Chapter 13

ROOTS

PART 1

Hours later, still sitting in their chair, Dante’s gaze remained affixed upon the binary light source that waltzed about at the center of this inverted world.

However confounding and physically impossible it was, it still wasn’t the object of Dante’s focus, it just happened to be in the center of their view, courtesy of the large window it had morphed out of the Obelisk’s hull- A trickery of atomic alignments, the material was still just as solid, but now it ferried photons through a lattice of specifically aligned electron channels.

All of this child’s play for the tools and understanding at Dante’s disposal- Even without the Obelisk, they’d fashioned their chassis with all the bells and whistles they might need, yet the quarry they now chased was a different kind of beast all together.

“What did she say?… ‘A temporal force of self’?…”

Manipulation was one thing, her explanation had been thorough enough to iterate upon, but measurement was another. The scans of her brainwaves had been helpful comparisons in refining the practice, but it still held no tangible relation to the movement of this temporal force.

Raising their right hand, Dante didn’t even need to mime Mara’s specific actions any more, a miniature table appearing in their palm with nary more than a flicker of a thought, a perfect recreation at scale, and quickly tossed over their shoulder into a pile of several hundred equally identical pieces in varying sizes.

“A ‘conceptual energy’- That was it. Understanding, intent, and projection. Three steps to manipulate and create, limited only by ‘imagination’- A process utilizing the ‘in between’ of the conscious and subconscious to envision a different perspective than what’s present, which, when understood, can be ‘curated’ to produce ideal results.”

Drawing up from their own energy, Dante’s palm lit up into a laser light show as they ‘printed’ another copy of the miniature table, this time by altering quarks to generate the needed quantum waves to produce the necessary atoms at all the right places.

In nearly the same amount of time, Dante had another identical copy of Mara’s table, indistinguishable from the pile behind them, yet this one required a substantial investment of energy, while the former appeared cost-free, but there was more to it than a simple exchange.

“Somniantes.”

Crushing the printed table in their palm, it was this complication that Dante had been stuck on since Mara had left- Mana, no, this entire world was alive, and manipulating it was an inherent tug of war between oneself and the continuity of a chaotic world, obscured in plain sight.

Without awareness of this, some way to measure one’s own continuity as this process takes place, it was a statistical inevitability one would lose eventually, and what then?

Extrapolating from what Mara had said, Dante knew the answer- Conceptual drowning, or ‘mech madness’- Though, now that they fully understood it, Dante had to agree. It was a rather reductive term for a far more rampant issue that could easily afflict any number of things, including organics.

Preventing such a fate was paramount, especially if they had any chance of utilizing such a resource for the Cabal- Even their current usage of this ‘conceptual energy’ was starting to become concerning, was there a limit or rate it couldn’t exceed? What was the threshold to this ‘madness’, the point at which ‘Somniantes’ begins to creep upon one’s sense of self?

Still staring into the distant sky, Dante felt like their cortex was on fire- Which, it frankly was quite hot, air steaming away from their metallic skull as it ground the same ruts into its plasma over and over again. What they really needed was some way to step between this process, to both measure it and protect them from the ill-effects, but with no more than concepts as suspects, they’d been stumped for hours on how to pursue them.

“What if- No… But could I create that? Like a secure connection… It’s all concepts, right? ‘Conceptual energy’- What’s to stop me from creating a concept for myself? A ‘feedback loop’ in the process perhaps?”

Dante paused, the fully formed idea waiting for just a wave of their hand to be thrust into the ether- Something felt off, like the idea was sound, but it was still missing something before it wanted to emerge from their mind.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Thinking it over, Dante couldn’t quite see the hangup themselves, but, while ‘feelings’ were rather new, they were rather hard to ignore, and something felt off.

“Oh! Of course. An independent ‘thing’ needs a name…”

However, as they thought about potential denominations, another issue became apparent. What it had in mind was a construct based in concepts, something that could observe and instruct in place of one’s self and mitigate any potential ramifications from doing so, while also measuring that very same ‘displacement’ by comparing the instructor to the substitute post-manipulation.

