid reason and I stay away for an even dumber reason,” she said, pen gliding along in the circle. In the center she made the Goddess’s symbol of an infant’s face with its eyes closed. At the edges she began drawing in a swirling script, mumbling in elvish.
Diana got up, examining the work closely. “‘Detection’ and ‘destruction,’ such cruel words for Corpine,” she commented.
“Well, it’s useful here,” Kalyah said briskly. The outer ring was surrounded in the language and she slammed her hands into the door, declaring a command that made all the etchings flash with white fire. Out from the rune came a wave of holy magic that went along the room’s surfaces before meeting on the window and then bounding back. There was a tingle in Jonah’s chest as it passed over him and Aiko sneezed as it made its rounds several times. Finally the inscription sat faintly glowing in place.
Down from the ceiling came two ugly looking Flies, a candy orange in color, curled up as they writhed on the floor. Aiko sniffed at them, placing a massive paw on the conjurations, reducing them to dust. The tiger growled at the remains watching it scatter up into the air.
Kalyah leaned against the door as the rune went dark, Diana tried to help her, but like her patient she stood tall and stubborn. “You don’t know how glad I am to finally destroy those,” she said, returning to the bed, resting heavily against the headboard. “Trying to do it with Fia around was like staring at the sun to make it dim.” She ran her hand over her short platinum hair. “Now, what have you two been keeping secret?”
“You must be closer to a High Priestess,” Diana said in amazement as she sat beside Jonah, careful of the machinery.
The Pixie elf frowned. “I kept up with my studies,” she said. “I won’t be considered one until Primvene promotes me. I’m with you guys for now, you’re my Trio.” She gave them a small smile. “So what’s going on in Alpha?”
It took a while to explain it, Kalyah listening silently the whole time.
Diana pointed to the twig wrapped around her wrist. “The Sentinel only has two pine cones on it so far and the buds of a few others,” she said.
“I was wondering what that other tree was,” Kalyah said, tapping the pen against her leg.
“It’s a painfully slow thing, but I’m glad to have the seed on me at all,” she said, glancing over to the bags of Druid supplies she had not put on in the last few days. Within her stuff was also a key for the penthouse garden, which she had yet to check since Jonah couldn’t join her. More and more reasons for him to keep regaining his strength.
“A camera pinecone is so useful,” Jonah said, as that was how he understood it.
She agreed.
“What do you need me to do?” Kalyah asked.
Diana considered for a moment. “The smugglers, they likely have a map of the underground, but I have no idea where to begin with them,” she said with a frown.
The Priestess jabbed her thumb to her chest. “Leave that to me. I don’t care how many I have to worship with, I’ll get what you need. I wanna know what exactly the Order members are doing here, besides feeding themselves,” she said. Springing up from the bed again, going to the sink.
“Thank you for doing this, I wasn’t sure if I could ask that of you,” Diana said quietly.
Kalyah scoffed. “When we get them captured and to safety, it’s gonna make Fia look like an absolute fool. She was within walking distance of an entire camp of Order members and couldn’t even scry them out. Then we add on Jonah’s evidence and not a single Witch will respect her anymore.” Laughing, she looked over herself in the mirror. “Don’t push yourself on that, honey, this is gonna take weeks.”
“Thanks,” Jonah mumbled, picking at the bits of the radio.
“You really think so?” Diana wondered.
“If we rush it, then it will put all those people in danger,” Kalyah reasoned. “I want my friends away from Fia, but I don’t want to endanger others in the process. When the Heroes return, we gotta make a show of not needing to leave. You’re still training, Jonah’s still recovering, I’m bored and sad, worshiping with whoever… They're all gonna be true, but it will have a purpose.”
Diana nodded, arms folded in thought. “I suppose I just wanted it done quickly,” she said. “It will take a while, more than just the pinecone’s growth. I need to disguise it more if Fia is intent on watching us. The heather is already around it now…”
“I don’t think she had any more than those ones in here, but I’ll keep an eye out,” Kalyah said, then pointed to the door. “This one has you two covered, so you’ll have some privacy.” She smiled. “Enjoy it, and don’t rush yourself, Jonah.”
“Uh huh,” he said, scratching at his head. With a groan he wiped his face, he had yet to take a shower and he could smell the ripeness of himself. He didn’t want Kalyah to assist him again. Added into the conversation, it was another reminder of his state and inability to regain his usefulness.
Diana already knew his frustration well. “It’s alright, dear, you’re doing your best,” she said, stroking his back.
He put his hands on the bed roughly, jostling the radio remains. “I know, I know,” he grumbled.
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Kalyah was at his other side. “You’re almost doing too much,” she said.
He couldn’t look at them, staring at the buttons in the wreckage. There were a dozen of them and he had to have seen them countless times. The eject tape button caught his eye now as the two tried to comfort him. On its black plastic front was a grill hidden in the image, just a few cuts in the surface. He followed the wire running along the blue circuit board, as in the Magi Kingdom they were made out of a solid material carved to hold soldered chips. Beyond that, Diana knew nothing more about their construction.
