Reven, or Rev as his friends called him, groaned in misery as he woke up. He opened his eyes, then shut them again quickly as the surrounding light blinded him. This sparked his memory. The last thing he remembered before waking up was a blinding white light, and deafening sound that had invaded his bedroom as he prepared for bed.
“What the hell.” He muttered, as he forced his eyes to crack open slightly; adjusting to the bright light. At first he thought that he was simply blinded due to his eyes needing to adjust to his new wakeful state, but when he turned his head, he realized there was actually a ball of bright light hovering inches from his face. Staring at the space around him, he realized he was inside of what seemed to be a medieval jail cell. He could vaguely see the bars, and could see that he was wedged into the corner; head nearly touching the stone walls. It was difficult to make out details with the bright light hovering in front of him, and his eyes watered from the attempt.
Grunting in annoyance, Rev concluded that until he moved the light out of his way, he wouldn’t be able to get up. He reached out tentatively, feeling blindly for the light fixture or cord the light was attached to, but frowned in confusion when he found nothing.
“What the hell?” He whined, finally moving to touch the light itself. He was careful, moving slowly in case it was burning hot like a light bulb, but when his hand touched the light, something unexpected happened. A box like a computer pop-up manifested; strangely visible through the blinding light.
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Un-bound core encountered.
Bind core?
yes/no?
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“What? No?” Rev said, confused.
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Response Accepted.
Warning: Unbound cores are highly unstable.
Detonation will occur in:
10
9
8
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“Bind the core!” Rev exclaimed, deciding the warning was not something to be taken lightly, despite not knowing what was going on.
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Response Accepted.
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He gasped as the light flowed into him; burning like fire flowing through his veins as he convulsed. After several seconds, he was unconscious. Rev woke again an unknown amount of time later; head aching from where his convulsions had slammed his head into the walls that formed the corner he lay in. Without the light from the core, his surroundings were pitch black, and he confirmed this by waving his hand in front of his face. He couldn’t see even a hint of movement. Rev groaned, and moved his hands to cradle his aching head; only to curse as they scraped against the walls.
“What the hell?” Rev muttered in general complaint against the entire situation.
As if in response, another popup appeared.
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Core Integrated
Core Level is: ???
Warning: environmental essence levels critical.
Warning: core functionality diminished by low essence levels.
Essence must reach minimal charge to access core functionality.
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When nothing else happened, Rev looked around. The area was pitch black, but the pop-up followed his vision as if he was wearing a pair of smart glasses. It only took him a moment to figure out how to mentally dismiss the prompt, but this didn’t solve his main problem; the fact that he was stuck in a pitch black jail cell with only a vague knowledge of his surroundings, and no idea why he was even there.
“Ooooookkkkkkk now what?” He muttered, before deciding to change tactics. “Hey! Can anyone hear me!?” He shouted.
There was no response. After waiting what felt like several minutes, he began crawling carefully, following one of the walls until he encountered the bars. After confirming that they were too narrow to squeeze through, he followed the bars; running his hand along them as he desperately sought a means of escape. When he located the door, he confirmed that it refused to open; even sticking his finger into the lock in an attempt to jiggle the mechanism before continuing to move along the wall of bars. Eventually, he encountered a wall of stone, and continued along it until he had done a full circuit of the room; ending back at the beginning of the bars again.
Once he knew that he was truly trapped, Rev slumped down in defeat; curling into a ball of terrified, confused hopelessness. He yelled until his voice was raw, and when no one came to free him, Rev stopped; a feeling of utter pervasive defeat leading him to a state of emotional emptiness. It was in that moment that he first felt it. There was a strange quality to the way his body felt. It was subtle, and he normally wouldn’t have noticed it, but in his quasi-meditative state, Rev simply knew that he felt something… more inside him. Something that flowed through his body like water, but felt like static electricity in his veins. The more he focused on it, the easier it became to sense it. As he explored that feeling, a new pop-up shocked him out of his strange fugue.
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Core has located essence source.
Time until minimum essence charge: 32 hours.
Warning: core has identified the user as an essence source.
Warning: core will drain essence until minimum functionality is restored. Maintain essence production or be consumed.
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Terrified by the thought of being “consumed,” whatever that meant, Rev fought against his instincts in an effort to regain the meditative state that had apparently sparked his essence production. As he struggled with himself, Rev could feel the fatigue as energy began to drain from him, and in a perverse way, he was aided by the spreading emptiness. As his emotions dulled from the all-consuming void that spread through him, it became easier to fall into the necessary mental state. Soon, he could once again feel what he assumed to be his essence as it flowed through his veins. This time, it all seemed to be flowing toward a single location just behind his belly button.
