Unlimited Possibilities
Looking through time via the web of fate for Amara was like seeing through a fractal pattern. Images splayed off in all directions with all points in time. It was disorienting at first, like seeing through an endless series of mirrors that stretched out in all directions, with her at its focus. She swayed slightly, gripping the spell control matrix tightly for stability.
“Like a kaleidoscope.” She whispered, oblivious to the looks she got from the others. Only Shanes regarded with an understanding look.
She noticed something the more she studied the myriad of different times. Many didn’t belong to the reality she was in. This wasn’t just a time machine. It was a time and space machine. That left unlimited possibilities to where the ship could be. Her head swam at the enormity of it all. Amara wasn’t just looking for a needle in a haystack. She was looking for a single atom in the vast cosmos. She took a deep breath, trying to bite back the creeping despair at her task.
She tried to take a step back, view this problem from a vantage. But the more she retreated, the more possibilities became visible. She needed some way narrowing the search or she could spend the rest of her life looking for the ship. She broke connection with the control matrix and turned slowly, the dizzy post use sensation fading slowly. When her head was clear enough she glanced back up at Yasiin and Nathan.
“Same problem, new circumstances. We need to find the ship across time and space.”
Nathan grinned and leaned against the wall, working his stubble curiously. Yasiin’s brows knit, as he was no doubt working over the problem mentally. Nathan sighed and shook his head. “It’s too bad we don’t have a magic detector or something. I have to imagine a ship like that would give off a pretty unique signature.”
Amara blinked, looking at the archeologist as if seeing him for the first time. Sometimes she took her magic for granted sometimes and forgot what she could truly do with it. If she knew what she was looking for, she could use her Maetrayopts to filter all the noise out of her vision until she could zero in on where and when the ship was. She rushed over and wrapped the reluctant brotherhood professor in a big hug. He grunted as she squeezed him and then patted her on the backplate.
“Okay.” he wheezed. “Hugs are nice and all, but what brought that on?”
She grinned. “You just helped come up with a way to find the ship.”
Nathan clearly didn’t get it. He glanced at Yasiin, who only offered a confused shrug. “Don’t look at me. She does this.”
They both turned back to her as she sat down and reintegrated with the control matrix yet again. This time she’d find the ship for sure. She poured her magic into the control and felt the matrix spin up. Time and possibility unfurled before her in all directions. Then she triggered her Maetrayopts. She turned to Shanes, seeing a faint shimmer of the shadow clone through the din of the web.
“Shanes, can you give me anything that might share the magic signature of the ship?”
Shanes smiled, a delighted expression on her face. “Just as she said you’d ask.” Shanes reached into her white and golden trimmed robes and produced an elegant golden key. When the key touched Amara’s palm, she could sense the magic of the ship. It was distant, like a vessel at sea in a storm. Amara squinted, focusing out the noise of existence and the chaos of chance.
There it was. Like a beacon. She focused and brought it closer and closer. Or was she moving closer and closer to it? Perspective was difficult, with so much in motion. Like two bullets hitting each other perfectly. Powerful magic bubbled up from the floor and rippled out across the facility as both time and reality warbled and then righted itself, bringing everything back into alignment. When she finished, Amara turned back to Yasiin and grinned through the control sickness. “We’re here.”
Nathan had a hand to his mouth. Yasiin swayed, but otherwise looked unaffected. “Dimensional magic. Not too different from abysal rift travel. But....the question is, when are we?”
“Don’t forget where.” Amara said. Nathan glanced around a half step behind, but he caught up quickly.
“We’re not in our own native reality, are we?”
Amara nodded. “Bingo. We’re also millennia into the future from the time we just inhabited.”
Nathan just blinked and leaned back. “Wow. Okay. That’s a lot to unpack.”
Amara grinned. She wished Akamori were here. He’d have loved this based on the principle of the idea. Going somewhere new and exploring. He was definitely going to be jealous of this one. She stood up from the control matrix and stretched. “Well, let’s go have a look at this ship.”
Shanes frowned and took a few steps back deeper into the control center. Amara caught the response but didn’t question it. Shanes was behaving like a frightened deer. A concept Amara understood well. She was about to ask what it was when her gaze shifted through the magically enchanted walls and something cold coiled in the pit of her stomach. Abject fear.
“There’s still time to go back. Once you set foot on this path...there’s no going back.” Shanes said timidly.
“Cryptic.” Nathan said, folding his arms.
“And vague.” Amara added.
“What’s out there... It’s but a looming storm on the horizon. But it will one day reach you, and threaten all you know with darkness and torment. Opening I haven’t seen every possibility, but I’ve studied enough to know that this is a nexus point. A position from which many branches spin off from one focal point.”
“So you’re saying if we step through this doorway, we risk cutting something dangerous loose?” Yasiin asked, his spell rifle still held at the low ready.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“So...as the odd man out here, what exactly am I caught up in here?” Nathan said, holding his hands out in a halting gesture.
“We need Theferyis to fight stop Sauridius’ forces.” Amara said.
“Okay. So we free the ship. We fight the Sauridius and unleash something else bad. If we don’t, we all become soul puppets for Sauridius?”
Yasiin and Amara both nodded. “Pretty much.”
Nathan shrugged, convinced. “Seems like a no brainer to me then. Let’s get this ship out.” Nathan clapped both his hands together and rubbed them eagerly next to the door. Amara and Yasiin shared a look. They knew taking no action would doom the sector. But what if taking action would only make it worse? She hated these kinds of fables, and now she was living one.
