{Loading…}

{Loaded.}

[>>Now replaying: Log 1.25 - unmaking someone else at home]

Date: 8.9.175 AA / 4404 LTC

Location: The Bunker at Haven-Of-Progress // Zephyro’s Domain

//Come on in!//

//Home is where the hearth is burning, raging, barely confined in its prison of stone. It serves you now, but will it serve you forever? The fire is eternal. Go and sit, sweetling, and enjoy the warmth.//

[>>DATA CORRUPTED]

E1 %She had a Gift that allowed her to take an everyday object and make it better.

E2 %More like demonic magicks that she used to corrupt priceless artifacts, then bound them to herself because she controlled the energy that powered them.%

E1 %Oh come on…%

E2 %it gets worse! They say that those she wanted to destroy, she used her demonic magicks on, turning them into bloodthirsty monsters just so she could slay them to prove she was a ‘hero’.%

E3 %Why didn’t anyone else kill the Monsters?%

E1 %There were no nomads back then, just some wandering knights. Not everyone could afford those.

E3 %But then why didn’t the Lords kill all the monsters? Weren’t they heroes?%

The canal we’d been walking through had several advantages. It was straight and broad enough for both of us to walk side by side. According to Zephyro, it was also a shortcut that would shave off a considerable amount of our travel time, and while the uneven, dry clay wasn’t exactly a paved road, there were almost no obstacles in our way.

The clear downsides came down to the senses. It smelled like crap, literally, and each word we spoke echoed loudly between the walls, making conversations impossible to hide. I’d thought that was fine because I hadn’t seen any Ferals or Shackled in a long while, but there was the rub. I couldn’t see past the yellowed edges of the banks, but while we had no idea who was lurking up there, they had no issues looking down.

So if I hadn’t turned when I did and spotted a whisper of movement up there on the precipice, Zephyro and I would have been completely oblivious to the Ferals that were following us.

Zephyro opened his mouth to say something, but I told him to stay quiet with a tiny shake of my head. Adrenaline filled the silence that followed, and the apathy that held me so tightly loosened its grip by just a fraction. Now alert, I focused on the few, muted sounds that reached us down here. The ubiquitous roar of distant fire. A lonely scream, somewhere close by. The scratching of metal on stone. The soft patter of heavy paws. The threatening hum of a capacitor charging up.

“Run!” I hissed, pulling Zephyro with me as I fell into a dead sprint.

As if that had been the starting shot to a race, and the empty canal was our stadium, the crowd of Ferals we’d attracted as an audience erupted into noise. There were screeches and howls and the gunshot sounds of lightning crashing into nearby surfaces, all magnified a thousandfold by the flat surfaces of the walls to either side.

I almost envied Zephyro for his inability to hear anything of what was going on, because I was pretty sure I would be deaf by the time we got out of this canal.

If we got out at all.

The ground shuddered underneath my feet as something large and powerful landed in the canal behind us. I didn’t risk looking back, too focused on the uneven ground flying underneath my feet.

Ahead of us, a few solitary spider-like Ferals descended down the walls, and we just barely managed to pass them before they hit the ground and joined the swelling tide of crazed machines rolling in to crush us.

My legs were trembling with the exertion, and my breath became increasingly shallow, grinding against the insides of my throat like sandpaper. I tried to swallow, but all that did was stick my tongue against the dry roof of my mouth and make me taste smoke and sweat.

Just when I wondered how long I was going to be able to keep this pace, a set of small stairs came into view to our left.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Up there,” Zephyro said, not sounding winded at all while my eyes started to burn with dryness and my lungs felt like they were being crushed like an accordion.

The steps were far too narrow and of uneven height, and only Zephyro’s hand stopped me from slamming my mouth against one of the edges. The Vizier pulled me up and immediately turned right, running along the bank of the canal.

I risked a glance back and wished I hadn’t. The entire canal was brimming with Ferals, as far back as I could see. Except for a black desert wolf that ran in their center, they all seemed to be pretty weak, but that didn’t matter considering their sheer number.

“Gotta…shake them…” I wheezed.

Zephyro nodded as he ran beside me. “Indeed, Sultana. It is my hope that we will be able to make them lose our tracks in the backstreets of Trader’s rest, where the spices hang thick in the air.”

I didn’t ask how that made any sense considering we were in a digital world, being chased by programs. I didn’t have the oxygen. As I followed Zephyro back into the labyrinthine alleyways, I felt my adrenaline ebbing away. Thoughts of fighting and plans of survival made way for questions of worthiness and a comfortable suggestion of surrender. Terrified, I watched myself sinking back into apathy like if it were quicksand. I fought and forced myself to keep moving, but it was just too much. The world imploding, losing the war, losing Novus Apex, losing my friends, losing my body, perhaps even losing my mind.

