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[>>Now replaying: Log 1.47.16.5 - Overconfidence.ogg]
Date: 8.9.175 AA / 4404 LTC
Location: The Bunker at Haven-Of-Progress // Zephyro’s Domain
//Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –//
//Oh Sammy, of course it wouldn’t work on the first try. Of course you’d try and fail. Don’t you remember that failing forward is)(%&&$//
//We’d do best to remind ourselves that just because something goes well, it won’t go well forever. It also does not mean that the next step will succeed. Or the one after. Or the one after that. Does it matter, though, in the grand scheme of things? If failure is inevitable, perhaps so is success.//
[>>DATA CORRUPTED]
E1 %They stay in their cities because they are cowards, and because they steal any machine worth keeping!%
I inhaled deeply and felt the Logic soaking my being, nourishing my soul. It trailed behind me like wings of bright blue light as I crossed the distance. Realizing I would catch it off-guard, the spider reared. Screeching with anger, its weapons unfurled, but it was too late.
Time slowed to a crawl.
I jumped, brought Pharus up into another two-handed swing.
My leg and lower left arm lanced pain in protest.
Sticky white fluid shot from a small gun mounted on the spider’s shoulder.
The web lanced straight for my chest.
No Arx to save me now.
Unprotected.
Panic swelled.
I exhaled sharply.
{CONSUMED Logic - 90 LB}
{AVAILABLE Logic - 116 LB}
{Memory: 20/20 LKB RAM
IS NOW
Memory: 20/40 LKB RAM}
A bell rang, and for a split second, everything was quiet.
Then a shockwave of holy sound burst from my center and washed over mosaic and men, flame and Feral, war and web.
The force crashed against the projectile mid-flight, slowing it down.
It wouldn’t be enough. It would still reach me.
> Come here, Sam…
With Patti’s voice permeating my mind, I sank back into Arx.
[//run arx.exe]
{[Arx, Saint’s Embrace] IS NOW ACTIVE.}
{Memory: 23/40 LKB RAM}
The web, so dangerous just a nanosecond before, splattered against my armor like a fireball against a forcefield. Emerging from the cloud of dissolving fluid, I landed with explosive force, sinking Pharus’ spike-wreaked cage into the spider’s weapon-ringed abdomen. Guns and sensors shattered. Red splinters bloomed, erupting around the Torch’s point of impact. Gold and teal flashed in a dark sea of twitching hair and ruined tech.
The scepter ignited.
[>>PROCESSES BY USER SuwfnGmachTn-2 are now highlighted]
Then the moment passed, the illusion of timelessness shattered, and mayhem reigned once more. Engulfed by teal flames, the Feral chittered agonized broken-sowing-machine sounds, and lashed out, its two frontal legs slamming into me. One bounced off of my robes, but the other dug deep into an unarmored section on my forearm.
{CPU Load: ▲ 85%}
{Core Temp: ▲ 75° C}
[DPM integrity]
▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱ 52% ▼
I hissed in pain and brought my weapon down on the spider’s rusty leg. It gave way with a satisfying snap and the spider pulled back, drawing a splash of my blood across the cobblestones. Behind me, the screaming had stopped, which gave me a bad feeling I couldn’t quite explain, but I couldn’t look back until—
Like a single sharp note from an Arabic violin, Zephyro’s sword sliced through the spider as he landed in a crouch. When my brain caught up, I understood he had somersaulted over both me and the Feral, scoring a deep gash on its back in a reverse overhead swing. Cyan light erupted from the wound as the Feral died and —having learned from my earlier mistakes— I immediately claimed it for myself.
{INCOMING Logic - 90 LB}
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
{AVAILABLE Logic - 205 LB}
Knowing Zephyro had my back, I spun and found myself facing three angry spiders. They approached quickly, skittering over ruined stones, hell-bent on revenge. I needed to find out which one was the most dangerous, but they all showed the same readout, not really giving me enough to make a decision:
[SpeZTgrbGX-13/14/15]
[Absolute danger level: medium]
[Relative danger level: medium]
Cursing, I just picked one (#14) and haltingly assumed one of the fighting stances Stax had tried to teach me, during our last fated autumn in Novus Apex. I was pretty sure that the stance I copied so badly was a form designed for swords only, but remembering the training reminded me to keep calm, and kept me from thinking about things that would fray my edges even further.
The chaos did the rest. The rage wreathed my head with battle-calm as Spiders 14 and 15 crept closer. Like spring-loaded coils, their hairy black bodies slowed as they approached.
“Three spiders,” I said for Zephyro’s benefit. “Two are closer, one is hanging back.”
“Understood, Sultana. Are there any others?”
Without turning my head, I gave the plaza a quick scan and found no other threats. I noticed the people funneling into the palace had picked up the pace, but couldn’t tell whether that was because of Zephyro’s efforts at organizing them, or the horror of their friends and loved ones being torn to shreds by invisible spiders.
