This forest was beyond eerie. Aside from the Alice in Wonderland sized foliage and fungi, the entire forest was glowing in a rainbow of colors. I thought that would make my hike along the trail more manageable, and it partially did. I could see everything I needed to keep to the path. But, the glow also played tricks on me, a movement where there was none, a section of shadow shaped like a man, and sudden shifts of color that made an entire area change from pleasant blue to hot red in an instant. It would have played havoc on my nerves if I had any.

I had been walking on this path for a good half an hour at that point; I had lost sight of my abductor's door almost immediately after stepping onto the track. Thankfully the trail didn't have any forks; it just wound itself through the mostly quiet forest. I could still see the green glow of the central pillar of the carven over the tops of the canopy of mushroom caps and vines. If that glow was anything to go by, the trail was making a beeline for the city. I hoped to find a place to hold up for a time well before that. Knowing my luck, my abductor could probably call the city and authorities there to search for me, and I most definitely didn't want to deal with that.

A vine snapped somewhere in the foliage to my right. I froze where I stood in the middle of the trail. The sounds of the forest had been muted and distant so far; rustling leaves in the upper canopy, crunching gravel in the distance, an odd chittering that was persistently just within earshot. Slowly, I stepped off the open path into the foliage to my left, away from the sound. As I stepped off the trail, a stone turned under my foot. I rolled onto my back and skidded down the slight incline away from the path. I managed to keep ahold of my pouch thankfully, but my book went sailing off to crash into the foliage. The sound of my ever so graceful tumble elicited a deep grunt from whatever was off the trail; violent sounds of snapping vines and thrown up gravel emanated from the other side of the trail. I hurriedly threw myself beneath the cap of one of the short blue, glowing mushrooms that dotted the sides of the path.

Not a moment after I hid beneath the mushroom cap, a massive furry thing smashed aside one of the thinner mushroom stalks and burst through the brush onto the side of the trail. A gorilla with coarse red fur and twin horns on the side of its head, stood menacing an unseen rival in the center of the path. It was a drooling mad-looking beast with twin tusks growing from its lower jaw and a myriad of scars and gouges decorating its face. Even hunched over onto its knuckles as it was, it was at least four times my height. I didn't move a single imaginary muscle. Go figure, but one thing a sorta-robotic body is good at is staying very still.

The ape beast grunted and jerked its head left and right, drool slobbering about with each movement. It was looking for something. It raised its head, evidently not finding anything amiss, and sniffed the air. Another benefit of my new body became apparent, no sweat or scents besides that of good wholesome stone. Lowering its posture, it cocked its head to the left and remained still. For nearly half a minute, all that was audible was the background sounds of the forest. That silence was broken when with a sudden surge of motion, the beast lifted and slammed its two meaty fists into the ground, leaving small craters where they impacted. I could feel the impacts of its fists from where I sat against the ground.

With nothing coming to investigate, the shoulders of the beast slumped back, and it shifted to a more relaxed posture. It huffed at nothing in particular and scraped at the gravelly ground, picking up a loose, broken chunk of stone from one of the small craters in front of it. It licked the stone shard, waited a moment, then tossed the stone into its mouth. It turned and lumbered back through the hole it had carved through vegetation, the faint sound of breaking rock following it.

I made a note to keep quiet from here on out. The trail seemed well worn, but obviously, this was a jungle filled with more peril than I had hoped for. I stayed prone to the ground under my blue fungal shroud for another 10 minutes. When I felt confident the ape monster was long gone, I carefully sat up. Standing was a pain with my oversized head, but I was getting the hang of navigating with that imbalance, it only took me a little over a minute to stand this time. I turned and began to make my way through a few smaller ferns off the side of the trail to try and locate my mystery book.

As I shited some of the ferns out of the way, I found my book opened onto the ground just passed the obstruction. I also found a thin and somewhat overgrown game trail that briefly ran parallel to the trail I had been following. It had been hidden by the thick line of plants and fungi that ran alongside the main pathway. I peeked through the foliage further down the trail, and it looked to turn and head off at an angle from the main trail.