There were two wires from the eject button, and one connected to a different chip and he studied it. He noticed another tiny wire came off it and away. Of all places, the wire attached to the spoke for the tape. He knew almost nothing about a radio’s make, Hera or Earth’s before this one. The speakers and metal bits had been all that really interested him before, and the frame of this radio resided now in his arms. The spoke didn’t need to have glass on it, he knew, but there it was. Barely larger than a pencil, the glass was the size of its lead. He had to squint to see it, shifting around to get the light to land on it correctly.
“What have you got?” Diana asked.
“I think this is a hidden camera,” he said in amazement.
“No, it can’t be, it’s far too small. Even your camera isn’t that small,” she said, trying to get a look at it.
“Oh Goddess, are we being watched by Blodwyn?” Kalyah asked in a panic.
“I don’t know, I hope not,” he said. “This doesn’t have any power to it, it’s just raw pieces. My limbs have power from the air and me, but this can’t have any in it. Plus, it’s been in a bag for days.” He waved the eject button. “This has a microphone, I think… I, hmmmm…” He grabbed his headphones by the jack and put it up to the button. Nothing, but it wasn’t powered. Carefully he willed energy into his hand holding the button, heart pumping a little harder. When the jack and button met, they buzzed with feedback. “It is!” he declared. He put them both down as he felt a zap of static electricity.
“Careful,” Diana urged him.
He nodded, recovering from his use of power. “When it was together, it must have been bugged so Blodwyn could hear and see the Heroes reaction to her message,” he deduced. He began picking at the chip the two were connected to, trying to free it.
“Of course she’d do that,” Diana said with a sneer.
“You’re sure it’s not doing it now?” Kalyah asked, putting her prayer infused hand up to it. “I’m not getting anything. I hate the idea of something as small as a Fly and not detectable.”
“She has no reason to spy on someone she didn’t even mention in her tape,” Diana said stiffly. “Oh gods Jonah, what are you doing?” She grabbed at his arm.
The parts of the radio were already absorbed into him before she could try and stop him. He felt a rush of settling throughout his arm, as if something had been activated within him. Raising his screen, he tried to figure out what had changed until he realized it with a start. There at the top, instead of the definite, “No Signal” he had the ambiguous, “Searching…”
“Are you sure that was a good idea?” Diana asked.
“I don’t think it was,” Kalyah added.
Jonah fought to get up, watching the dots across the top of his screen fill and empty. So close, he thought, a better place than here. Diana was at his side as he walked towards the door.
Searching, dot, dot, dot…
What did that mean? Were there cell towers? Or had he just become a radio?
Considering the second option, he made his way to the window with them following.
Searching…
Somewhere there had to be a signal. The metal of his limb scraped against the glass. The two kept asking about what he was doing. He was staggering, not as strong as he needed to be.
“Signal, I’m trying to get a signal!” he cried. He turned to the door, pointing like a mad man. “Outside, I need to go outside!”
“There’s five bloody flights of stairs to the bottom floor, and the blasted elevator is broken, so that’s ten both ways,” Diana said, gripping his shirt. “What’s so important about getting a radio signal?”
He finally put it into words. “I don’t think you can send video over radio signal,” he said, feeling so stupid over his lack of technical knowledge. Besides using it all the time, he wasn’t sure about so much of it.
Diana and Kalyah were confused, but held him up as he faltered in trying to walk forward.
“Video signal?” Diana said. “Yes, I suppose that could exist…”
“They have something like it in Clockwork,” Kalyah remarked. “I’ve never seen it, but Stephan used to talk about it.”
“To transfer films around?” the Druid said.
“I think so,” Kalyah shrugged.
They were both helping him towards his goal of the door. He attempted to throw it open, but Diana had to push it the rest of the way.
Searching…
Looking over the stairs, he recalled the Grand Canyon and its vastness, the dizziness of its height. With the way his legs trembled, the muscles in his thighs protesting from the training he had done already today, he feared he couldn’t make it. That word and those fucking dots were going to claw at him until they went away. They projected across his eyes, bringing up the hopes of some hidden cell tower in the Ash Makers camp.
“Get on,” Kalyah said, offering him her back. “You’re not heavier than the luggage, honey.”
It was embarrassing to ride piggyback, even Diana smirked at it, walking alongside them with protective hands, but he needed to settle this. One heavy step at a time they descended the metal stairs. At least they weren’t grated but slit along them, he felt better for Kalyah’s bare feet at that. The five story fall decreased every moment and Jonah clung on, trying to equal out his weight for her. She held his legs, back bowed and she only grunted at the corners. Aiko followed them as well, so that all four of them coming down the stairs was like some great parade. Jonah would rather look silly on Kalyah’s back than ride the tiger’s back again, which he only vaguely remembered when Diana told him about it.
