CHAPTER 4: THIS IS NOT A DREAM

Her breath came in short and fast. She was close to hyperventilating. She was bathed in the realization that this was real. She had a non-consensual personal guidance AI in her head, the ability to gain magical superpowers, and this wasn't a dream. Hiro was suddenly very panicky. She got up and paced back over to the light, breath now shaky as well as fast. The warmth and wonder she had felt the first time she stepped into the light when she absorbed the Light essence was covered by her panic. However, she still found it comforting as she paced around the pedestal that once held the Light orb she absorbed.

Hiro started talking to herself out loud to sort out her thoughts as she paced. Occasionally turning around as she walked.

"Start with what I know." She told herself, "This isn't a dream, you can't feel pain in dreams." She looked down at her knees, they were red from her fall but not scuffed or bleeding. "I have powers. I can control light and..." She paused not wanting to say "and time" out loud, "I can shoot light arrows." She finished lamely. It was suddenly very real that she shouldn't be giving out her secrets to strange beings that installed a gem behind her ear and left her in a massive orb inside a cavern naked.

"Somebody had to have taken my clothes off. What's that about? Creeps." She stopped and concentrated. This time she wanted comfortable clothes. When she was anxious or afraid she would get into her coziest clothes, so she summoned emotional armor. Sweatpants, fuzzy slippers, and a hoodie. The soft light enveloped her and the warmth of the light clothes made her feel better. She shifted their colors to match her plaid pants and favorite sweatshirt with three yellow triangles forming a larger triangle on it. She paused for a moment to realize she could do patterns when she summoned her armor. "Well, that's cool." She murmured.

She sat down beneath the plinth that used to hold the Light orb and crossed her legs. She could still feel the magnet-like pull in all directions. Various other orbs of magical essence called to her spark, or whatever Button had called it. She pulled her knees up and rested her head on them wrapping her arms around them. She made the space she could focus on small and the glimmer of her red plaid sweatpants was odd but also comforting. "I've increased the rarity of my pants," she told her knees thinking of the holographic cards in some of her friend's collections.

She sat with her face on her knees and concentrated on her breathing and the pressure of her arms around her. She thought about her family and what they thought of her disappearance. She didn't talk to them every day, but eventually, they would notice she wasn't there. Did they think she was missing or dead? She knew for a fact they didn't think she was in a cave gaining magical powers. She barely believed that even though she was there in glimmering plaid pants.

She snorted, "I'm Miss Fancy Pants," she smiled and raised her head wondering how long she had sat there processing. Suddenly she knew it had been eight minutes and twenty-five seconds. The slight smile she had gained at her bad joke fell away as her eyebrows drew together. Could the time essence give her the power to know how much time passed? She thought how long has it been since she gained the time essence? The information bloomed in her mind. It had been two hours and fifteen minutes. She could feel the milliseconds ticking down inside her as well. She was a human watch. She also knew suddenly that time in this cavern passed differently than on Earth. Inside, time followed the rules, but there was some sort of membrane she could feel as she focused that told her time moved differently outside of this place. How odd. She stored the idea of a time membrane away for later. Something to think about it distracted her from her predicament at least.

She thought about the implications of that for a while without saying anything out loud. She was going to keep that very tight to the chest. But without knowing what time it was supposed to be she didn't have any measure of what time it was. She would have to leave to figure that out she supposed. Something to look forward to when she reamed out whoever put her here.

As she stewed in the anger in that thought she clenched a fist and suddenly she was holding the sword she had first summoned when she got her Light power. She had no clue how to use a sword other than to stab whoever with the pointy end. Hiro made a quick plan. Get more powerful so nobody can pull a fast one on her again.

Feeling a bit better with a weapon in her hand, she spoke, "Button I'm ready to talk again. Are there any of these orbs out there that will allow me to get better with the weapons I can summon?"

"Absolutely Miss Skylark" the gem replied, vibrating her skull to speak. "Almost all weapons have a magical essence down here of some variety. They tend to be weaker the more specialized you get but can give you a huge leg up on your training. You have already picked up a very powerful essence of light, so it might be worth balancing your pick with something not as impactful. Beyond the sword, bow, knife, and gun, there are also the prowess, balance, battle, war, combat, and other general concepts that might not directly raise your abilities with your weapons, but often allow you to pick up the strategies and tactics behind combat."