This trail would be harder for my abductor to follow, at least. I began to make my way down the hidden game trail. Once it stopped running parallel with my original path, the game trail became more overgrown, and harder to travel on, but not so much that I found it impossible to traverse. As I progressed further from the main trail, the distant chittering grew in volume, and I could finally pick out its direction in front of me. I hiked this trail for another ten minutes before it once more curved at a sharp angle, at that point the chittering had grown loud and somewhat distracting. I approached and peeked around the corner of the foliage.

A small clearing opened in front of the trail. At its center was a large mound of the odd gravelly dirt, at the peak of which an enormous mushroom lacking the usual bioluminescence glow of its family here. Small rivulets of water dripped continuously from the top of the cap of the fungus and formed a ring-shaped moat of dirty water and mud around the hillock. Along the entirety of the mushroom's base, stalk, and cap were dozens of odd rodents.

The rodents were almost rat-like in appearance, except for pronounced hind legs, and dark ruddy green fur patterned with eye-catching lines of glowing neon green. From the noise of the clearing, it was apparent these creatures were the source of the chittering I had heard. As I silently observed them, I watched a few rats enter and reappear from various holes dug through the stalk of the mushroom, and around the base of the hillock. Other rats would periodically leap from atop the mushroom high above to the canopy of the rest of the forest or jump back again. The whole colony of rats gave off a sense of energy like an ant hive, with every one of the creatures contsantly moving or twitching with nervous energy.

Within my unbound vision I saw one of the small beasts approach from behind me, less than a foot away. I hadn't even heard the stealthy rat approach over the cacophonous chittering of its family. It approached slowly, and I stayed still not wanting to spook this isolated example of its kind. It came right up to the base of my foot and sniffed about inquisitively. Before I decided to move away and interrupt my statue impersonation, it tried to take a bite out of me. Snapping forward, it opened its jaw to briefly show long gnarled fangs before it clamped down onto the back of my ankle. I flinched back from the sudden attack but found it thankfully didn't hurt at all. All I could feel was a pressure on the back of my ankle where the points of its fangs failed to piece my stone form.

My flinch didn't go unnoticed, however. The vicious little vermin responded by repeatedly wrenching itself back and forth to try and tear my ankle out. It was partially successful because while it didn't do any actual damage, it did drag my foot backward and out from under me.

I flopped onto my face and fell past the foliage into the edge of the clearing. The sound of chittering abruptly ceased, and all I could hear was the trickling drops of water, and the growling and scraping of the rat still dragging at my ankle. Pushing myself up enough to see, I met dozens of pairs of eyes looking back at me attentively — the forest froze for a few long moments. I kicked backward and struck the assaulting rat, knocking it off my foot and away from me, before shuffling back out of the clearing on my hands and knees.

As I left the clearing, I gathered up my pouch and book from where they had fallen on the ground. The chittering returned from the clearing with a vengeance, and it was rapidly approaching. I had to swat away the original vermin that had caused this, and I crawled over to a nearby mushroom stalk. Half crawling half climbing, I used that support to stand up before the first rodent shook off its brief daze. By the time I was vertical again, the chittering had changed to a cacophony of angry hisses and skittering claws. The first green rat was back on its feet and was staring at me while adjusting its hind legs. I turned to run back the way I had come and had made it two steps before I saw the first green rat flying toward me to impact the back of my head. I rocked forward but managed to keep myself standing and moving forward despite the vile beast's continued efforts to assault the back of my head.

I continued to run on with my new passenger and was vaguely aware that I had left the game trail. But, between the continued shrieking and hissing behind me, the assault on my head and forward eyes, and my natural imbalance, it was a miracle I was able to keep running at all. But run on, I did, through obscuring ferns, tearing vines, and the occasional bump into a rock-solid mushroom stalk I ran. Distressingly, my flight into the unknown ended in a different type of flight. One minute I, my feet were crunching along the gravelly ground, and the next, they were supported by only open air.

