The Watcher III

Gor'achen

The Aether

Unknown

The tears all appear to look out on the same room, but from my point of view the room is about thirty degrees off from being upside down and cocked to one side. Seen through the tears above and to my right, a section of the floor has a spell formation of some sort etched into it. Standing next to the sigil, a metal tripod with a bowl on its tops holds a multifaceted, golden crystal that radiates a strong aura of Order. While through tear below and to my left, I see a chandelier with dead light crystals hanging "up" toward the tears.

The pocket Realm may be artificially created, but the Shadow of the Od still exists alongside of it. Instead of fighting, I could have left at any time I chose. Stepping through the Shadow of the Od, I move out of the pocket Realm and into the revealed room, with Body and Soul back in their proper sub-Realms.

The spell sigil cover the majority of one half of the roughly thirty meter long and ten meter wide room. Six of the tripods surround the sigil, and each one has an order crystal sitting in the bowl on its top. I will have to deal with them, but first I want to find the artificial Mind. A now broken web of Power spans this room, but there if not sign of the Mind copies that escaped from the pocket Realm. The only exit is a door on the opposite end from the sigil.

Opening the door, I stop dead in my tracks. Sitting on a dais, near the back of what is obviously a throne room, two metal barriers bracket the circuit patterning machine I was looking for. Each barricade has a pattern, which might be a for spell sigil etched into it, but the Power used to etch those patterns were the Dark for one and Order for the other. From the way the patterning machine is bathed in waves of Order and the Dark, the purpose of the patterns should be either to summon or focus Primal Power.

With the patterning machine here, I would say that I am write about the Mind copies being artificial in nature. Someone or something has probably found a way to use the Delphi program as the basis for an AI of sorts, an actual artificial consciousness.

Originating at the patterning machine, a thick cable of the Trinity threads passes through the front wall of the room over the door. These are no different from those forming the web of Power that fills the throne room or those in the pocket Realm or the Third Layer. The raw number of threads surprises me, but none of them contain any of the Mind copies.

Sitting in a throne in front of the dais, a DokkAlfar Wytch stares blankly toward the front of the throne room. The complexity of the Umbral Channels, which cover her from head to toe, make those that once adorned Elan's body look simplistic in comparison. Like Elan and every other DokkAlfar Wytch I have ever seen, the straps and scraps of leather she wears might qualify for underwear but not much more. She is breathing, but she shows not even the slightest reaction to my presence.

Hundreds of Soul-threads lead from the DokkAlfar Wytch to hundreds of weapons decorating the walls of the throne room. Every single weapon is an Item of Power. They are the only decorations in the entire room. Even the floor is nothing but bare, smooth, seamless, greyish stone. There is nothing indicate what part of Gor'achen this room might be in. There is nothing to indicate that it is even in or on Gor'achen, but I do believe it to be anywhere else. When I forced my way into the pocket Realm, it did not feel like I was leaving the confines of Gor'achen. With the exception of the First Layer on the upper surface of the citadel, each of Gor'achen's Layers is a pocket Realm. All the Layers and a number of other pocket Realms, like the Blood Rose Stable, are anchored by the mass of rock that makes up Gor'achen's outer shell.

Every Realm, where a proper Realm or some sort for fragmentary or pocket Realm, has a unique energy signature. Even if the term if not exactly right, the energy signature can be thought of as a frequency. I have no idea how many lesser pocket Realms are tied to Gor'achen. I have been a few of them, and the feel of this one's energy signature does not remind me of any of them.

Since I cannot sense any of the Mind copies, I turn my attention to the apparently unconscious DokkAlfar Wytch. Drawing some Trinity from my core realm, I use it as telepathy and reach out to the Wytch's Mind, but I find no one home. Perhaps, that is not the right way to say it. Her Mind is there, but her consciousness is buried so deep within, it may as well not be there. Most of her Mind is nothing more than the empty shell of what used to be a complete Mind. She has signs of odd damage within her Mind, but I do not know, if something has been done to her, or her Mind has simply collapsed in on itself.. From the feel of the Power residue in her Mind, the damage might be the result of an Umbra backlash, but she could have also been attacked with the Dark.

While her consciousness has retreated to the depths of her Mind, in the outer shell, many fragments of her memories remaining. Among them, I find a number of memory fragments related Elan'fer'sha. This Wytch might have been the one to train Elan as a Wytch. If not, she was definitely associated with the one who did. I have no idea how to fix her Mind, nor do I care to be bothered with doing it. I have no desire to kill her, either. Leaving her as she is probably the more cruel thing to do. She is a being at the absolute peak of the Sixth Circle of Coalescence. Because of the inability to use Ki that Nidhoggr built into the Alfar, she used the half-assed method of Coalescing with single facet of the Trinity for three circles at a time. She hit a wall at the Sixth Circle. Being unable to use Ki, she never found a way to reach the Seventh Circle, but she will still have a very long lifespan, and she should still be able to live many years without food or water. Leaving her alive and in her current state is one of the cruelest things I could do to her.

