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[>>Now replaying: Log 1.95 - The_Finite_Truth.mp5]

Date: 8.9.175 AA / 4404 LTC

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

//Truth, people say, is infinite.//

//Fake. News.//

[>>DATA CORRUPTED]

Oh yeah. Chris, Lorelye, Jirrie, Stax, Patti, Olre, Iruli, Dezin, Vintas, Underbrook, Tuyk and Zurne. What about them?

I was so fucking angry, and I didn’t care anymore. If I died here, I might as well die on my feet, with the memory of my friends on my mind.

But Pina did not hit me with the baton. Instead, she kept talking.

“The… dark disciples… the slaves…”

They were my friends. Not my slaves.

“You’re… you’re the Torchbearer… the Divine Tyrant… the Witch Queen…” She said, half-delirious, eyes flickering towards her friends as they filled with tears.

Fuck that. I am me—Samantha—and all I ever did was what I thought was best for my people. You can keep your insults and titles.

“But you deserved it… You killed the Emperor of Peace…” Pina blubbered, wincing as Tin screamed in the background.

I winced. That much was true. Then again, it wasn’t the whole truth.

I killed a sanctimonious asshole who benefited from a system of exploitation and slavery, and who tried to put a boot on my neck to keep it in place.

She was quiet for a moment.

“Did you…” she winced, her eyes refocusing. “Did you kill the Takers?” She tried pointing at the Shackled I had killed, but her bloody arm failed her, and in her “good” hand she held the baton, still raging with witchfire, pointed at the screen as threateningly as a 13-year-old can point a weapon with trembling hands.

Even so, she hadn’t killed me yet, even though she could. Maybe I was not going to die. My heart skipped a beat.

Yes.

Pina’s eyes hardened, her fists clenched, and her shoulders tensed in a monumental effort of will.

“Prove… it.”

She collapsed, but in that motion, with the last of her strength, she spun the trolley that held my laptop.

The cone of Real shifted as the laptop tumbled. It was like someone had spun a flashlight in the middle of a pitch-black room. One second the projection of Real overlaid the entrance to the lab, with bullet casings and machine-corpses, and the next it refocused on the rear of the lab, where Chris and I had put the server racks.

As Cura struggled with the sudden change in perspective, reality changed, morphed, and resolved into nightmare.

Tin, struggling, was held up against the wall by what seemed like a collection of sentient cables. Voni lay on the floor in front of him, bleeding from several cuts. Many of them on her face.

“VONI! PINA!” the boy screamed, arm outstretched as he grasped for help, or perhaps in a futile effort to get them back up. Using the willpower of a 9-year-old and nothing else? A Sisyphean task, even before the machine wrapped a cable around his wrist and slammed it against the wall.

What disturbed even more me was that the Shackled had quite literally pinned Tin over the crest of the republic painted on the wall, like some sort of ritual sacrifice. While holding him there, the machine also inched toward Voni. In its slowly extending tentacles, it held hundreds of knives, pointed straight at the girl. Centimeter by centimeter they extended toward her in a creeping promise of murder, until it stalled. Apparently tiring of the slow approach, it curled its appendages like a discus thrower.

“Fuck that,” I said, flaring Pharus and putting my entire might into a single swing that sent the head of my flail screaming through the air. It crashed into the Shackled’s avatar—standing over the fallen girl with a blank expression of morbid curiosity—so hard that it was sent flying backward. With a crash that couldn’t be real, the red figure slammed into the Logo, superimposing itself over Tin.

[>>PROCESSES BY USER Knife_2_Meat/You ARE NOW HIGHLIGHTED]

[>>Initiating Denial of Service Attack]

That, unfortunately, was what saved it, because I hesitated on the second strike before I realized I couldn’t hurt the boy.

When I swung again, the Shackled flickered, vanishing briefly. It appeared right next to me, throwing knives stuck between his fingers. Then it punched the blades straight into my unarmored face.

[DPM integrity]

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▱▱▱ 85% ▼

I spun with the blow, pain erupting on my scalp and cheeks, but fortunately my eyes were unharmed, and I saw that in the Real, the Shackled had missed its attack. Slowed down by Pharus’ mark, its throw fell flat, knives clattering to the floor. Voni, on the other hand, had rolled away, grasping blindly for something on the floor, but I couldn’t get a closer look in the time I had.

Then the momentum of the hit I had taken carried me out of line of sight, and it was my turn to fall. The impact crushed the air from my lungs. That attack was enough to make me wonder if I could win this fight. But I wasn’t the scared, powerless woman I had been just hours ago, and ignored the lies my fear and doubt tried to poison me with. I pushed myself to my feet, yanking Pharus back.

Then I immediately ducked to the side when three throwing knives flew my way with incredible speed. I managed to dodge one, but got hit in the chest by the other two.