I was flying, and the only creature that thought that was a worse idea than I did was my passenger rat. The angry scratching and clawing stopped as the rat began to call out in pitiful scared squeaks and latched onto the back of my head with a death grip. That choice ended poorly for it a second later as I impacted hard stone back first and felt multiple things crack and break. I remained stunned on the ground for a while, honestly surprised to still be alive. As I moved to inspect where I was, I felt pain for the first time — burning electrical agony shot through my left arm. At this point, I found I could not actively speak, as I would have been screaming if I could've.

With my boundless sight, I could see the damage. A hair-thin crack ran parallel with my upper arm for roughly a hand's length. Blue ethereal fog, or light, seeped from the break. Carefully, I moved to roll onto my side, cradling my left arm with my right hand. It appeared structurally sound, at least. As I rolled, I heard and felt a wet squelching, as the rat had been one of the things I heard break. It had landed a moment before my head, and the annoying vermin cushioned the impact that might have shatter mt head. What was left had more in common with roadkill than a living animal. Looking up to the top of the cliff, I could see two or three of the green rats still observing me.

I inspected little perch next, I had fallen partway down a cliff that seemed to rise many times my height further up, and it continued down even further. My perch was an outcropping that barely stuck out from the cliffside with an indentation to the cliffside that allowed for a minimal amount of room to move. My book had fallen to the interior of the indentation, but my pouch was nowhere to be seen. A portion of the outcropping was now dyed red with rat blood, and I could feel a slow dripping from the back of my head. The cliff my outcropping was attached to overlooked what I initially thought was a canyon of some sort. But as I looked up at the opposite wall, I found I was actually on the side of a chasm that separated the dirt-covered ground and the outer wall of the cavern that stretched upwards past where I could see.

Well, it looked like I had found teh secluded spot I had been looking for. Levity aside, I was more than a little screwed. I had a hard enough time walking without falling, let alone climbing, and as the constant pain from my left arm could attest it was more likely than not I wouldn't survive a fall to the bottom of the gorge. There was good news at least; the cliff's edge was blessedly vacant. The rat things seemed to no longer find their quarry as easily accessible. I sat back against the rear of my hole in the wall. The light seemed to shift to a shade of blue as I sat and thought about the oddities that had led me to be trapped here.

I needed answers, and at least I had completed step one of finding them. I had found a place to hide out. But, I think I needed to add a new step zero. Survive. This LSD inspired hell was dangerous. I thought back to my limited experience of wilderness survival, courtesy of a childhood spent in the venture crew. In order of importance, I needed shelter, water, fire, and food. The shelter was a go. Water, not sure I needed that. The fire was about the same; this whole place was pretty much the definition of room temperature. Although when I found a way back up, it may help ward off the nasties of the jungle. But food, that stuck with me. I didn't feel hungry, and I hadn't since I awoke. But, I also didn't feel not hungry either. Thinking back, that was one of the sensations that were absent since I awoke in the void. Weird.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

With a start, I sat up. It was possible I didn't need food. That was believable as I was reasonably sure I was a minuscule pinprick of light in the white room. But, every machine required a power source. I worriedly focused on the hairline fracture in my left arm and the luminescent fog that was leaking out. This was very, very bad.

Additionally, I realized that the blue glow of my alcove wasn't due to my glowing wound. Or, at least it wasn't due to that alone. The light from outside was gradually dimming. It was all but absent now that I was paying attention. I stood to investigate and wobbled on my feet like I was drunk. The darkness grew a shade grayer. I fell back onto my rear into my nook. As I watched, my vision became darker; it started at the edges and faded inwards. I unwillingly released my wounded arm, and my right hand flopped to my side as I slumped against the wall. Then there was darkness.

But I wasn't asleep or unconscious like I had feared. I could still see my whole body with my unbound sight, even the still leaking wound. My body was totally unresponsive, blind, deaf, and thankfully numb. The electrifying sensation of my injury faded along with the feeling of touch. Panic reared its ugly head but seemed to hit against a glass pane before it consumed me. It was there; I could feel that as it pressed on the edge of my mind. But it remained distant and isolated from my thoughts.