“Okay Shanes. Open it up.”
Shanes nodded reluctantly. “Okay.” She said in a soft voice. She gestured with her hand and the airlock threw itself open.
Amara had expected lights and grandeur. A massive silver and gold spaceship. The apex of elegance and form. Instead, her nostrils were assaulted with a smell so rancid she nearly wretched. Nathan groaned uncomfortably, trying to wave it away. Yasiin’s helmet snapped into place around his head. He wasn’t even going to try to play at putting up with it. On top of her olfactory senses being brutally abused, she also noticed that there was no light. Nathan was two steps ahead of her mentally and sparked a crimson flare and tossed it out. It landed with a sloppy wet sound, like he’d just tossed into the flare into a muddy swamp.
The flare landed in a viscous inky black liquid that dragged the flare down. The light lasted briefly, but it gave Amara a faint look at the inside of the hangar and the ship. Virtually everything was covered in the goop. Amara’s own helmet snapped over her head and stepped out, followed by Yasiin and Nathan. Nathan slid on a mechanical helmet that hissed and whined as it created a seal.
After they left the control center, the door hissed back shut. Apparently Shanes wasn’t a fan of the smell either. She feathered the thrusters on her armor and floated up above the muck, thankful for her spell armor’s ability to fly. Nathan didn’t seem like he minded it too much. He knelt down and ran his index and middle fingers through the sludge, running it between his thumb.
“It reminds me of bad oil. Thick, slick and smells awful. But...it’s cold as the void. And tingles like magic.” Nathan’s voice came over their magicom’s tinny, like he was talking through a robot or something. Something about the electromagnetic barrier between technology and magitech, maybe? She’d pose the question to Kusinaki later if she had the time and actually remembered.
She focused on the thick slime and realized the truth in Nathan’s words. It was like she was looking at a congealed well spring that covered everything. “God’s blood.” Amara muttered.
“That’s normally found in pools, though, right? You guys call em well springs?”
Amara nodded. She couldn’t tell if this was the scene of a murder, or something much worse.
“It might be wise to hurry.” Yasiin cautioned. “Hard telling what this shit is or what it does.”
Amara drifted towards the ship, conjuring a light wisp. She’d expected it to illuminate the area rather well, but the black goo devoured the light greedily. The black slime was sapping some of the aether from her spell, weakening it. Yasiin was right. They couldn’t waste much time here. She found the exterior bulkhead and scanned for a way to open it.
Yasiin flew up into the air to get a better vantage point and sighted through his scope. “No Bodies. Whatever happened here, the party was gone long before this shit hit.”
Nathan stood shaking the black goo free of his hand and waded through the thick substance with squelching sucking sounds on each foot fall. He fell in next to Amara and began studying the ship’s hull. He wiped the slime off on a small cloth and then cast it aside, no longer needing the ruined rag. Fetching a pair of glasses from inside his jacket, he squinted and leaned close.
“I wonder what she looks like under all this gunk?”
Amara folded her arms, tilting her head as she let her imagination play. “I don’t know. I’ve only spent time on the Crasher, an old Brotherhood ship that was fit with a gifted spell drive and refit by the Federation. It leaves a lot to be desired. This ship, though? I don’t think it’ll disappoint. I’ve even been told it can raise or destroy gods.”
Nathan whistled. “Gods, huh? Don’t find too much religion in the Brotherhood. As I understand, we used to believe in one, but over time, space and technology eventually worked it out of our system. If anything, we probably worship technology more than anything now.”
“You have no gods at all?” Amara asked. As a priestess, the notion was an antithesis to her.
“Not really. Unless you count the extranet. Lots of people spend a lot of time and attention on that. I’d be willing to bet some folks even pray to it.”
“This extranet. It’s not a person, though, right?”
Nathan chuckled, shaking his head. Her confusion seemed to amuse him lightly. It helped distract her from the dark and gross chamber the ship was situated in. “Nah. It’s like.... its own reality. But the only thing that lives there is information. Unless you count the gamers. They’re a different lot.”
“Gamers?”
Nathan nodded with a dismissive wave. “They plug into the net and basically live on it. New Eden is so overpopulated that the lower levels are so heavily polluted most folks that can afford to go to Net Pools where they plug into the net. The gamers call it Diving. Most of have figured out ways to eke out a living. Views and followers. They leverage that against ad revenue. Strange way to live, though. They never get to see a real sky. A rare few actually get to buy their way out of the underworld and get to move up to the upper cities.”
Amara frowned. That took a turn fast. Maybe it was just the atmosphere. It was hard to have any joy or positivity in all this gloom. “No offense, but your world sounds horrible.”
Nathan chuckled and nodded. “Yeah. It’s an acquired taste for sure. I joined the Archeology Society so I could travel and visit new worlds. It’s not a terrible job. Keeps me fed, and there’s never a dull moment.” He added with a grin.
Amara nodded. “You may wish you’d stayed before the end of the day.”
Nathan’s smile wavered, but only slightly. She had to give him credit. He put up a good front.
“Eyes up people. We’ve got activity in the Control Center.” Yasiin’s voice said with a note of alarm.
She turned back and saw the airlock throw itself open to reveal a pair of imposing looking dragonborn hatchlings. Their silhouette’s familiar against the backlit glow from inside the hangar’s command center.