{CPU Load: ▲ 79%}

{Core Temp: ▲ 81° C} ⚠

Cursing, I grabbed the censer and slammed it onto the hilt, then pulled the chain by its beginning links, leaving the rest of it dangling free. The Shackled was pulling knives out of nowhere when I came charging for it. I swung, but it jumped backward with effortless ease.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

[Knife_2_Meat/You]

[DPM Filesize: XX LKB]

Despite my anger demanding I conserve my power to hit that thing as hard as I could, I willed myself to spend the CPU to assess the threat.

[Knife_2_Meat/You]

[DPM Filesize: 10 LKB]

I snarled, dodging to the side to avoid another barrage of knives. Behind me, I could hear the Shackled pull itself together in the Real. If I wasn’t fast enough, it would kill Voni.

So I pressed on, swinging Pharus with furious might to drive the Shackled back. It was obvious this was more of a ranged combatant, trying to keep its distance, so the plan was simple. I’d drive it into a corner and—

It jumped back one more time, folded itself in the air, set its feet against the wall, and launched itself forward with a mighty spinning kick. Its foot hit me straight in the stomach, driving the air from my lungs as it rocketed me across the room once more. I slammed against the wall, then crumpled forward.

{CPU Load: ▲ 85%}

{Core Temp: ▲ 83° C} ⚠⚠

I tried to blink the stars out of my eyes and struggled for air.

In the dark that crept in from the corners of my vision, I could hear Voni whisper next to me.

“Torchbearer, raise your flame up high

Show us how and show us why

Light the path and make us see

Hail, Torchbearer, praised be.”

She was crying.

As my sight returned, and I turned to her, I understood why she hadn’t gotten back up, hadn’t fought like she did before.

“Salve, Salvatrix, nostra lux,

qui nos de sursum deducis.

Qui inluminat viam nostram

Cum procuratio aeternis suis

Lava nos in suo flux”

My mind tried to think about why people in this world loved Latin so much. It tried thinking about the numerous times when I had told them to stop fucking praying to me. It tried thinking about why that particular prayer was grammatically incorrect, and why the meter was so bad.

It tried to think about anything, just to not think about the fact that the girl’s eyes were bloody holes.

She was laying here, in my last bastion, under my symbol, bleeding from where her eyes had been, with her friends, or maybe even her family, bleeding out around her and begging for her help.

Another knife clanged to the floor next to her, and she did the only thing she could, moved away from the noise, towards the server racks. She huddled between them, afraid and alone and helpless.

I got to my feet.

The Shackled started throwing a seemingly endless stream of knives at me, but I let it, deflecting as many as I could with my chain while I came closer. Slow, inexorable.

{CPU Load: ▲ 99%}

{Core Temp: ▲ 84° C} ⚠⚠⚠

Pharus was a small glimmer as I blocked one knife here, one there. Several of them hit their mark, glancing off of my armor. One hit me on the cheek, drawing blood.

[Downloading Shackle_v0.02.exe…10%]

First, it hounded Zephyro’s people, then it came here after these kids, then it destroyed my vizier’s kingdom, and now it dared to try to shackle me?

I glanced at Voni, who had crawled away from the machine, in between the server racks.

With the tiniest whisper, my weapon ignited, a flash of teal light that licked the bunker’s ceiling. The knives kept coming, but I was done chasing this thing around. I feigned a swing with the mace, and when it jumped back, I snaked the chain forward, my anger traveling down its length like wildfire. It hit the Shackled’s ankle, wrapped itself around it, and I yanked the fucker off balance.

It landed in a crash, and I was straddling atop it a split second later, Pharus dripping righteous fury as I brought it down again and again and again. This was not the breathless, angry flurry of a frightened woman. This was cold, methodical, like hammering in a tent pole.

Or like putting down a rabid animal.

{CPU Load: ▲ 99%}

{Core Temp: ▲ 86° C} ⚠⚠⚠

{[Arx, A Saint’s Terrified Embrace] HAS BEEN DISABLED.}

The Shackled’s faceplate cracked with each strike, revealing eyes filled with fury and fear and disappointment. I hit it again, and again, uncovering more and more of its face. With the mouth uncovered, I could hear it speak.

“Why does no one like them? Am I not good enough? They are nice! I sharpened them myself! Why do they all look at me like that? I just want them to be happy. I just want to make the cut. He promised me that they would all love me. He said—“

I brought the mace down once more and Logic splashed around the impact point.

When I pulled it back up, panting, Pharus came away dripping. Thick, orange blood veined with cyan.

The world glitched again, becoming less stable for a second, then snapping back into brighter fidelity than before. I leaned back, fell on my back, breathing hard, and tried to get my CPU temperature under control. I could hear the fans on the laptop spinning into overdrive. It was trippy.