I needed answers, now more than ever. And thankfully, I had a way to find them. I let my focus fall away from my unresponsive body to the white room. As I focused in, I was surprised to find it was an actual physical place. My focus drew closer and closer to my head until it drew past the surface of my stone face and inward. It dove past intricate lines of silver and blue, and beautifully woven patterns that appeared intermittently throughout the net of cables. At a convergence of hundreds of those cables was a roughly carved stone of alabaster white. My focus pushed past its surface, and my blurred vision of my white room clicked into exacting clarity.

My tenants remained in the state I had left them. The big silvery ball of knotted wires remained restrained in a net of my making; I was still unsure how I did that. And, the two motes of light were still restrained in their respective nets as well, but I could still see their pulsing glow from between the threads. From my brief encounter with these overly boisterous entities, the silvery knot seemed to be the calmest. It also looked to be my direct link to the others, and the rest of the body. I decided to try my hand at this stuff again; I willed its net to loosen.

It was satifyinjg to see it react to my will as it began to slacken and float away from the knot's surface. In the same monotonous voice as before, the knot spoke, picking up part way through an unheard comment.

"-rve's critical: estimation: 14% and droppi|g. Immediate action required."

Along with the toneless voice, a grey text box appeared, showing a depleting progress bar.

"Ummm, hello. What do you mean critical? How did you make a text box appear?"

"Reserves critical: estimation: 12% and dropping. Immediate action required."

"Oh, yeah, ok. That sounds critical. What can I do to stop that?"

"Reserves critical: estimation: 10% and dropping. Immediate action required. Recommended course of action: Reactivate Condition: Mending Surface(IV) status inactive. Reactivate Condition: Core Generation(V) status inactive"

"Those sound great! Please do that."

"Reserves critical: estimation: 8% and dropping. Immediate action required. Attempting Reactivation: Condition: Mending Surface(IV), status inactive”

/ACCESS DENIED, PRIMARY OPERATOR REQUIRED,

“Attempting Reactivation: Condition: Core Generation(V) status inactive”

/ACCESS DENIED, PRIMARY OPERATOR REQUIRED

This was bad. The toneless voices last statement echoed around the white room. Even as we spoke, I could see the luster of the walls dimming to a gray hue. If the control knot thing couldn't activate repairs, I guessed that left me to do it. The only problem was I had no idea how even to begin doing that. The continually dropping progress bar brought itself to the center of my focus, and the knot called out.

“Reserves critical: estimation: 6% and dropping. Immediate action required. Recommended course of action: Reactivate Condition: Mending Surface(IV) status inactive. Reactivate Condition: Core Generation(V) status inactive"

"OKAY, I'll try dammit!"

I focused on the depleting bar. I willed it to expand, and it grew to show a text box strikingly similar to the one that had described me.

Designation

01010011 01110101 01110010 01110110 01100101 01111001 00100000 01010101 01101110 01101001 01110100 00100000 00110111 00110011 00110111 00110100

Existence

Artifact: Reliquary Golem(V)

Conditions

Artifact Condition: Stone Form(III)

Artifact Condition: Reliquary Golem Controller(IV)

Artifact Condition: Memory Corruption: 47%

Condition: Superficial Hemorrhage(II)

Attunements

Earth(V), Fire(II), Ether(II(Null+Bond(Thomas Aldrich))

Expressions

Controller: Yulithi(Spoken,Written)

Controller: English(Spoken(79%), Written(79%))

Acuity

4/10

Abilities

Mending Surface(IV)

Core Generation(V)

Scan(III)

Warp(I)

Titles

Null

Bonds

Bond(V-sub):Thomas Aldrich

Bond(II): Data Cluster 1(Incompatible)

Bond(II): Data Cluster 2(Incompatible)

"Reserves critical: estimation: 4% and dropping. Immediate action required."

