OSOS 0x13
Somniantes
M{ -.- }RA
As the elevator dinged twice to finally announce its arrival to the lobby, Mara snapped her fist closed, dispelling the little ‘experiments’ she’d been doing with Mark. She was getting a more intuitive understanding of it each time, she almost had a stable shape in three dimensions at this point. She still wasn’t too sure of the restrictions or applications of particular shapes, but it was moot for the time being. Trace had shown her what she was missing, and now that she was back in her world, she had all the resources she needed.
Stepping out of the lift, Mara waved to the receptionist at the front desk and smiled to the security guard she was chatting with. The pair were a usual sight in the lobby, but from the sounds of it, the budding relationship was rather new. That kind of serendipity was such a stark contrast to her last few months, that Mara found her smile followed her out the front door and on to the bustling streets of New Phoenix.
South of Mt. Whitney, the new century city was about as far south-west as you could get since the plate shifts, and it took full advantage of that coastal luxury. Most of the open-air agriculture had shifted towards optic-tower-farming, and the architecture of the rebirthed city embraced that like no other. Combined, New Phoenix looked like the neo-green cities both artists and activists would fantasize about, eco-matte paints covered in the lush greenery of bioengineered agricultural architecture, and only bisected by pedestrian-focussed streets.
Striding out into the gleaming sun of her old world, Mara raised her hand to shield her eyes as she scoped out the metro stop she was headed for. She wasn’t sure if there was a closer shop nearby, but she did know there was a shop in the marketplace, and there was also food there– And the ferocity of her stomach’s groaning seemed unlikely to plateau without appeasement.
Finding her way onto a train headed north, Mara was a little disappointed to find her car relatively full, but it wasn’t unsurprising, given the late commute and dinner rush. Weaving her way through the cabin as the train picked up speed, she finally spotted a quad of seats with one side free, and locked in her choice.
Thankfully, the quad only had one other occupant, a guy, probably in his mid-twenties, who was happily engrossed in a handheld– Which was a rare sight these days, but some people preferred the more ‘classic’ experience. Smiling to him as she gestured towards the empty side, he met her silence with an equivalent smile and upwards-nod as if to say ‘All yours’.
Opting for the seat near the window, Mara was glad she did, as the tunnel walls flew away and open air began to rush by, she found the view both nostalgic and incredible, her vision only intercut by the bridge supports keeping them out of the waters below. Several stories above, the pedestrian paths and skyscrapers leapt from the ground, towering into the air with their interconnected infrastructure.
“What anime is that?”
Shaking her head as she turned to look at the guy across from her, Mara wasn’t sure what he was talking about– For once her top wasn’t advertising a fandom, so she double checked she had heard him right.
“Anime?”
The guy smiled, clearly finding something about her rhetorical question humorous.
“I mean, I like your cosplay, I was just curious if it was from an anime– Unless it’s not, then I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
Miming a zipper to seal his lips shut, then throwing away the key, the guy smiled and shrugged, hoping he hadn’t offended her too much.
Cosplay? Are my eyes that notice–
Not even half-turned towards the window, Mara locked eyes with the problem in her reflection. After living with them for months, she’d gone and undressed, showered, shampooed, conditioned, and got dressed, all while completely self-oblivious to the silver horns sprouting from her noggin. Realizing her best chance of downplaying the situation was to stay calm and play ball, she spun up a quick idea and smiled back at him, hoping her pause wasn’t too awkward.
“Um, yeah, sorry, bit of social anxiety– It just came out on Shibu, ‘Swindling A Genie’ I think, they always have super-long names, I just loved the MC’s look and I do a bit of crafting so…”
Shrugging and pointing upwards as she tried to play off the very noticeable glean atop her crown, Mara was happy to see he at least took the bait, but less so when he actually bit and put down his game to chat with her.
Oh fuck– Didn’t I just say I have social anxiety?? Please don’t take that as an invitation to talk to me ;-;
“Oh, that actually sounds really cool– Did they drop the whole first season yet?”
Figuring the fastest way out of the situation was to speed-run, Mara tried to keep it friendly but quick, hoping she didn’t dig too big of a hole for herself.
