CHAPTER 1: SHE HAS THE SPARK
The call of strange birds echoed oddly around her. Her brow furrowed at the noise. Not only had she never heard birds that sounded like that, but last she checked, her bedroom also didn't echo. There was some fluff under her body. That definitely wasn't her sheets. She opened her eyes and squinted as her eyes adjusted to the bright light around her. Once adjusted, she froze to take in her new surroundings.
Rocky walls surrounded her in a nearly perfect circle. She was raised on a mossy surface with a small tunnel hewn above her that let in weak but warm light. She levered herself up cautiously and looked around. There seemed to be no exit to the room.
"Did I fall in through the tunnel above me?" she thought. Seemed unlikely considering she was naked but unhurt. She wrapped her arms around her chest trying to cover up. Moss was getting in places she didn't appreciate, but she had no clue what to do.
As she continued to take stock of her surroundings, the rough cave walls and cool air were warmed by the light above her. Without a way to escape, she began to question if she was even awake.
"This is a weird dream." She said out loud her words echoing like the bird calls echoing down the tunnel above her head.
"This is not a dream!" a chipper voice told her. It hadn't echoed as her voice had. She jumped and looked around, it sounded like it had come directly behind her and into her ears. "You are in the heart of magic!"
She scrambled away from the voice and off the elevated platform she had woken up on.
"What the, where are you?" She asked looking around the still-empty room.
"I am your personal guidance device!" The voice said directly into her ear again. "The physical interface is directly behind your right ear."
She reached up behind her right ear. The voice was coming from a faceted object attached to the bone behind her ear. "When did that get there?" she murmured to herself.
"I was attached when your Spark emerged and you were picked up for essence gain and training." the voice still as cheerful as ever told her.
"Spark? Training? Now I know this is a dream. A button on my head is talking nonsense." She shook her head and walked around the room. the slightly sandy soil under her feet certainly felt real, but all this nonsense about sparks and training was insane. She must've eaten something off in the Chinese food last night that she ordered. Something was going on and she dearly wanted to wake up.
"I am not a button, I'm a PGD here to guide you to unlock the potential in your spark! When you are ready to begin let me know!" The voice said. It felt like it was vibrating in her skull rather than speaking out loud like an earbud. She felt the sounds rather than hearing it and it was an uncomfortable feeling.
One arm was still across her chest, the other rubbed the faceted thing behind her ear while she thought. Well if it was a weird dream she could either try and wake up or ride it out. She had been able to lucid dream a few times throughout her life and they were always interesting. Might as well ride it out until she woke up. They made for good stories to her friends.
"Alright Button, what is this spark you're talking about?" she asked whatever the thing attached to her head was.
"Still not a button! You can't press me or attach cloth to me." The button vibrated into her skull, "The spark is a unique characteristic some mortal beings inherit or develop that allows them to bind with magical concepts of the worlds around them and gain powers from those bonds. According to the records given to me, you are a being who naturally developed the spark as far as the genealogists can tell when looking into your publically available records."
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"That's not ominous." She murmured.
"Correct! That is standard practice!" chirped the voice.
"That was sarcasm Button," she told it,
"Still not a button. I am a..."
"I got it!" she told it over its explanation, "Do you have a name?"
"I am a Personal Guidance Device or a PGD."
"Ok, that's a generic term, I'm naming you Button if you're alright with that."
A long silence, "You are giving me a name?"
"Yes. Button, so I have something to call you that isn't a mouthful."
Another silence, "I have updated my program to be named Button. It is unusual for the PGDs to be given names, I accept the new name and will stop saying that I am not a button."
"Great start then, my name is Hiro. Hiro Fifer Skylark. My pronouns are she/her but I'm not mad about they/them if people use them for me. Do you have any pronouns?" she took the hand that had been rubbing the faceted thing behind her ear and began to run her hand on the walls around her that gently sloped like she was inside of a ball. Her other arm was still firmly over her chest. Being in the nude for a dream was weird, but it happened.
"I do not have a gender being a programmed artificial intelligence, therefore, I am usually referred to as an 'it'. Any pronouns you would use in your language would therefore be acceptable."
"Excellent alright Button, how do I get clothes?" she asked her companion. If she was going to have a guided dream, might as well take advantage of the guidance.
"After you have bonded with what elements speak to your spark and have undergone the absorption, the training system will provide you with adequate attire. Until then, the absorption process can be messy so to preserve resources it doesn't provide any until after"
"Why are you telling me this instead of some NPC Button?"
"This is not a video game, so there are no NPCs. I am telling you this as your personal guidance device. The training system has found that the less interference in choosing your bonds, the stronger the connection you will have to them. Are you ready to find your bond or bonds?" Button asked.
Hiro thought for a moment and then shrugged. If it was a dream sequence, she might as well enjoy it and get some magical powers. "Sure Button, lets go."
"Alright Miss Skylark, let me initiate the sequence."
A blue glow flashed from behind her. She turned only to realize it must be coming from Button as it flashed off the walls. A large crack echoed through the chamber. She momentarily forgot her immodesty as she pressed her hands over her ears. Seams appeared in the circular chamber around her as triangular sections appeared. The seams turned into gaps as the room opened like a chocolate orange into sections.
The room she was in opened up around her. She retreated into the moss-covered section of the center until she stood in the center of the opening flower-like chamber. Once they had stopped moving she stood in the middle of the rock flower's center.
The geode she had been encased in opened up into an enormous cavern. Natural openings in the ceiling lit the area with beams of sunlight onto the moss and sparsely flowered areas. Birds chirped and dove in and out of the cavern and went on about their business. Pedestals littered the cavern with softly glowing orbs of various hues floating above them. The ground around each one had some strange carvings she'd have to get closer to decipher.
The chipper voice of Button cut across the chorus of birdsong. "Around the cavern, you will find different pedestals with orbs that engender the various magical concepts of the world. Some are obvious and some are hidden. You will feel drawn to some and repelled by others. There's no set amount that mortals with sparks can absorb. It's usually between three and five and depends on your fortitude to withstand the magic. The record is ten though that has only been recorded once. Some concepts are gentler and some are more powerful. There is a theory that you can absorb more of the gentle concepts and less of the more powerful ones, but it is just a theory. Some folks have gone with it and others against it."
She looked across the cavern, unable to see the whole of it. Stalagmites and stalactites blocked her view of the whole place. "So I just go around feeling out which ones are for me?"
"Essentially Miss Skylark, yes. You can take as long as you want to choose which ones to approach and absorb. I can help you decipher most of them, but if you find any hidden ones not in the archive, you have to figure out what those are yourself.