Chapter 7: What is real?

The terminal pad before her was a perfect match to her design specifications—almost unsettlingly so. Estelle ran her gloved fingers along the frame where it merged seamlessly with the wall. The display surface stretched twenty inches across, its glassy dark face reflecting the ambient green glow of her surroundings. A small frown crossed her features; the design too closely resembled the smartphones and touchscreens of her old world—hardly the alien aesthetic she had strived for in her designs.

With a muffled groan, she pushed aside her frustration. What use was criticism now, when these terminals already numbered in the thousands across the lands? As her finger met the display, the frame awakened with an identical green glow. Like liquid light, it traced the intricate patterns etched into the border before seeping inward toward the display. Green lines began scribing themselves across the empty screen, converging to form a perfect rhombus at its center. The symbol pulsed once before shattering into countless geometric shapes that filled the dark surface with their verdant radiance.

Beams of green light shot upward from this constellation of patterns, materializing into more geometric shapes that expanded outward to form a hovering interface. Estelle caught herself holding her breath as the rhombus reappeared, then dissolved into something more primal: the Language of the Architects. The ancient script crystallized in the air before her eyes: [Security gate of Admin-Sarcophagus hall-A001]

'This interface...' Estelle studied the geometric shapes drifting across the projection. 'Did I make this, or commission it from someone?' The aesthetics matched her original vision—the Architect's language was exactly right, the signature green illumination perfect—yet something about the floating patterns felt discordant. Squares, diamonds, circles, and stars soared in seemingly random paths. They lacked the purposeful design she remembered inputting into every element—especially in the case of the Architects. Had this been one of her earlier versions? She couldn't shake the nagging possibility that she had implemented an outdated variant, mistaking it for the latest iteration.

Lost in thought, Estelle reached toward the display—lines of light materialized instantly, trailing each movement of her fingers. 'The basic functions work... That's promising, but will the system still recognize my commands?'

If it didn't, she would be trapped here indefinitely—a scenario she desperately tried to push from her mind. She thought of the countless NPCs she had designed to interact with these terminals across the World map, each performing these same gestures. Unlike those background characters created merely to add life to the world, Estelle knew the Language of the Architects intimately enough to speak it at a comprehensive level. A smile tugged at her lips as she reined in her mounting curiosity and excitement.

Estelle extended her hand into the display, watching as her index finger pierced the wall of pale green light. White lines began trailing from its tip. 'It's working. It's working!' The corners of her mouth lifted into a genuine smile as a cold breath escaped through her nose. Her fingers trembled as they drew across the holographic display, then halted abruptly as realization struck.

“Ah—”

As she withdrew her fingers from the display, the scribbled lines instantly vanished, as if erased. Estelle tilted her head, puzzled by this unfamiliar behavior. 'Did I program an animation for that?' She tried to recall creating NPCs interacting with similar assets—but only hazy, fragmented memories flashed before her eyes. Her instinct insisted she had designed this feature, yet doubt lingered strongly in her mind.

Casting aside her uncertainties, Estelle refocused on her goal. She let her fingers sink into the rays of light, beginning to write: "Unlock a—"

The moment her fingers left the display to complete the word, the incomplete text vanished. Her eyes twitched. "Huh? It's deleting when I break contact..." She caught herself starting to spiral into another round of self-questioning and grumbled, "Not now, Estelle." Her eyes darted across the device, searching for anything that might solve her predicament.

'If I were an Architect... how would they handle this? Well... they wouldn't need to type—they communicate through signals...' Abruptly, a new possibility sparked in her mind, but she quickly caught herself wandering down another rabbit hole of speculation. With a firm shake of her head, she forced herself to focus on the immediate problem.

She brought both hands toward the holographic display, positioning her left index finger at the far edge while her right hand hovered ready to write. With methodical carefulness, she began crafting the characters, her right hand leaving the display briefly to add crucial dots and connecting lines until the complete message materialized: "Unlock and open the Security gate of Admin-Sarcophagus hall-A001"

‘It worked… That should do it,’ she thought, but her satisfaction faltered as she examined her handiwork. The characters weren’t as elegant as she had hoped—more like a student’s practice attempts than the flowing script of a master. ‘It’s fine,’ she reassured herself. ‘I haven’t worked with the Architect’s language in weeks. This will serve its purpose.’

As she withdrew both her fingers from the light field, the holographic display rippled. The characters undulated, stretching and contracting like living things, their luminescence gradually fading until they dissolved like ink in water.

‘Did it work?’ Estelle wondered, absently rubbing her chin.

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The hologram flickered—the interface vanishing for a moment before being replaced by four three-dimensional cubes floating in the center. One cube shattered into fragments, followed quickly by the second. As the third cube began to break apart, the first reassembled itself, all of them rotating in an endless cycle like some cryptic loading animation. Estelle's lips pressed into a thin line. "Did I make a mistake?"