“Uh– I’ve only seen the first two episodes, I’m not actually sure, the headgear similarity was actually a coincidence… I made these on a whim a few months ago actually.”
Seeming far more interested in her dead-end answers than she’d have liked, the guy was clearly very eager to continue chatting with her at this point.
“Oh, so cosplay is a regular thing for you then? Love that for you, I’ll have to check Genie out later tonight– I’m David by the way, I just moved down here from ’UT’, still trying to find some friends out here– What brings you out tonight?”
Blinking twice in quick succession as she digested the way the guy jumped from one topic to another so quickly, she did her best to bat the balls this ‘David’ was pitching.
“Mara– I dropped my phone, broke the whole thing, and before you ask, I would have just ordered shipping, but my computer decided it also wanted to kick the bucket, and now I’m starving after such a day I’ve had, and I–”
Catching herself as she realized she was getting emotional, Mara clamped her trap shut before she brought up something she really shouldn’t, especially to a random stranger in a train car full of prying ears.
Thankfully, David seemed to see she was having a crazy day, and certainly didn’t want to add to her strife by imposing on her.
“Both your phone and computer in the same day? The odds of that these days must be absurd, sorry to hear about that– I’ve had days like that, the horns were a good choice.”
Sighing internally as she watched David pick his game back up, signaling the end of his intentions to dig further, Mara gave him a quiet smile before turning back to the window, hoping to pass the rest of their journey in silence.
D[ –.– ]B
> <<
>
> Name: Mora Ordinavi - ( “Debug” )
>
> Race: Human [?] | Daemon [?] | N/A [?] - ( “Daemon-Skill” )
>
> Class: Debug VII
>
> < / Sstem/ERrr// / ? / . . . / ␀␜␛␘␕ / . . : / ␍␅␎␐␒␖␏ / . : . / ␀␜␛␙␆␈ / . : : / ␝␇␞␏␐␒␖␎ / : . . / ␀␜␀␌␀␊␀␞␕␍ / : . : / |0xE0F |0xE0F |0xE0F |0xE0F |0xE0F |0xE0F |0xE0F
>
> >>
There wasn’t much on the panel that had appeared in front of Debug, half of it was garbled out, which wasn’t much of a surprise considering her current standings, but what was there was more than troubling.
‘Mora’? Where did that name come from? And I’m Human?? They all have question marks next to them, of course, and there’s a complete unknown to top it off, but Mara’s doesn’t even list that for her race!
So… Who am I then?
Pulling a one-eighty from surprise to concern, Debug looked up at the mirror images of herself, simply standing there, watching her, one out of their usual silence, the other, politely waiting for her to finish.
Swallowing her pride and confusion for the moment, Debug shelved her bugged-out prompt to investigate later and tried to come to terms with the situation as-is.
“Okay Ed, I’m very out of the loop, but I’ll try to roll with the flow– Interrupt says I’m out of time, so please be as brief as possible and I’ll try to keep myself from being too bewildered…”
Mara’s been getting the hang of that much at least, so, how hard can it really be?
Clapping their hands once more, as if to pretend they hadn’t just been cut off at the beginning of a very eager rant, the Editor picked their introductions back up, but with a bit less regality this time.
“Ahem– This… Debug? Is The Hub of your Domain, a veritable nexus of data consolidated from the… few… facilities I derived from your needs, with a few notes from our friend in the corner of course. The interfaces here will display any information you request of it. Mental dictation is perfectly acceptable, and the door to our left leads towards the Submergence Field, and the door to the right, the Observation Deck, with other facilities branching out from there.”
Looking back and forth between the Editor and the things they indicated, Debug nodded along, beginning to meander over to the interfaces after they were mentioned.
“You said these display any information about my ‘Domain’?”
The Editor, acknowledging Debug’s inquiry, walked over to demonstrate.
“Yes, is there anything in particular you’d like to see?”
“Yeah– A floor plan. Then, I want an explanation as to Why.”
Nodding, Ed pulled up the current layout of Mora’s Domain, a facility kit to the brim with all the features Debug would require, and plenty of extensions built in to facilitate expansion as her dominion grew.