I had only looked away for maybe a second, but when I brought my eyes back to the Ferals, all I saw was something dark and disgusting flying in my direction. It hit me straight in the face and barreled me over. My sense of orientation shattered, I fell and something hit my back hard. I barely had enough presence of mind to push the spiked tip of the Torch into the black mass and flare Pharus. A teal glow illuminated the edges of my vision, and a second later, the black mass spasmed.
[>>PROCESSES BY USER SpeZTgrbGX-13 ARE NOW HIGHLIGHTED]
Zephyro kicked it off of me with so much force that it flew straight through a storefront window. The dark hole it left flashed a bright blue at the exact time a sickening crunch echoed from the interior.
Getting up, I flared Pharus as I turned towards the remaining spiders. I put the energy from the spin into my swing, and sure enough, the backhanded blow took another of the monsters straight in the stomach. It had already been mid-flight, razor-like legs aimed at my head, but my furious strike hit it so hard that its carapace cracked open like a piñata. Cyan light streamed out of it, enveloping Pharus and trailing behind it like I was painting the air with my Torch as a brush. The corpse went flying, a trail of cyan describing its arc.
I pulled the Logic into myself before the Ferals could.
{INCOMING Logic - 55 LB}
{AVAILABLE Logic - 260 LB}
I did not know why I had been able to kill that spider and not the others, but at that moment, it didn't matter. I had fought, and I had killed. I could do it again. I was no longer defenseless, and the void held no sway over me.
The last remaining monster was smaller than its comrades, and I tested the weight of my scepter as the arachnid approached me cautiously. I flicked the weapon, sprinkling the ground with blood as black as crude oil. When the Feral skittered back like a scared animal, I couldn't help but smirk. No mercy. Only the future, only victory mattered.
I launched into a full sprint, bringing my scepter overhead. The Feral turned, but it was too slow. I slammed my weapon down without even bothering to flare it. The golden cage crashed into the monster's back, and I laughed in triumph.
In return, the spider rammed its mandibles into my shin and sent an electric current through my unprotected flesh that made me feel like my lower body was on fire. Screaming in pain and anger, I brought my weapon down on the beast again, with similarly little effect. It just kept zapping me with all it had left, dropping my integrity at an insane pace. I no longer had the energy to scream, so I whimpered as I swung again, putting the last of my energy into activating Pharus’ mark.
[DPM integrity]
▰▰▰▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱ 29% ⚠ ▼▼
{CPU Load: ▲ 88%}
{Core Temp: ▲ 79° C}
[>>PROCESSES BY USER SpeZTgrbGX-15 ARE NOW HIGHLIGHTED]
I did not have to wait long for Zephyro to come to my aid. With a warcry, he impaled the beast, lifted it up, and smashed it against the ground. He didn’t even pull his blade free before helping me up.
With heaving breaths, I watched the spider dissolve into Logic, then I absorbed it.
{INCOMING Logic - 45 LB}
{AVAILABLE Logic - 325 LB}
{CPU Load: ▲ 91%}
{Core Temp: ▼ 78° C}
My Torch sputtered as I panted, and after making sure all the spiders were dead, I disabled it with a flick of my wrist.
I couldn’t believe I kept making these rookie mistakes. It was as if Stax had taught me nothing. If he could see me now, he’d be furious.
No, I corrected myself, he’d be worried.
Which was even worse.
I walked over to the ruined store, its broken window still glowing cyan from within. The weariness didn’t just run bone-deep anymore. It had started to trickle into my soul, mixing with the fear into a potent poison. I knew if I didn’t burn it away, it would sap my strength, dripping against my will to fight until it corroded under its caustic caress.
I had been fighting almost every single hour since I had arrived in Zephyro’s Domain. Fighting to understand, fighting to keep up, fighting monsters… I had long since passed the point where a normal person would’ve been tired enough to sleep for days. And yet, I couldn’t stop, not even a second.
I knew what would happen the moment I let my guard down. It had happened before, after Veltruvia. The moment I succumbed to my exhaustion had marked the starting point of many nightmares, both dreamt and real. Now, like bleach, its taste ran over my tongue once more. First, the rise of an Intense calm after the adrenaline starts to run out. The urge to sit down, for just a while…
During that moment of rest, I’d let my guard down, and fear would slip into the cracks. It would seep into my eyes and ears and nose and mouth, fill my throat with despair. It would taste cold and bitter, submerge my lungs in panic as thick and dark as crude oil, push everything else away until there was no more space for hope, or air.
But it would not stop there. Not even when I choked on all my failures, past and present and possible. The pressure would swell, and swell, and I would burst open like a plastic bottle filled with sludge and grime. Then I’d go slack and lifeless, all my weight would hang on that fraying rope that was my composure, my sanity would snap fiber after fiber, and I’d fall into the void that already claimed my insides.
Inside and out, all one, united in darkness.
I wouldn't let that happen.
I couldn't let that happen.
Safety was always just an annoyed thought away. I reached for my anger. It still came easily enough for now, despite the exhaustion.
But in the haze of my exhaustion, things that I could reliably focus on until they drove me mad—like the absolutely sluggish pace of the evacuation— had become almost rote, and a part of me asked itself if getting worked up about it was even worth the effort. Maybe I could just sit down for a moment…
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper.