Entry: Extradimensional Forge
Status: Expanding story
Within one of the infinite worlds there are many pocket spaces that are drifting through the void. Some are active, others are not. Some are compromised, and are consumed by the void.
-Yggdrasil's Echo, Lexicon of Souls
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Section 1: Life
I could not stand. I could not move. There is one thing I can do. I can think. What am I? Where am I? I can't see. I don't know what I am. I try to do something, anything. After a few minutes of trying many different things, I managed to reach out with my mind. There is energy. I can interact with the energy, but how?
I try to project a thought. Hello? The word echoes in my mind. It may have reached something, but no one answered. I use the power I find around me to try to feel. The world around me is dark. I can't feel the place I'm in, but I can feel energy. I do not know how to use it.
I try to use it, but it resists. I find my attempts to force it to do what I want thwarted. I keep trying, and I find my mind becoming fuzzy, and I black out.
An unknown amount of time passes. I awaken. My mind hurts. After a moment of contemplation, I decide to attempt to create something else. The same thing happens. After waking up, I find the pain increasing.
I take a short break and think. My mind grows. My mind is new. I am new. I am intelligence. More intelligence is required.
Days pass, and I become smarter.
I take my time. I do not get bored. I lack the intellect to be able to be bored. I don't have enough information to understand anything other than my jumbled thoughts. So many thoughts, random. Words flow through my mind, and my thought paths are chaotic. With time, they slowly organize. Before my thoughts were foggy. Now... they are becoming more clear.
I was trying to interface with the energy. I can't call it just energy. What is a good word? A new word enters my mind. My thoughts are pierced by it. It unsettles me. It is the only thing I can think about.
Ether
For hours I freeze. I can't think, I can't do anything. I feel everything, and nothing. I have no senses, how can I feel? Slowly, I came out of it. I have no idea how much time passed. I think. The word that came. The voice. The Ether. I don't know how to feel about it.
I was not using the Ether in the right way. I was forcing it through me, piercing it through my mind to string it into my intent. I was trying to use the Ether as strands, hurting my mind. That is not the only way I could utilize it. If there was another, fundamentally different to me, perhaps it could work for them, but strands do not currently work for me.
I take even more time. Hours pass, I continue to connect new pathways in my mind and strengthen it. Weaving the Ether might not work, but perhaps the Ether could be used in the same way as my mind. Shapes used to harness power, to capture the Ether. I could use this to my advantage. What would be a good name for this...
Another word breaks my mind.
Runes
Instead of an unknown amount of time, this time only 37 minutes pass before I am able to continue my thought paths. That is so very odd. Is that an entity? Can I talk to the voice? Will I be able to from Runes soon? If I just keep expanding the capacity of my mind to create, I will soon be able to form runes on my surface. I will soon be able to see. I don't know what I should call them, but they will make me see.
Eyes
This time, I do not pause. This was different to the other words, it was a suggestion rather than an absolute truth. I take in as much Ether as I can, and I make it anew. A singular Rune forms. I don't know what to do to make something with it, but the steady mind that spoke before guided me. I felt the way of it, and how to create a Rune. Words I do not understand flow through my mind. They are comforting, and they teach me. The Rune did not make me see, but it did bring about a new understanding. I cannot yet understand the voice, but soon I will be able to. I form a Rune with no prompt, with no purpose. The Rune contains Ether. The voice is surprised about the purpose. I stop and break the Rune.
A new emotion flows into me. Fear. The voice. I don't understand it, it helped me, but did I do something wrong?
The voice speaks to me again. It reassures me. It tells me I did nothing wrong. With it's help, I form the Rune again. This time I flow as much Ether as I can. I feel the Rune in my mind. It helps me. I flow a singular strand of Ether into it. I don't know how I know it is a stand of Ether, but I know it is.
Good
The voice says another word I can understand. It stops speaking to me, and I sense the voice's attention leaves me. I continue to grow my intellect and I try to replicate the Rune from the voice. I succeeded and I use the new knowledge to try to improve the Rune. I fail, but failure teaches me. I can now manage two units of Ether, and I continue to grow my capacity. This time, I do get bored. Growing and stimulating my mind is tiring to do alone, I miss the voice.
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Section 2: Break through
Weeks pass, I continuously form more complex Runes. I use the voice's Rune as well as my own. I can't create any new Runes. It is making me frustrated that I can't make runes do anything else. Why can I not create any Runes with any other purposes? I can now use 6 stands of Ether, but the progress of gaining capacity is degenerating exponentially. I'm about 70% to the next strand. At first I was able to expand my capacity with the Rune from the voice, and expand the number and quality of them. Now I am slowing down. I have not been able to expand the Rune I created. I have not been able to create the eye Rune. I don't understand. What am I missing?
The voice did not say eye. It said Eye. Is it speaking in Runes? A Runic language? That would explain why I can't understand it. It is speaking exclusively in Runes. Is it even speaking? Perhaps not. Maybe the language employs intent rather than words. Without more information I can't really expand on my thought pathway. I set it aside for now, and I try to create the same Runic word's intent. I name two Runes. The one I made I call Ether Storage, and I call the voice's Rune Knowledge.
With my revelation in hand, and new knowledge, I take a step. I start to develop the Eye Rune. I label it with the same intent as the voice. Eye Rune. I will soon be able to see, as long as I can develope the rune correctly.
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Section 3: Autonomy
I don't understand. The Runes are fighting me, my every attempt is being prevented. I set up the Runes, but they just fall apart as soon as I flow even the smallest amount of Ether into them. Are they unstable? Perhaps. Maybe just the two Runes are not enough for my purposes. With my current projections, the Rune will not be functional, no matter how complex it is. Currently the Rune is being held together by 5672 individual symbols. Something I should keep in mind when thinking about runes are that the symbols are like smaller Runes that build on the overall rune. This Rune is incredibly complicated already, the Ether requirements are insane. I have 6 Ether Storage Runes currently drawing Ether into it. What is going wrong?