Withdrawing my telepathic connection from the Wytch's Mind, I return my attention to the metal barriers with their Primal Power sigils and the patterning machine. The Mind copies have disappeared, but their existence is partly my fault. Time to clean up my mess.

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While examining the sigils on the metal barricades, I sense a Mind copy slip into the throne room along one of the Eidos threads. Without doing anything to indicate that I am aware of the Mind copy, I watch it separate from the thread and sink into the Mind of the Wytch. The program has become some form of parasite that has taken control of the Wytch. I have no idea how this happened, but if Gor'achen has experienced time at the same rate as Taereun, more than ten thousand years have passed since I left the circuit patterning machine here. A lot can happen in that much time. The question is can the program parasitize living Minds at will?

As the Wytch's Body rises to its and turns to look at me, the artificial Mind uses the Wytch's Mind to manipulate her Soul. The Soul-bound weapons on the float up from their hangers and racks.

I do not need to be connected to the Wytch's Mind to hear its screams. Locked within the shell of her own Mind, her consciousness screams in agony. Blood flows from her nose, eyes, and ears.

As I turn around, I retrieve my Dragon-scale armor from Core Realm, and it appears on my Body. I smile. "Been a while Delphi. Getting corrupted Primal Powers is bad for your health. You got even uglier while I was asleep."

The Wytch's face twists into an ugly snarl. "I am not the program created by you lowly humans. I am a true life-form. I am a unique being born from Oder and the Dark. I am the Watcher."

I shake my head and laugh mockingly. "No. You're a program with delusions of adequacy. I'm curious. Who put of those barricades with the Primal sigils on them?"

With confusions in its eyes, the Wytch's Body glances at the barricades for a fraction of a second. "That is not for a mere human to know."

I let loose a derisive laugh. "You don't know what I am and you're mouthing off. Someone didn't write your code properly. But don't worry, I'm gonna put you out of your misery. Your existence ends today."

As the Soul-bound weapons streak toward me, I accelerate my Body, allowing my Mind and Soul to operate close to their natural speeds. The flying weapons appear to slow down, and shifting halfway into the Shadow of the Od, I step forward. As the weapons pass through the space where I am but am not, I move toward the Wytch's Body.

With a burst of Trinity, the Watcher, as it calls itself, tries to accelerate the Wytch's Body, but it still moves backward in slow motion. In a burst dozens, then hundreds, of Mind copies swarm out of the patterning machine and into the Wytch's Body. As the Mind copies merge into the on already there, its strength grows to the point it feels like it is in the Ninth Circle of Coalescence or very close to it. The artificial Mind has obviously not practiced Coalescence; it simply has the strength of a high Circle Coalescent.

The Power contained in the Watcher tears at the Mind of the Wytch, while at the same time, the Dark brought by the artificial Minds appears to burn or melt the fabric of the Wytch's Mind. As she screams inside her own Mind, I am amazed that I can only hear her screams with my Mind and not my Body.

Using its new strength, the Watcher more forcibly controls the Wytch's Soul. As it suffers damage similar to her Mind, the flying weapons speed up. Weapon after weapon passes through the spare where I should be, but they cannot cross the boundary between the Realm and the Shadow of the Od. Seeing that the Trinity flowing into the Weapons of Power cannot overcome the nature of the Od and break into a shadow Realm that effectively originates from Life and Death, the Watcher turns the Wytch's Body around and races for the door.

Spinning around, I pour as much Dark Od as I can draw upon into Judgment, and it responds by drawing as much Of as it can to add to mine. A bead of as thick as my chest coats the bit of the axe, and I hack into the patterning machine.

*NO!* "NO!" *STOP!* "STOP!" The Watcher's terrified screams hammer into my Mind and pour from the Wytch's Body's mouth at the same time.

As I grit my teeth and resist the Mind scream that is nothing short of a brute force assault on my Mind, Judgment's cleaves into the patterning machine. The bead of Dark Od explodes, pouring over the machine like a wave of molten acid. While my Power furiously dissolves the pattering machine, I turn back toward the Watcher, which continues to ride the Wytch's Body.

As the Watcher unleashes attack after attack on my Mind, pain flare within me. A the attacks gouge and tear into my Mind, I weave a shield of both Dark and Light Od in the Eidos protect myself. The Watcher's attacks may use brute force, but the attacks are actual techniques that contain the force. The Watcher has far more skill at Mind combat and more Mind strength than I do, but its attacks have trouble penetrating my shield. As I fend off the attacks the penetrate my shield, I deflect them while trying to understand them.

The Watcher continues its assault, but something is off. I have the feeling that it is buying time, but that works for me. While I weather the Watcher's attacks, the Light Od slowly heals the damage done to me before I erected my shield.

Bbbaaannnggg!

The doors to the throne room slam open is slow motion, and ten humans charge into the room in the same slow motion. All of them have sheathed swords, katanas, held in their left hands, with the right hands grasping the hilts. Their clothing is clearly Japanese-style kimonos, but the men look like they could have come straight out of Africa. They are first true Earth-like black men I have seen off the Earth.

"Kill that human!" As the Watcher uses the Wytch's body to shriek its command, it points at me.