I lay on the very edge of my cone of vision. Beyond the Shackled, there was only the static, empty world of Zephyro’s Domain, without the reality overlay. For a second, I wondered what would have happened if I had pushed the Shackled out of my field of vision. Would it still have been able to hurt me? Would I have been able to see it, let alone kill it?

“Voni!” Tin screamed as he untangled himself from the broken machine behind me.

I got up, feeling numb, and found the boy crying next to the girl. She was still breathing. I couldn’t see Pina. When Tin glanced in her direction, he grew pale but stayed with Voni. Either Pina wasn’t on top of the triage list, or it was already too late for her.

I got up on shaky legs to walk next to Tin as he rummaged through his pockets, pulling out a large, oddly shaped leaf. It was about as big as my palm, shimmering blue in the dim light of the bunker, and its stem looked vaguely metallic. Without hesitation, Tin twisted off the stem, revealing a thin needle inside. He pushed it into Voni’s arm, then he pulled out another leaf and scrambled toward Pina, presumably to do the same to her.

Pina lay somewhere outside of my field of vision, so when he went to triage her, it left me alone with Voni and my worries.

“I’m sorry,” I said. The girl didn’t respond, of course.

{SAMANTHA_v0.1}

{▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▱}

{DOWNLOADING DATA 99/100%}

{15.6 LTB/15.7 LTB}

[>>Estimated time remaining: 00hr, 1min, 05s, 101ms]

The Domain glitched, reality rearranging itself.

The Real stayed the same, unfortunately.

“I’m sorry, Salvatrix,” Voni whispered. To my chagrin, she folded her hands to pray as they did on Tobes, forming a small cup.

“I know I should have been better, shouldn’t have disobeyed the elders, shouldn’t have run off with the Music Box. I just wanted to—” she cut herself off, gritting her teeth either against the pain or against the self-reproach.

“Yours is the light that shines the way. I know I have been blinded by my ambition, so I know I deserve this punishment, oh Torchbearer.”

“No, you don’t,” I said quietly. Didn’t know why. Wasn’t like she could hear it. But fuck, this was a young woman, blinded by some abomination of steel and seething hatred, and she was apologizing to me.

She didn’t deserve any of this. I found that I wanted to comfort her, gently stroke her head, and hold her as she cried. It was odd. Bizarre almost. I hated touching people. I hated children. I barely knew the girl. She didn’t know me at all. And yet, she had placed her trust in me.

And I had failed her.

I wanted to at least try to erase that pain, no matter how futile that was.

“Just please…” Voni continued praying, oblivious to both my thoughts and my presence, “Just please save Tin and Pina, oh Torchbearer. They just wanted to… they just wanted to help me. Please don’t punish them for my hubris.”

I almost laughed. “Your hubris?”

This girl was something else.

“Don’t even begin to think the world revolves around you,” I said, staring up into the empty night above the rooftop, beyond the cone of reality.

“I tried that once, and it didn’t turn out well.”

In this moment more than any other so far, I regretted not being able to be heard. I wanted to help the girl stop beating herself up. Wanted to attempt the impossible somehow and help her get over her injury. I wanted to ask her questions, wanted to know what Pinas’ deal was. Why the Conservationist girl was so important to her. If they were family or just friends. Why they were hanging out, even though they obviously believed very different things. What the world had become.

I couldn’t, of course.

I remembered how it had been on Earth, where you could believe in different gods and still be friends. I wasn’t dumb. I also remembered all the wars and debates and the politics. I remembered arriving on Tobes, remembered being so excited when the world had been so small. So full of potential for peace. I’d barely known a fraction of it by then, of course. Hadn’t even thought about Mage Lords, Dragon Kings, and Arch-Wizards.

“Fuck, if only I hadn’t started this goddamn war,” I said, looking at the girl as she slowly tried to get up, reaching around blindly for something to steady her.

She didn’t respond and found nothing but cold air.

“Tin?” she asked instead. “Tin… how’s Pina? Please tell me she’s alive.”

From beyond where I could see, Pina grunted.

“Fry your own circuits, Voni! …Oh. Oh no… VONI!” Pina yelled, and then there was the rustle of cloth and a yelp of pain.

“Stop! Stop, Pina! Wait for the healthbloom to work. Five minutes! You know you can’t use the arm—”

“Voni is—Look at her EYES, Tin! Do something! DO SOMETHING!” her voice sounded harsh, almost hysterical. But there was a sudden depth to it now. An adult realization of consequences.

When Tin didn’t respond, that vastly overwhelmed note soaked deep into Pina’s crying.

“It will be fine, Pina,” Voni began to lie after a brief pause. “It will be—“

“Shut up!” Pina screamed, overcome with anger and grief.

They all went quiet.