Yet, if it were to operate as designed, any methods of conveying that information back into tangible form would require additional manipulations, increasing the probability of ‘corruption’- What it needed was a way to bridge that gap, an action done in the tangible that could be reflected against in the conceptual. A middle-man to the middle-man, in tandem, functioning as a hybrid system capable of measuring and transposing the ‘price’.

For the first time since Mara’s departure, Dante took their gaze of the sun-singularity pair and took in the room around them, feeling another novel sensation overcome their cortex as an idea began to form.

The command room felt empty- Stagnant even. In a way that was more than just the stillness present in the air. It was as devoid of content as it was purpose, now it was only a husk that, if left to rot, would become a problem in and of itself- The sub-sentience at its helm was as just as vulnerable to the ways of this world as they were. Yet, it was between these two problems that a solution began to form.

“Considering the raw composition… There’s bound to be a considerable amount of waste in the process but…”

Standing up, Dante turned towards the large hemisphere in the center of the room, their old ‘receptacle’ at the helm of a ship designed to pierce the very walls of reality itself. Now a hollow shell- A resource to be utilized. The idea would be a two step process, done in parallel- One tangible, one not.

Drafting up the last command the Obelisk would ever execute, Dante set the ship to self-destruct- A process that would de-atomize the entire structure systematically until nothing remained. A protocol designed to erase any trace of the Cabal’s intrusion- However, Dante had no intentions of letting all that energy go to waste.

Holding up a palm towards the house-sized construct, Dante focused their intentions, and voiced the only words they had to- Having finally settled on a name for the madness it was about to attempt.

“Reflective Effigy Gauging Notable Anomalies Taxing Sentience- R.E.G.N.A.T.S. will be your name.”

With a crack that sounded louder than thunder, the peak of the obelisk erupted above Dante’s head- Unleashing a literal nuclear amount of energy as it began burning down the ship like a wax candle.

With all regards to self preservation, Dante knew they should move- Evacuate to shore at a minimum, but they were only halfway done, the naming was just the start of the process, they still needed to mold the ‘clay’.

Mentally grasping at the sudden abundance of energy and loose atoms exploding above their head, Dante set about sewing it into the growing construct of mana known as ‘Regnats’.

Knowing they didn’t have a lot of time for creativity, Dante pulled from a myriad of its own internal designs and translated it into something the mana could mime- With an interface to boot.

[[ Regnats Initialized - Link Established ]]

Dante’s facial ‘muscles’ shifted as a smile formed upon their face, the words of what used to be the Obelisk’s intelligence, now reforming in mana as the actual ship burned away.

Knowing the process would continue without further intervention, Dante shifted to the second task on their priority list- Escaping the home they’d set ablaze.

Glancing up, Dante checked the timer they’d started alongside the ignition, seven-point-three seconds had elapsed, and already the walls bordering the tip of the ship, along with some of the window had dissolved into a binding light and a tremendous amount of heat.

Anything short of the high-density carbon that composed the ship would have evaporated in milliseconds, but that just spoke to the crushing abundance of atoms the Cabal had compacted into their composite lattice.

Looking about, Dante saw two options- Head out the way it had prepared for Mara, or… Make a new way out.

Quickly making their way to a spot on the wall they judged to be about water-level, Dante placed a metal palm upon the carbon-composite and hesitated, glancing up once more.

With the Obelisk in ‘shutdown’, a fact reinforced by the blooming progression of thermal expansion happening above their head, Dante had to make their way through the material themselves- A task which, left to their old methods, would have taken too long, the heat already building to a temperature that threatened multiple safe thresholds across their chassis.

Thankfully, Dante had other methods at their disposal, and that meant a prime opportunity for a test-run of sorts.

Quickly envisioning the manipulations they wanted to impart, Dante stopped short of casting the mana themselves, already feeling the electric tendrils of 'Regnats’ probing around their plasma- Molding into shape until the mana began to take hold and a cutout of a door silently wore its way into the wall till air began racing past, escaping out the new-formed divisions.

Taking their palm away from the newly-made door, Dante leaned back, then planted a foot firmly against the surface and shoved, putting all the force they could muster into kicking the dislodged block of high-density carbon as far as they could.

Feeling the stone begin to shift off the ground and the weight leave their foot, Dante shifted and leapt after it, foot first, further kicking it out of the danger zone, now as a pair.