Just too much.

The cold warmth of indifference pulled me in, settled onto my brain like a pillow settles onto a sleeping face.

Soon the only thing that kept me going was that I didn’t care enough to stop.

“In here, Sultana. Quick!” Zephyro said, and I numbly stirred from my mindless thoughts

We reached a door that Zephyro kicked open as if it were cardboard, then motioned for me to enter.

I hurried inside, panting, and Zephyro followed close behind, then held the door shut behind him, sword ready in his free hand, frowning in concentration. In the sort of fugue state I was in, I idly wondered what he was doing, but didn’t care enough to ask. A small part of me was screaming that this numbness wouldn’t last, that I was in shock, and that what would come after would be a thousand times worse, but I didn’t care.

The room was dark, but as my eyes adjusted to it, I caught glances of a table, two benches, a simple stove made of red bricks, and a few shelves and cupboards. Ordinary so far. A bit more curious was the widescreen TV mounted to one wall, right next to the old-timey radio and the soldering kit that looked like someone had stolen from 1950’s earth. But the tapestries hanging from the wall, covered in circuit patterns glowing a faint blue, were unsettling reminders underscoring the inescapable truth of my circumstance.

A perfectly normal living room for a group of AI spawned from another AI.

It smelled of spices and wood drying in the sun. A little bit of ozone, too.

I swallowed, and forced my breath to slow down.

There was another door that led back out to the street, and Zephyro motioned for me to check if everything was clear. I peeked through a hole in the wooden boards, catching a glimpse of several rats scurrying through the alley outside. They paused in front of a door, sniffed the air, and then slammed into the door as one. The wood protested, but when they tried again, it yielded to their assault, and the beasts rushed inside. For a brief while, I didn’t see or hear anything.

Then there were screams.

Then a flash of blue illuminating the empty windows like the eyesockets of a lich.

Then the rats came back out, a little fatter than before, crackling with crimson energy.

They sniffed the air again, and scurried to another house with eerily quiet greed.

Looking back at the Vizier, I shook my head.

After a moment’s hesitation, Zephyro motioned towards a set of stairs. I took the lead and crept up the staircase, assuming it would lead to a second floor, but at their end, an empty doorframe revealed fire, smoke, and the collapsing sky.

I turned, asking for directions, but Zephyro motioned for me to go, go, go, and so up the stairs and towards the blaze we went.

As I stepped onto the rooftop, the view took me in.

Around us, Zephyro’s once immaculate city burned in earnest. The flickering red sheen of roaring fires enveloped entire blocks. Not a single part of the city, rich or poor had been spared. In the distance, close to the palace, the archives burned like a pillar of flame. Every gust of wind carried with it the smell of a city ablaze—that unique mixture of burning wood, dry ash, and superheated fat mixed with notes of hot stone dust and the acrid tang of smoldering tar.

Zephyro moved to stand at my side, a loose strand of his turban whipping in the hot breeze. It brushed against my face. He caught it and re-wrapped it, all businesslike.

“What do you see, looking out over the city?” I asked, wondering if he saw the world as I did, all drowning in black and red, or if it was all just data to him, and this reality was just my mind’s desperate attempt to make sense of all the information funneling into it.

“The same as you, Sultana. Fire, smoke, death. A century’s worth of toil of thousands, falling to ruin in a single night,” Zephyro said. He pointed toward the skyscrapers, holding their doomed vigil around the Palace. Despite being close enough to understand their tremendous size, they still looked so fragile to me. “It took us ten years to construct the spires. In the Real, we built them into the ground to protect the knowledge stored within, but in here, why not have them reach to the sky, to make them look like they held the firmament in place? How could we have known? And what could we have done different…?”

He trailed off, all thoughts of the journey still ahead of us forgotten for a moment.

For a while, the Vizier was quiet while fire danced in his eyes and searing winds rustled his clothes. Then he shook his head. “It does not matter. What has been built can be built again. I must offer a thousand humble apologies, Sultana. But while I now owe you six thousand of their kind, we shouldn’t delay any longer.” There was a raspy quality to his voice, but before I could say anything, he turned and walked toward the edge of the roof.

I remembered the last night at Novus Apex, all of us who’d remained looking down over a disturbingly similar sight. I wished I could have been as collected about it as the Vizier. Maybe it would have changed things. Maybe I would have been able to at least save one of them.

Maybe I would have jumped like Olre wanted me to. He would have survived.

At least one of them would have survived.