She nodded along with what Button said, all of that made sense. She felt full of light after having sat in the light for quite a while now. Since she first picked up the power it had been about an hour. It was time to move. She wanted to have the skills to combat whatever was in her future. She levered herself up and dusted her light-made clothes off a bit unnecessarily. Nothing stuck to them. She stuck her hands in the pocket of her hoodie and looked around. If the people who put her here wanted her to get powers. She'd oblige and then use them to escape.

"I guess it's time to find the next essence then Button," she told the construct. "I'm going to look for one of the generic combat prowess concepts you mentioned."

"Many of those are grouped around the spiky areas. We have attempted to smooth them, but they grow back. If you look around you should be able to see an area more jagged than the rest of the cavern." Button said.

She looked around and near one of the distant skylight openings there was indeed a jagged and broken area of rocks. Time to make a jump on purpose this time. She concentrated on trying to figure out what she had done before. Suddenly time slowed for her as her desire to understand the process allowed her to follow what happened when she teleported.

Her body flashed bright white with rainbows on the edges. Her consciousness moved outside her body once again. The concept of Time allowed her to observe the moment as well as slow it. She saw her body stretch out in a concentrated beam. Bright white at the front of the beam to slightly plaid at the end from her summoned pants. Rainbows of light shimmering from the main bulk lighting up the cavern. The beam of light raced over to the spot she had picked milliseconds before. Fast even in the slowed-down version. The whole beam hit the spot and formed into a glowing holographic version of her body. At this point, her mind was pulled back to herself.

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She gasped as her out-of-body vision switched back to her physical vision. Her stomach roiled, but this time she was able to tamp down the feeling. Her body didn't like teleporting. It was amazing to see what had happened. She flew like a beam of light. She checked her clock, the whole ability took less than a second to accomplish. The longest part was turning into the beam and then returning to herself. The travel took no time at all. However, she felt depleted. Most of the power she had gained from sitting in the light was depleted. She felt that the longer jump had used up most of the light energy, but she had enough to maintain her emotional and comfortable armor for a couple of hours if she didn't teleport randomly and take any hits it had to absorb.

Deciding to stand in the light she had teleported to for a second, Hiro took in the jagged area of rocks around her. The ground underfoot held broken pieces of rock and shale that were sharp and uneven underfoot. Her experience of the rest of the cavern had been smooth and sandy or covered in moss or ferns. This place was unhospitable. It felt like it wanted to fight her. Still, she felt some orbs pulling at her. Most pushed her away though. She wasn't very aggressive, and one of the orbs nearby was radiating that concept to her.

She had never been particularly violent in life. She had kicked a boy in between the legs once for insulting her friend when she was young but otherwise had avoided most conflict. This area felt like it knew that. However, there were at least two she could feel within the spikes that called to her. She thought for a moment and changed her footwear from comfortable slippers to nicely laced-up boots. Both of them shielded her feet from the sharp rock, but she didn't want to slip around in the slippers. Hiro wanted steady footing.

She stepped out of the welcoming light, she instantly wanted to go back but walked resolutely forward to see what was beckoning her in the dark. She found the first pedestal. The orb looked like it had ridge-like swirls inside it, almost like rifling or fluting. "Button what's this one?" She asked.

"This is the essence of projectiles. Many who fight with projectiles like this essence as it helps with aiming and accuracy as well as distance. It even can give your sight a boost."

"It's an aimbot. Makes sense." She walked towards the next one, not against having an aiming assist, but also curious about what the next one was. She approached the pedestal. Red, yellow, green, and blue dots formed a matrix inside this one. Glowing softly with a grey light. "What about this one?"

"This one is the essence of accuracy. It can be used to help land hits for all weapons types."