The display flickered once more, and new text materialized in the Architect's language:

—

[CONSCIOUSNESS SIGNATURE IDENTIFIED]

>Parsing Quantum State…

>Mapping Neural Architecture…

>Calibrating Temporal References...

—

The display erupted with new elements, each screamed new and foreign, sending her eyes wide in surprise. Lines of white text materialized rapidly, scribing themselves horizontally across the projection before cascading downward to form new rows. She jolted forward, caught off guard by the sudden flood of information. Hunching closer to the display, she struggled to process the cascade of data—the text appeared and transformed too quickly for her eyes to track, let alone comprehend.

Geometric symbols materialized throughout the projection, their forms shifting and rotating in a complex dance. They realigned themselves behind the streaming text, coalescing into a cubic structure that pulsed with a pale cyan glow. Before Estelle could fully process the transformation, the holographic display flickered again. The streaming text collapsed into a single rhombus, which then exploded into a new pattern that filled the entire screen:

—

ARCHITECT PROTOCOL INITIATED

Entity: Estelle Nytelles-AC-A001

[Administrator Class: Original Pattern]

AUTONOMOUS AUTHORITY REVALIDATION

Status: INITIALIZATION REQUIRED

Entity Verification:

- Consciousness Pattern: Architect-A001 [VERIFIED]

- Temporal State: [DISCONTINUITY DETECTED]

- Neural Complexity: Administrator Class [CONFIRMED]

- Access Matrix: [DORMANT]

DIRECTIVE:

Authority revalidation of Administrator-Class protocols pending.

All systems, dimensions, and creation matrices await reassignment.

Continuation of the Original Pattern required.

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED:

> Proceed to Central Trigon Sphere

- For Pattern Synchronization

- For Authority Matrix Integration

- For System Access Restoration

—

Estelle stood frozen, her eyes tracking the stream of text—trying to absorb every detail the terminal displayed. Autonomous authority revalidation, original pattern, matrix—terms exclusive to the Architects, yet she understood their significance. These were the fundamental elements that appeared in all Architect-related systems, the essential queries that needed resolution before any new component could be integrated into the World of Astris. But as comprehension dawned, so did disbelief. The logic was sound, the process familiar, yet something felt wrong. She was certain she had never created this.

The security protocols shouldn’t have had this interface—no animations or assets she had designed for this scenario. She was certain of it. If anything, this marks the first encounter with an alien element of the World she had made. A dry swallow caught in her throat as pain began to throb at her temples.

Her attention shifted as movement caught her eye. The gate was dissolving, fragmenting into hundreds of pieces that drifted upward like reverse rain. They embedded themselves into the arching ceiling, creating an array of verdant skylight-like apertures. In the darkness above, circular shapes hung suspended, their surfaces catching and reflecting the ambient green glow like polished metal. The gate's dissolution revealed a long corridor ahead, flanked by sleek pillars that emerged seamlessly from the alien architecture of the walls. Set into these walls at intervals were deep niches, each cavity suffused with a pale green radiance. Within them, Estelle could make out distant objects, too far away to identify clearly.

Estelle's breath caught in her throat as her gaze darted from one luminous detail to another. Along the borders of the path, lines of green light traced the walls like a living circuit, illuminating the way forward to a distant entryway. Through the gap, a familiar object caught her attention—a blue sphere hovering in space, rotating slowly on its axis. Her pulse quickened at the sight; she had used this asset countless times in her designs.

'The Nous Crux Pattern... it's really there.' Her heart hammered in her chest, its rhythm thundering in her ears. 'I need to see it up close—my creation, with my own eyes.'

A flicker in her peripheral vision pulled her attention back to the terminal pad. The holographic display had transformed, its detailed readout replaced by a single floating rhombus at its center. Estelle's brow furrowed in annoyance. She hadn't finished processing all the information at a satisfactory level.

Estelle's fingers darted across the display, swiping left and right as trails of white light traced her movements. Her mind raced back to the interface's reveal—about herself, her destination, the authority revalidation. The familiarity of it all stirred memories of countless proposals she had written for this very scenario: drafts and outlines exploring what might happen if an Architect remained in this world, sleeping in the Hall of Sanctuary's Sarcophagus, only to awaken in an age where mortals reigned and the Gods had retreated to their celestial realm.

Though most of these stories remained unfinished, mere hypothetical snippets buried in her archives, one particular scenario had been officially implemented. Her gaze drifted over her shoulder to the towering gate, now silent and still, its designation clear: [Admin-Sarcophagus hall-A001].

She had crafted every element of this space—the introduction of the Architects, the atmosphere, Sarcophagus, all of it—to serve this singular, official narrative. Estelle remembered how most Architects had departed through the Gate, returning to their homeland, while some chose to remain. They slept in their coffins, waiting through millennia for their kin to find them. Now, in an ironic twist of fate, she had become the awakened Architect of her own scenarios.