There were eight rooms in total on the screen, with the three Mara lookalikes highlighted in the room nestled right in the middle of it all. It seemed that in the mere moments of time that had passed for her once she’d fallen through the floor, enough time had passed outside that now she’d re-emerged in an entire facility of functions, all labeled in a script that seemed close enough to English that she could look past it for the most part.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Initially, three of the names were at least reasonably legible, the Observation Deck, the Workshop, the Greenhouse, and two more were decipherable with some guesswork. Those being the ‘Mana Scoop’ and the ‘Lattice Barrier Drive’, respectively, but the last two still looked like straight gibberish. Thankfully, Ed had already mentioned the ‘Submergence Field’ on their left, which left only one room a complete mystery.
“Alright, skipping the twenty-questions, why did you–”
Interrupting Debug, as they were so fond of, the owner of such a namesake finally gave some sense of clarity, in their own way of course.
“–Because of what you chose, thus mandates manifest. Consequences come in many forms, and for all with equal abandon, so treasure the comforts of the moment.”
‘Treasure the comforts of the moment?’ Okay, yeah, she’s huffing riddle-juice–
But… What does she mean by, ‘what I chose’?
…What was the choice?
{ √Δ }
In a flutter of blue glinting in the sunlight, the ancient lapis lazuli cloak ruffled against the old wizard as he mounted a massive embankment of earth that had been cleaved from the ground in such an instantaneous fashion, the devastation was likely inconsequential to whatever caused it.
From his new vantage point, he could see from left to right, near to the point the world curved upwards into the atmosphere, a colossal scar had been torn into the heart of Redonia, and would likely become a thriving river within a cycle of seasons.
However, his goal was not at the midsection of the beast, but rather the head, and so the old wizard turned to face the direction of impact, and began warping himself a kilometer at a time as he skirted the wake of devastation.
Over his many lifetimes, he’d seen this anomaly of a forest sprout from the empty fields of what would always become Redonia, when all else remained fixed. That anomaly alone was enough to justify yearly research outings, every year, for the rest of his lives, and now those very woods were ablaze in destruction.
Scolding himself for wasting the spell slots, the old man spared some effort to dispel the greatest fires and warp out wildlife as he skipped along the embankments, silently hoping he wasn’t going to need the slots later, but the pit in his stomach had been there for days.
It took a couple of hours, and at least a hundred kilometers of devastation, but at last, the old man had his eyes set on the source of it all. Embedded in the mountainside was what looked like an entire stone tower, turned on its side, and shoved head-first deep into the bedrock with no regard for life or beauty. The shockwaves of such an event finding its headstone had blasted nearly every tree in a half-kilometer radius into the sky or their neighbors, and anything past that was charred to a crispy proxy of its former self.
“Gods that soar, and legends of lore… The beast does roar, forever more.”
Clapping his hands as he vanished from one space, and into another, the old man found himself within the stone-cold halls of a red-lit Obelisk, a faint klaxon harrowing from deep within.
Striding with purpose, the old man walked past the first two rooms without batting an eye, but paused at the second set, reminiscing about something in the room before stepping down the rest of the hall in a single space-bending bound.
Behind him now, he could hear the scrapings of chairs that signaled he’d just tripped the sensors, but he paid the inhabitants no mind, and vanished through the dead-locked hatch; his business was with the one making the decisions.
The chamber within was as wide as a stadium, massive wrapping walls of stone towering far above to a ceiling that wasn’t visible in the distant shadows, but every surface in sight was covered in instruments and artifacts alike. Housed within this massive enclosure was the target of his discretions, a collapsing nexus of power the likes of which the world of Somniantes had never seen.
However, contrary to his king’s expectations, there wasn’t much he could actually do against it. He’d already tried. A lot. Every permutation, every preparation, no matter how many iterations, once the Obelisks began arriving in Somniantes, they’d always been arriving in Somniantes, and there was never going to be anything he could do about this one.
“[ Greetings, Merlin. ]”
M{ -.- }RA
She’d gotten a lot of varying looks and stares on her way through town, but as Mara tripped the door chime of the Cellos shop, she thanked the heavens she’d managed to skirt any further inquiries since the train incident.