They reached the bottom of the stairs and his phone was still searching. Kalyah stretched out and he thanked her, but she waved it off.
“No, I have a strong back, it’s okay,” she said, glancing at the hotel hosts that looked over to see the commotion.
Opening the door, he was greeted by the dawn shine of the city for the first time in nearly a week. The two women helped him outside and down the much shorter stairs. Diana’s garden of heather had attracted bees and flies, each of the insects a vibrant pink and blue color respectively with a whistling flight that was musical, harmonizing with others.
“Aw, some life,” Kalyah said.
“I know, it’s wonderful,” Diana said proudly.
Jonah held his arm up to the sky. The searching was finished and a new provider flashed on his screen.
Heranet Sat…
“What the hell?” he breathed, staring at the screen.
Diana and Kalyah watched as well, far more confused than him. Magic rushed over him as his phone was downloading an app he had never seen before. An ashen gray box with the symbol of a phoenix landed in the center of his screen. There was no title to it and something felt horribly ominous about it. His body swelled with nerves, but he felt naturally drawn to it.
He tapped it, and there was a surging jolt across his arm. Protection. It came from magic, it needed magic.
What are you? he thought with all his might.
The app opened over his eyes and his vision was consumed by a world of midnight blue, the city vanishing and everyone else with it. He heard people calling his name and numbly felt them shaking him. Lines of code spawned up from the blue, spinning around him. Numbers, letters, brackets, other symbols he couldn’t find on any keyboards. They all twisted around him like a tornado of a foreign language. God, if only he had paid attention in that shitty programming class he hated in highschool.
Where am I?
He knew, somehow, he was in-between. His racing heart wasn’t from nerves alone. This had a purpose, this wasn’t a cell tower, this was something more. Heranet Sat. Satellites? This world had machines floating in orbit?
Show me, where do you come from?
The code froze in place, the sphere of text went below whatever he stood on. It looked like nothing, empty space below him. That discovery didn’t help him as the still text could probably fall away and he could fall forever. Was it angry at him? Did it have a mind? Diana talked about the sources of the world. Kalyah worshiped a Goddess. Did this world give life to technology?
“Wait, wait, this was given by Blodwyn… all I have to do is trace it back. I can hack with my mind right?” he mumbled to himself. He didn’t know anything about actual hacking other than TV shows where they pounded away on a keyboard. His magic was willpower, right? That’s all he had to do, think about it hard enough.
He closed his eyes tightly, but he still saw the text.
I need to see where this leads. I’m going to find Blodwyn. Show me! Show me!
He put his hand out reaching for something he couldn’t see. He could do this, he could do this!
The text drew back around him, the break shining brightly like the end of a tunnel from the darkness. Oh God, was he dying from this? No, no, he was close, so close.
Then his vision changed all together and he was looking at a small woman sitting at a desk. Her long colorless curly hair fell wildly around her face. She had only a strap across her chest and a sad excuse for a skirt on. Her feet were up on the metal desk, bashing her heel as she fiddled with some device in her hands. The thing was playing some kind of midi soundtrack with pops and explosions to it. A handheld game?
He couldn’t move, only watched from one perspective. He needed to see more of the room. There were crude drawings all over the walls like the graffiti from Grayhill. It was in such a weird place for a camera. Then his vision jerked around, showing the small place had no windows. What the hell was he looking out of?
Two arms shot up in front of him, thin hands out of a pink jacket, followed by an annoyed growling. The camera…a person. It was someone's eyes that had the camera. They pulled back their sleeve and out from their wrist came a projection of swirling code.
The tiny woman raised her head. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” she spat in a shrill voice.
“Shut up! Shut up!” came the voice of the viewer, a deep nasally and feminine voice.
The black eyed woman set her toy down and crawled over the desk with a glare. “What’s wrong, bitch?” she hissed.
“I’m invaded, someone cracked the radio. Fuck, fuck, fuck…”
The childish woman broke out into guffaws rolling across the desk.
“Shut up, it’s not fucking funny. They could get our location!” the other spat.
The tiny woman looked inverted at the viewer. “Is that you Wolfgang? I thought you were too much of a pussy to find me again!” she laughed in her grating voice, flailing her limbs about.
Jonah had frozen in panic, not sure where or what he was at this moment in time. Suddenly he was returned to the world of code, heart beating rapidly in his ears. The code swirled in closer to him and he knew he was trapped. Desperately he wished to leave, but he couldn’t. Eyes screwed tight, he poured all his will into freeing himself, but the bars were still closing in around him.
The wall of code shattered in front of him. From the space came a hand cloaked in green binary numbers. It grabbed his throat with a vice grip, popping colors on his vision. He couldn’t pry the arm free, clawing at it. There was so much strength behind it. This person was way more willful than him.
“Who are you!?” a voice bellowed.