Guessing the destination was the core draining his essence, Rev examined the flow in an effort to find the source; hoping to somehow stimulate production. After several agonizing minutes that felt like hours, he located the source in the back of his head, slightly above his neck. Rev had once read an article about “The Spark of Sentience” being a tiny gland just below the brain stem. While he only vaguely remembered the details, it was the idea he clung to as he mentally pushed at the space in his skull that seemed to swirl with subtle, invisible energy.
As he explored this space, the energy reacted to his exploration. Tendrils of energy wound throughout his head underneath his skull, in defiance of the pull from his core; hours passed as the tendrils wound tighter and tighter within his brain before a popup almost doomed him to consumption.
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Spirit Stat +1
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Rev’s curiosity was aroused by the popup, but the need to maintain his zen focus superseded this feeling. He managed to continue the process without entirely losing focus, but noted distantly that what he had perceived as tendrils seemed to have reached some kind of threshold; settling into his body until their existence had become as natural to him as his veins. What’s more, their presence was somehow enhancing his essence generation; the energy crackling through him felt slightly more substantial as it poured from what he was quickly deciding to call his “spark.”
Despite this newfound perk though, Rev was quickly realizing that his ability to generate essence was not infinite. He could feel his spark beginning to strain as he compelled it to continue generating essence. Desperate, he cast his senses out, looking for other sources of essence. Finally, he found what he was looking for. Without knowing how, or why, Rev sensed minute traces of essence embedded in the corroded steel bars that pressed against his skin. He instinctively suctioned up as much as he could from this source, and though it cost him some of his own essence for very little in return, the extra resource bolstered his flagging spark. As tentatively as he could, so as to not interrupt the necessary mental state he was maintaining, Rev extended a hand to touch the nearby stone wall; finding that it too contained minute traces of essence that he was able to harvest.
Hours passed, and though the metal and stone had very little energy available at once, they seemed to have endless reserves that allowed him to persevere. Eventually, Rev noted that they each seemed to have their own unique flavor, that was beginning to incorporate, and circulate within his own body; altering his own essence. He had no idea of the consequences, but with no other choice, he continued to siphon the energy.
As time continued to pass, Rev figured out how to summon a system window with a timer, allowing him to gauge how much time was left.
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Time Remaining: 20:38:52
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The idea of continuing for another twenty hours was almost enough to convince him that giving in to presumable death was the better option, but he gritted his teeth, and persevered. At sixteen hours remaining, he tempted fate by standing, hoping to relieve his bladder. The movement seemed to jar his connection to the metal and stone essences as they flowed, and the entire current of essence within him wobbled and rippled as if struck by multiple stones simultaneously thrown into a pond. Despite this, he managed to maintain the flows without interruption as he unzipped his pants to begin another kind of flow through the bars. More importantly, this disruption seemed to stimulate something internally, and he felt the tendrils of essence within his brain begin to unfurl, slowly thickening, and lengthening.
Rev almost panicked as his overtaxed spark began to reach a breaking point; the effort of expanding the tendrils adding a further burden to his essence supply. Struggling against encroaching panic, Rev poked and prodded at his essence for a solution until he found that he could hold back some of the essence that was flowing toward the core, reducing the strain on his spark. It was enough to delay his spark’s demise, and just as he was reaching his breaking point, he felt the tendrils settle into place.
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Spirit Stat +1
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He sighed in relief as his spark seemed to strengthen, the process now faster and easier than it had been before his bathroom break. He checked his timer.
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Time Remaining: 10:58:49
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Inspired by the significant increase in efficiency, he purposefully prodded at the tendrils, seeking to activate them again. They obliged, expanding even deeper in a direction that he wasn’t quite sure conformed to the three dimensions he was used to thinking in. He had become more experienced with manipulating his essence at this point, and directed some of the flow intended for his core into the expansion process. This time it was easier, and only a few minutes had passed by the time the tendrils settled once again.
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Spirit Stat +1
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He pulled up the timer.
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Time Remaining: 6:45:27
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Rev repeated the process until he had reduced the timer to an hour before settling to wait. He was mentally and physically exhausted at this point, and was concerned that he couldn’t manage another expansion process. While he didn’t seem to have access to a stat page, he estimated that he had eight points of spirit now. His spark felt like it was on fire from the constant effort of producing and draining essence, and his stomach was roaring at him for food. Helpless to do anything else, Rev simply continued to struggle on.
When the timer finally elapsed, Rev collapsed into a heap on the floor, sobbing from the sudden relief as essence began to pool within him, rather than constantly draining, but as multiple pop-ups manifested, his consciousness faded. He only had time to glare dispiritedly at the first window before his body initiated a forced shut-down of his mind.
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Minimum core functionality reached.
Current essence charge: 1/1,000,000
Core level: 1
Remaining charge time: 16 hours
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