“Good evening miss, did you pre-book an appointment?”
Mara blinked at the service droid, finding herself with a bit of culture shock before she found her footing.
“Um, no– I dropped my phone off the balcony, and she’s completely toast. I just need to pick up a new one and I’ll pull from my cloud backups, is it alright if I peruse really quick?”
The droid’s facial visage was momentarily replaced with a spinning arc while it negotiated the request with its AI, then flipped to a green checkmark before the droid’s illusion of a face returned to the display.
“Of course! We’d be happy to assist if required; please ask if you have any questions.”
Nodding, Mara shuffled past the biped and skimmed down the displays of smartphones, idly looking over the different makes and models as she found her usual family of devices.
Not like there was anything wrong with the old one, but maybe I’ll get the newer model…
“Excuse me, do you have rugged cases for the new Noto?”
The biped droid, who had kept her space previously, slid over to Mara, more than happy to facilitate a transaction.
“Of course, two brands offer such models, Durus and Obrizus, do you have a color preference?”
Choices abound huh?
“If Durus has a black– Actually, if they have something high-vis, preferably green, not pink. I lost my old one all the time, and not a fan of pink in general right now– Oh, and I don’t want to have anything shipped, whatever’s in stock is fine.”
Immediately entering its buffering state once more, the droid located and placed the order from available stock, ringing up a receipt to process before extending its hand to confirm the transaction with the customer.
Seeing the robot’s hand suddenly jut towards her made Mara flinch back a step, her instincts barbed and prickled after so many months of constant danger. However, realizing that it was initiating a chip-transfer, and not trying to kill her, Mara tried to calm down, but doing so only made her realize there might actually be a larger problem.
Do I still have a chip?
Wiping her palm on her skirt to dispel any anxious perspiration accumulating, Mara hesitantly reached out and began to grasp the android’s outstretched palm. However, as she expected, something had to go wrong, just not in the way she was anticipating. Near instantaneously after their palms made contact, the droid lurched, like an animal accidentally brushing a security fence with too many amps, and its face went blank.
“Uhm… Excuse me?”
Looking towards the other two droids in the shop, Mara saw that they’d all gone offline, which meant she’d either just broken the command droid, or the backing intelligence. Honestly, she wasn’t sure which, but she really didn’t want to get stuck in temporary holding over a misunderstanding.
Opting to just ditch the whole idea and move on without a phone, Mara almost got to the door when a service bell chimed from the back counter– A brand new phone and case were sitting on the inventory lift mounted behind the counter. Somehow, it seemed her order had still been processed, and she wasn’t going to question it.
At least I can try and say I didn’t notice, I got my phone after all–
Powering the device on as she left the BSOD-ridden smart-store, Mara glanced around at her options for food while she waited for her new phone to boot.
“I could eat a whole moose right now– Maybe hot-pot?”
Smells like a good idea at least.
Meandering to the scent of her nose, Mara prodded away at her new Noto, syncing with the cloud and pulling down her backup from…
A hundred and fifty-two days ago?...
Her casual stroll ground to a complete halt, she did daily backups. She knew she did daily backups, it was automated. Which meant that it had been a hundred and fifty-two days since she broke her phone. That changed things. Immensely.
“Fuck.”
D[ –.– ]B
Shaking herself out of pondering the riddles of Interrupt, Debug looked to the Editor for some level of rational explanation. Why did this place exist? What was a domain for? What’s happening? And most importantly, where the hell were they?
“Okay, Ed, level with me. I need answers– Like proper ones, not riddles. So please tell me, what the fuck is going on here?”
The Editor smiled, happy to please, and gestured an open palm to the door leading out to the Observation Deck.
“I think it’s best if we get to the core of the issue first, don’t you?”
Raising an eyebrow at yet another mirror image of herself, who once again had more knowledge about what was going on than she did, and wondered what she did to get herself in such an absurd situation. All it did was try to save Mara’s new skill, and now it was a she and had a whole other name– Not to mention the reality-warping concept that they were somehow walking around in a space outside of space. Even the tangent non-space of Mara’s domain was–
Mara’s Domain… Mara’s DOMAIN!? Why am I only, just now, remembering that??
