Chapter 2: Time Incarnate
Hiro looked around at all the pedestals around her glowing softly. They invited her to look closer. The vast cavern around her had more stretching off into the distance. She could not see them all from where she stood. The moss where she awoke was soft underfoot. The ground throughout the cavern was mostly dirt and sand, but had some more patches of moss under gaps in the ceiling that let in light and darting birds.
"So Button, I just go up to these and decide to touch them or not?" she asked.
"Essentially Miss Skylark, yes. The ones you see are more common and core magical concepts. The ones you can't are rarer and are more difficult to find. Once you step into the cavern your spark will call to ones you can absorb. You will feel drawn to them."
"Wild dream behavior." She murmured to herself. She took a step down off the raised mossy surface on which she stood.
"Not a dream." said the chipper voice of Button helpfully.
"Yeah, whatever you say Button," she murmured as she kept walking off one of the petals that had opened from the orb she had woken up in. As she took her first step, she could feel the world around her shift. The sandy soil underfoot vibrated. She felt a pull and push on her being, like a magnet from her science classes. She felt drawn to various things around the cavern.
She approached the first one she felt drawn to, a relatively close one. The floor around the pedestal was ringed in symbols and runes. She noticed a lot of them held flame-like symbols. "Which one is this Button?"
"This one is the fundamental magical concept of fire Miss Skylark," Button informed her.
"Yeah, ok, that makes sense," she said before passing it by. She could always circle back but she wanted to explore first. One thing she liked to do in video games was map out the area before taking on quests, and she was curious about what else the cavern held.
She began to roam around. Button identified one of the pedestals pushing her away as Earth. "No fire and earth bending for me then, can't become the avatar," she whispered to herself.
"That is the earth essence, not avatar essence." Button told her.
"What does the avatar essence do?" She asked curiously.
"Generally it allows someone to project their magical footprint into an avatar that can do various things for them depending on the combination of other powers. It's an uncommon, but well-known essence in the Spark community." Button said.
She nodded and kept moving. She felt something pulling at her from deep within the cavern. She didn't know what it was yet, but she didn't want any other ones until she figured out what was pulling her so firmly. She wandered around as she moved toward the insistent tug from deeper in the cavern checking out other pedestals as she went. The air pedestal called to her as well as the wing.
"Most get powers of flight from those." Button told her when she asked.
She made a mental note but kept moving further away from the center and into the darker edges. She found a shadow essence that called to her but it was still not the one that pulled at her core.
"Button, is it common for one essence to pull harder than the others?"
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"It can happen Miss Skylark, some have a stronger affinity to a magical concept than others and can feel a strong draw, others feel like all pull equally." Hiro nodded and kept following the draw.
Eventually, she got to the edge of the cavern and started following the dim outer wall until she found a crevasse hidden from view unless you came at it just right. She slipped into it and followed the little tunnel until a glow lit at the end of it. As she came to the end of the narrow tunnel a small hollow opened up and a glowing orb hovered in the middle of the hollow. No pedestal or carvings indicated what it could be.
"Do you know what this one is?" She asked Button as she approached the orb cautiously.
"No Miss, no carvings means no data. Someone could've found it before, but it has not been since we started recording their places and building the pedestals..." Button's voice slowed and then stopped as she approached the orb. The sounds of the birds stopped their faint echoing from the narrow passage.
The world seemed to hold still as she reached toward the orb palm up. She held her breath and touched her palm to the bottom of the orb like she would pluck it from where it hung. The glow it emitted ramped up until it was shining like a beacon. She squinted trying to watch what happened. The orb began to absorb into her hand. As it did she felt as if her consciousness was pushed from her body. She watched as her hand moved away from the now missing orb, and her whole body moved backward down the tunnel.
She watched herself. Naked with her arms still crossed around her chest. She had average proportions and in the gloom, she looked paler than she was. Her dark red hair flowed down to her shoulders. her hazel eyes looked brown in the lack of light, the hint of green in them was all but gone. Her face was open and curious as she wandered down the dimly lit tunnel.
She maneuvered to look at the object behind her ear, feeling a bit weird as she did so. Like a video game from third-person view. The faceted object she had named Button was a crystal-like blue gemstone. Opaque with a central dot of light. It blinked when it spoke to her. Though outside of her body, she couldn't hear it.
When her body returned to outside the tunnel and before she spotted the opening in the rock it froze. Her point of view was still outside of her body when she felt rather than heard a new voice.
A deep rumble spoke, "Only tell those you trust of the essence you hold. Time is fickle but mortals are worse." she had no way of speaking so she remained quiet the voice grew commanding "Grow strong, and perhaps one day you will be able to help right a grievous wrong. Until then, I look forward to watching your adventures."
As the voice finished she was catapulted back into her body. Disoriented she stumbled.
"Miss Skylark, your heart rate is elevated, are you alright?"
"I'm not sure, hang on Button." She took a moment and ran through all her limbs patting herself to tell her sense of touch was working again. Being outside of her body had been disconcerting. Being rocketed back into it had been worse. After several moments and a handful of deep breaths, she felt better, however, a new sensation drew her attention.
An electric tingle was humming in her body. When she focused on it she could see the world around her as if a ghost image. If she concentrated she heard the sounds around her her slow. Only for a moment before speeding back up to normal.
"Button, did you feel that?" she asked curiously.
"I did get feedback of your heart rate elevated, but I only get feedback from your body. I can not see or feel as you do Miss Skylark. I can scan things directly around you, but my perception relies on you being near things," Button told her.
"Huh, so you don't feel the pulls I do?"
"No Miss Skylark. I have an odd blip in my recent memory bank, but that is not unusual in this area of high magic." Button told her, "Normally, those blips can happen when my host uses certain abilities, but if a magic surge flares in this area, it can also cause a momentary pause in memory. Higher power personal devices are not as susceptible to these blips, but are much more expensive to produce."
"Ok," she contemplated for a moment. She didn't know who had implanted her with this weird device even though it was indeed helpful now. She didn't like the idea they could watch through it or dig through its memories. Since it was still unknown, even the promise of great magical powers didn't make her want to disclose her first essence. That of Time. She would have to figure it out later.
She curiously walked to the opening she found before but she could no longer find it. She turned back to the rest of the massive cavern. What would work well with the concept of Time? This dream had become such a great game. She'd have to write it down and try and sell it when she woke up.