Simon’s home looked different. Everything seemed a little cleaner, a little more comfortable, softer. His old couch, bathing in the morning sun, was begging him to lie down on it and take a nap, and there was a smell of freshly baked bread in the air. The wall behind the ring suddenly had a hearth with a grate in it, with wooden blocks ready to be lit. It felt like a home, rather than a place to stay. Simon looked down at himself, and noticed he was wearing a comfortable green vest, with a green shirt underneath it and black trousers made of a soft cloth. As he inspected the rest of the house, he noticed everything had had a similar treatment. It radiated comfort. One major change was that when he went back to the ring, he noticed he knew how to use it. He had done so many times before after all. It was part of his home, and thus part of him. Or at least, that was how it felt. He grabbed the ring, and found he could twist it clockwise. Then, the ring was able to move. It was still suspended in the air, but it was mobile now. He moved it to the wall behind his couch, next to the doorframe, where it wouldn’t be in the way of the hearth anymore. Then he twisted it counterclockwise again, and it was locked in place.

He thought of something he wanted to try out. It felt as if he had done it before, but he could not recall actually doing it. He moved to one of the four chairs at his square kitchen table. With a touch and a thought, the chair turned into blue smoke that sank into the floor. “Hah, up in smoke,” Simon chuckled to himself at his bad pun. Then, he tried to bring it back, and the smoke reappeared and formed the same chair. He tried it again, but with a different chair design in mind, and to his surprise it worked. He tried creating an extra chair, but found it was more difficult, as if it placed a strain on him. He got rid of one of the chairs, and tried something complex, yet useful. A second later, blue smoke cleared over a gun, placed on the table. Simon picked it up, feeling the heavy steel in his palm, but quickly noticed it seemed to have no moving parts at all, more like a convincing prop.

It seemed that the ring held a reserve, converting items within his home to smoke and storing it as some form of power. Like a weird battery. However, drawing more energy from that battery than he had put in fatigued him. Not necessarily his mind, but rather his body as a whole, as if he had run up the stairs. It wasn’t by much, but noticeable nonetheless. Also, more intricate items that contained moving parts were not very functional.

He left his furniture-experiments be for now, and focused on what was necessary. The ring also powered the movement of the Skyhome, and needed power to do so. If he just converted the items he deemed unnecessary for now, he could perhaps make his home move towards the ground. He started out small. He converted silverware, garbage, clothes that didn’t fit anymore. He tried to convert some of his infinite supply of water, but it seemed it did not add anything. Rather, he felt it diminished the rings power some if he did not let it go down the drain or smoke it and kept it in a bucket.

When Simon had smoked everything he didn’t feel was useful, and felt that the rings power had definitely increased, he went outside. If I’m going to move the house, I need some sort of reference point to see if I am actually moving. Simon looked around, however there was nothing but blue sky and clouds beyond the wooden pickets of his fence. If he was going to move, he would need to move a pretty large distance to see any difference. And so he did. He directed the Skyhome to move downwards at walking speed, and promptly dropped to his knees, taking heaving breaths and feeling every muscle and bone in his body ache as if he had just run a marathon.

It seemed that moving the home was costly. Very costly. If moving at walking pace for even half a second completely drained the ring and him, then he had to smoke more objects than he currently had in order to get even halfway to the ground. Simon slowly got up, trudged back into his home, and dropped onto the couch, where he fell asleep immediately.

When Simon woke up, the sun had passed its zenith. He sacrificed a kitchen chair to the Ring God to restore some power and regain use of his utilities, then had a lunch of bacon and eggs on toast -so much for creative cooking- and went back to thinking on his predicament. Moving the house to the ground was not possible right now. Which maybe meant that the Whisper’s Featherweight skill was his best option of getting down after all. However, the ring felt like it had more uses than it had shown so far. He went to it, and while it was already locked in place, he rotated it 90 degrees counterclockwise once more. A thin, transparent blue film appeared in the ring, with symbols on it that seemed to show him a menu.

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Archon Mirror

Available items

ITEM

DESCRIPTION

Skybeacon

A single-use Charm that transports the user to the Skyhome

Impact Counter

A single-use Totem that returns any damaging impact to its wielder in the direction it came from

Allpower Gauge

Measures and quantifies the amount of Allpower in an object

Available functions

Currently no available functions

General skills

Currently no available general skills

Level: 1

Charge: 1%

Upgrade currently unavailable

Simon palmed his face. He should have checked this first. The combination of an Impact Counter and a Skybeacon were clearly what he required to make his way down and back up. If he hadn’t let himself get carried away by the possibility of floating his house to the ground, he wouldn’t be having this ache in his muscles. Well, live and learn.

The percentage drew his attention. So far he had only seen 0% with the Archons, but clearly he had done something here to increase the ring’s -or Mirror’s- power. The obvious answer was that he had some smoked chair left in the Mirror from his lunch. To test it out, he summoned a small stool next to him, and watched the counter tick down to zero again. He smoked the stool, and the percentage returned.

Then he tried to summon this Skybeacon from the Mirror, but he could feel a resistance that he felt indicated he lacked power. Lacked Allpower? Was that the name for whatever powered this Skyhome? Whatever it was, he needed more if he was going anywhere.

This time around on his way throughout his home, Simon smoked objects that may have some use, but were more of a luxury than anything. His kitchen table and chairs were smoked, some paintings in the hallway were smoked, a flower vase and its contents were smoked, and so on. When he returned to the Mirror, he was happy to see he had 8% to “spend”. He withdrew the Skybeacon for 3%, the Impact Counter for 2%, and had to smoke his nightstand to withdraw the Allpower Gauge for 4%, which left him with just 1% again.

Out of curiosity, he took the Gauge which looked like a meat thermometer and held the end against the Mirror. The needle of the dial went up by a small amount, indicating it currently held 5 SU. Whatever that meant, at least he now knew he needed to collect at least 495 SU more to fill up the Mirror and maybe gain more options, hopefully ones that included a way back to a semblance of normal life. He placed the Gauge against various household objects, and noticed that the bigger they were, the more SU they typically contained. He smoked the vacuum cleaner -everything was cleaner than ever anyways- and other cleaning items, and took out one more Skybeacon and another Impact Counter. He needed to test this after all. He was not going to gamble on dropping down and simply turning into mush because he used it incorrectly.

He went upstairs to his bedroom, and opened the window. The way down to his front yard wasn't long, certainly not fatal, but it would definitely count as an impact if one landed poorly. The Impact Counter looked like a pin with the image of a shield. He pinned it to his vest, and made ready to jump out of the window. He left the two Skybeacons, little green jade plates with the carving of a house in it, and the remaining Impact Counter on his bed.

Simon looked down at the grass beneath him, sat in the windowsill, and jumped, landing on both feet and touching the ground with the tips of his fingers for balance. When he got up, he noticed that nothing seemed off about the Impact Counter. It was not a damaging impact after all. Resolved to hurt himself this time, he made his way back up the stairs, into his room, walked to the window, and dove out head first. This was going to be a far more awkward landing, and when his outstretched arm hit the ground, Simon heard the sound of glass fracturing, and felt his momentum leave him through his arm into the ground. The rest of his body made a fairly soft impact with the ground, and he got up, unhurt. There was a very shallow dimple in the ground where his arm had made first contact with it. Other than that, the little shield on his jacket had a dent in it.

It was a very odd sensation to simply lose all momentum without injury or even a feeling of deceleration. He went back into the house, smoked what was left of the used Impact Counter, and returned to the Mirror. There was really only one course of action left to him now. No excuses. He was going to jump off the edge and see what lay beyond.