The monotone voice was so loud it felt like it shook the gray room. I willed my status box open next to the golem's and focused on my Bond: Reliquary Golem Body(VI).

"Reserves critical: estimation: 2% and dropping. IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED."

The volume of the central knot's voice was deafening. I ignored it for now, and forced my status box to show the abilities listed in the Reliquary golem's main stats box. They appeared as grayed out options beneath the title. With a minor effort of will, they shifted from gray to clear crisp black.

"Reserves critical: estimation: 1% and rising. Estimated time to full capacity 8 hours, 23 minutes, 17 seconds. Originally 7 hours 10 minutes 1 second without diverting generation to Mending Surface(IV)."

My head hurt and still felt like it was shaking after the central knots deafening warning. I took a moment to gather myself and observed the nearly pitch-black room. The only light came from a faint silvery line connecting the central knot to the ceiling, and the red and brown glow of the two restrained motes of light. I didn't know what would have happened had that progress bar reached 0%, but I did not want to find myself stuck in a pitch-black room for the foreseeable future in a dead body. I gathered my wits about me and moved to rest in front of the large silvery knot before addressing it.

"Right, we are currently going to be okay. Right?"

"Correct"

"That a yes, then? Any other life threatening issues I need to know about?"

"Initial query response, Correct. Secondary query response, Negative."

This was going to take awhile. "Alright, first things first then. My name’s Tom, what is yours?"

"Designation: 01010011 01110101 01110010 01110110 01100101 01111001 00100000 01010101 01101110 01101001 01110100 00100000 001-"

"STOP. Ok, you're a computer thing, I get it. For now, I'm going to all you Silver, does that work?"

"Designation: S I L V E R, accepted as proxy."

Finally, we were getting somewhere, but I did have to work through one thing. After all, I hadn't grown overly panicked, depressed, or angry since I awoke, except for one particular instance.

"Well, Silver, we have an issue. I'm reasonably sure you tried to knock me out when I first got here. anything to say for yourself?"

"Attempt to access information of Data Cluster 3, designation TOM; Error occurred at 79% completion of task."

"You ass! What the hell does that mean? And who are those other two then?"

"Initial query response, bond creation with introduced data cluster synced to 79% before a critical error in the process forced an immediate cessation of process. Secondary query response, unit SILVER currently fully synced to two complete data clusters designated Data Cluster 1 and Data Cluser 2."

A cold pit formed in my stomach at that last statement. The room remained silent for a few minutes as I mulled over that tidbit of knowledge. By the time I decided on my course of action, the place had grown from near pitch darkness to a deep gray.

"Why did you sync with those two?"

Silver remained silent for a brief moment before several spots of silver pulsed through its piping and tubes.

"Current data corruption, 47%.”

A new progress bar popped up within the rest of the golem’s information text box.

“Critical functions missing or permanently corrupted. Sync'd data clusters provide full data transfer capability. A full scan of Data Cluster 1 and Data Cluster 2 completed. Total integratable data points recovered from both data clusters 3.57%."

"Were they OK afterward?"

"Enforced sync, complete scan, and data point recovery processes do not corrupt designated data sets."

"I'll take that as a yes then. Wait there for a second, will you?"

As I asked it to wait, I simultaneously willed the net to silence Silver before it could respond. While I had listened, I inspected the tether between Silver and the two motes of light or data clusters, I suppose, even though I was reasonably sure they were more than just clumps of 1s and 0s like Silver thought.

I started with the brown mote. I moved next to it and gently willed the net to loosen. It did so slowly. The glow from inside the silver netting remained muted, even as it became fully relaxed. The globule of liquid brown floated in the center of the net, and a single wire permanently connected the mote of light to Silver. I drifted closer and tried to coax it to speak like I knew it could.

"Are you alright? I'm not here to hurt you. I'm a friend. My nam-"

"FRIEND?!"

Before I could even finish introductions to the mote of light, it bellowed out in an almost goofy approximation of a voice. It grew into an extraordinarily bright and deep, earthy brown light, and almost seemed to wash over me like a wave.