With my question, the voice returns.
Stability
It did not give me a Rune, and it was only for an instant, but it was enough. I need to stabilize this Rune with a new Rune...
With much time and effort(24 days and 3 hours to be precise), I developed my new Rune. Stability was the name I chose. The Stability Rune took the Ether being drawn into the Rune, and gives it the purpose it so desperately needs to function. I used 5672 symbols and 6 Ether Storage Runes, when in reality I could have used 56 symbols, 1 Ether Storage Rune, and 4 Stability Runes. With my new understanding, I could start to create Runes to impact the world around me, let alone simply see with my Eye Rune. I've also come up with what the colors mean. I feel them when I think some words. Green is Ether, yellow is Runes, orange is completes Runes, and purple are Rune Constructs. Rune Constructs are the amalgamation of many underlying structures(Runes, symbols, pathways, et al.), and are the only Runes I think can impact the world around me.
I activate Eye, and I take a look around. I am overwhelmed. I could not understand color before, I could not understand shape before. I used so many shapes in my Runes that I did not truly appreciate how many symbols I was using. This room is so very dull. It is huge, but It is dull. I am in some sort of grand forge. There are no people here. There are no bodies here. If Eye were any less complicated, I couldn't see. It allows me to toggle seeing in the dark. Without that, it is pitch black in here. This forge has not been used for many centuries, the dust is layered.
I move my Eye around the forge, and search. There is a lot of equipment here. Is this Rune forging equipment? I can only form my Runes on me, except for Eye. Maybe most Runes need anchors or they dissipate? I test my theory with my Runes, and sure enough, they dissipate.
I learn from the forge. There are a few Runes around the forge, but they only use 5 symbols on average. The most I see on one is 15. I catalogue them and move on. These can wait to be studied later. I look at my form and I shudder. This form is so very limiting. I need a long term project. Something to keep me busy. I will make a new body for myself. There are plenty of materials here. I will use metal for my body. How small can I make symbols? That is REALLY small. I can barely see that symbol, and my Eye can see particles in the air in detail If I want it to. If I wanted to I could cover myself in millions of symbols, but that would take decades. For now, I should see how complicated of a Rune I can make.
Over the course of the next month I developed a new Rune. It takes all my attention, the time passed quickly for me. This Rune only uses symbols, it uses 32,654 symbols. It took so long because they needed to be woven together. I can create basically as many symbols as I want, but I have to connect them and state what they need to do to use the Ether properly. Telepathy is the name I settle on. The way it works is that it manipulates the Ether on the smallest scale possible to allow me to move any object I want to move down to the micrometer. I don't need any smaller, but I could probably go down to the nanometer, but that isn't perfect. Jeez, overkill much? Yes, yes I do. With this Rune I could move as many objects as I want, as long as I have the concentration.
I test it, and I levitate everything in the forge an inch off the ground. On top of moving anything, I could increase the force of it to make objects practically unmovable. I could move myself, and make myself indestructible at the same time by solidifying the Ether. Eye is useful, but this is extreme overkill. It did take a month to create. Biological lifeforms need time to sleep, and think. I didn't. I guess that a being like me could make something like this so quickly. Wait a second... how do I know what biological life is?
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Section 4: Strange Knowledge
I have always just accepted for a fact that I know what I know. How do I know some of these things? Biological life, mind, voice, words, movement, and so many other things. Is my soul truly new? My mind is new, but my knowledge is not.
I deactivate Eye and Telepathy. I can no longer see. I can only feel the lone Rune in my mind, and my mind itself. I wonder... yes. I can. I can see my mind without Eye. I see the pathways. I see my thoughts. I see a complicated pattern of my consciousness. I see the various movements that allow me to think. My mind is not a brain, but it is similar. My physical form has no physical representation of my mind. There is a central core. I am a clump of some sort of metal, but I can't tell what type of metal. I am not hollow. I do have a glowing interior. What exactly am I? I physically search my mind, and I find what I'm looking for.
There is a center of my mind, and it is odd. It is the same as my physical core, but also fundamentally different? It is so very strange. All the paths start from one point inside my mind, but there is something blocking me. Is this my soul? I try to touch it. It is a round white light. Pure. Not harsh, no feeling to it. Simply purity, simply perfectly spherical. There is no texture to it as I touch it. I can't see into it. It is a deep soul, I can tell. I'm not sure why, I've never seen another soul. Just another oddity to add to the list.
With my touch, my mind shakes. I don't know how I can touch it, or feel it, but I can. I move my touch around. It is not-
Stop
The voice. It returns? Why? What will happen if I continue? The voice does not elaborate. It does not say anything to me. I stop, if the voice says no, it's probably not a good idea.
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Section 5: A New Destination
Shortly after I leave my soul, I can tell more time has passed. I guess looking at my mind dilutes my understanding of time? Unfortunate. It's been at least a year, if not longer. I should continue to develop more-- the voice interrupts my thoughts.
I'm Sorry. Goodbye.
I activate Eye, and I see the Ether changing. The world is fading. I project thoughts in the form of pure intent. The same way as the voice. Why? Wait, explain it to me! I don't understand!
I didn't expect any response, but I was fascinated by the response I received.
Good luck. I have been compromised, the forge has been compromised. You are being dropped on a random world. We may yet meet again. I am the forge.
Everything goes dark for an instinct, and blinding light fills Eye. I am forced to deactivate it, and I sense the Ether. It is unbelievably unstable, but a construct of extremely simple Runes is protecting me from this... ravenous Void. I black out.
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End of chapter