She took a moment to debate the two. An Aim bot would be useful, but what if she had to use a sword or something? A way to be more accurate with more weapons would probably be more useful. Hiro reached out to pluck the accuracy essence from where it hung. It glowed like the first two, but not as bright as the light essence had. She was easily able to watch it as it got brighter. and then sank into the palm of her hand. She wondered absently if she could look at the sun without squinting now that light was a part of her. She would try it with a lamp first when she got out.

Nothing spectacular happened like the first two essences. A few flashes at the edge of her vision flared and went away and that was it. No light show of summoned weapons, no reversal of time. She felt the magic settle inside her but she did not know what it did. She supposed she needed to pick a target and try and shoot it or something. She conjured a bow and set her fingers to the string before casting around for something to shoot. Her eyes landed on a jagged spike coming out of the wall. She concentrated on it and pulled back the bow summoning an arrow straight to the string. As she did she saw a point on the rock glow red and several glowed yellow. Curious she aimed at the red spot and let her arrow fly.

The arrow flew true and stuck the mark with more accuracy than she had ever achieved on the high school team. It was at least twenty meters away, how had she hit such a small mark? The arrow had stuck in the spike, lighting up the surroundings. A sharp noise rent the air a large crack formed from the point where the arrow tip was embedded. The arrow fell out as the crack widened. The arrow of light hit the ground and sharp shadows appeared throwing jagged reliefs around the room. Then the tip of the spike she had struck finished cracking and fell. It hit the cavern floor with a large boom, cutting off the light and plunging the area back into darkness.

"Did I just critical hit against a rock?" She said in wonder.

She began to look around the rest of the area. She noticed that many of the rocks around her had a red point or two on them but many had yellow and some even green. Only a few things like the pedestals had nothing she could see on them and instead glowed with a hint of blue when she looked at them. She would have to experiment with this. She moved back to the smaller pool of light near the jagged rocks and spent some time playing around. Hitting various pieces of stones with arrows and daggers. She laughed as she was able to hit everything she aimed for. She might not know if she was holding the sword correctly, but at least she could hit what she was aiming for.

Hiro wondered what she could do with her time control while aiming. She took a moment to try slowing down time while she shot some arrows. It was fascinating. They left the bow at regular speed but as soon as they got about a foot away from any part of her body they slowed to a stop. She was able to shoot three arrows before time spread back up. She had aimed at a rock with a handful of yellow points. As the arrows all hit almost at the exact same time. A crack formed between all three with another sharp snapping noise. The top of it slid with gravity off the main body and the arrows disappeared.

"Yes, this will do nicely." She said.

"I am glad you are happy with the essences of magical concepts you have absorbed so far," Button told her. "Since the change has not happened, that means you can absorb more. As three is usually the smallest amount. So I would expect at least one more."

"Excuse me, what change?" Hiro asked suddenly concerned.

"When your body has absorbed as much magic as it can safely do from this place, it will change you into a more magical being. It will infuse your whole body with magic and allow your powers to fully mesh and allow you to use your abilities to the fullest. It will also allow you to store more energy from powers like your light essence. A bigger battery if you will."

"My body is going to change?" she said incredulously.

"Yes, to become more magical."

"You didn't think this was relevant before I started absorbing magical orbs of nonsense?"

"Most people know this is the outcome before they come in here. It was not in my programming to make sure to mention it."

She sat there and fumed. Whoever put her down here had some explaining to do when she got out. "Just assume I know nothing in the future ok Button? Because I don't," she told him in a rigid tone.

"Yes Miss Skylark.." it told her. "It's the main reason you were sent without clothes." He said cheerfully.

"Yeah, I'd like to know who took them off without my consent. I was asleep in my apartment last I checked. Now I'm in this insane place and don't get me wrong, this magic feels and is amazing but a little more information before being dumped down here would've been appreciated." She let out her frustration in a stream of words.

"I was not in charge of your retrieval or placement Miss Skylark. The access to anything other than your basic file is currently sealed from me, so I cannot help you with who put you down here."

"Wonderful." She murmured under her breath. She had spent quite a bit of time near the aggressive orb and it was starting to creep her out. She looked back to the empty Light Pedestal to try and teleport, but her body quickly told her she didn't have enough juice. So she began to walk. Maybe it would help clear her head.