Ed paused, noticing their liege seize in place, finally struck by the realization of what this place represented to her.
“Time-locks are rather annoying, are they not?”
Whipping to lock eyes with the Editor, Debug’s glare said more than her words ever could, but she was tired of feeling confused. It felt too… human.
“Time-locks?... Explain. Now.”
Only chuckling at the daggers Debug was trying to throw their way, Ed found Debug’s state both curious and humorous, but they were more than happy to oblige the request without all the threatening vibes.
“Heh heh– I’m sure you’ve noticed, you’re just not willing to look it in the eyes yet, are you? Well, for every bit of foreknowledge we’ve got built-in, there comes a dose of ‘paradox protection’, lurking in the depths. You can’t divulge things out of time, the Clock-Minders will notice, and we certainly don’t want that– Do we?”
Stepping into range of the sliding door’s auto-sensor, the Editor punctuated their question with an indication that they should move on. If Debug was looking for someone to blame for that particular conundrum, they weren’t here, and they were expecting company soon, so they couldn’t keep dawdling.
Staggering behind the Editor, Debug was still half in her thoughts as she wandered through a hallway that extended left and right, and through a door on the opposite wall, mostly ignoring everything until the sight of the Observation Deck stole her attention completely.
The far wall was curved and transparent, with tiered half-circles descending to a walkway that bordered the expansive window. But it wasn’t the stark gray construction of the room that was so visually astounding, no, it was the view of the space beyond–
There were so many things to look at, from the veracious singularity devouring the ether that surrounded it, to the colossal tear in space behind that devastation. A hole in the fabric of whatever this realm was, and it was showing a view of someone she hadn’t seen in a long time.
“We had to build a barrier, you see.”
Ed cut through the stunning silence as they began their explanation, knowing full well Debug already had a billion questions, but she could wait.
“You’d fallen out of the worlds, into a space beyond fabrics, no System or spell in many a world has ever been conceived of that could even consider the possibility that something could exist in such a place, but there you were. Exceptional to the root of the word.”
Pausing to reflect on the image of Mara, mid-casting of her first true rune, the Editor continued.
“Mara being Mara, she’s now asserting her will over the very fabric of that world in a two-bit gambit to pull you back– Which would have already torn you apart of course, that’s why your mind protected you with the strongest material it could conceive of.”
Stepping in behind them to cut off the Editor, Interrupt picked up their side of things.
“Then, as we were so closely tethered before the collapse, our spaces converged, and I was able to influence things to our advantage.”
Not sure who, or what, to look at, Debug subconsciously settled on the spiraling maw of destruction in the space between them and Mara.
“Okay, so what’s that then?”
Seeing Interrupt had said their piece, Ed stepped forward and whispered in Debug’s ear.
“That’s Mora’s mana well.”
Wide-eyed, Debug barely spared a glance to the Editor to ensure they weren’t pulling her leg before staring ever-deeper into what was, apparently, her mana well.
Paradoxical…
Choosing her next question carefully, after all there were dozens at this point, Debug tore her gaze from the void, and the slow-moving view beyond, intent on better understanding of the situation.
“Are we still connected?”
Ed looked over their elder, knowing full well what she was referring to.
“Opposite us, on the other side of the Hub, is the Submergence Field– It’s like a door, but not, but it leads back to Mara’s domain, or will when she reestablishes contact. After all, she’s the one doing the pulling, we’re just keeping your Self together.”
Thankful there was an easy way home at this point, or would be, Debug moved to the next most important question on her mind.
“Okay, so, who’s responsible for all this ‘Deus Ex Machina’ in play? Because I’m either imagining all this, or someone’s pulling the strings here. You’ve built a whole complex in advance, and while I’m concerned about my own mental ‘time-locks’, Interrupt over there is a walking case study in over-use.”
Pausing to look at Mora, still astounded at how out of the loop she was, Ed strolled down the tiered platforms to reach the front window before answering.
“I would think it obvious, but I’m not the one of us who committed the first divine offense, you are. So if anyone’s a ‘walking case-study’, you are. Interrupt’s just busy elsewhen.”