Chapter 13
ROOTS
PART 2
With a ground-quaking impact, Dante and the ‘door’ they’d carved out of the Obelisk’s hull slammed into midst of the scorched-down section of jungle, carving a deep trench as the hulking mass of solidified carbon came to rest in a field of metal scrap and scattered bits of foliage.
Behind them, the Obelisk had reached peak burn-rate, exhausting all its thermal energy upwards with a plume of exhaust designed to footprint like a typical volcanic eruption- Standard protocol the Cabal had implemented, albeit reluctantly, given the potential for scuttling in a first-contact situation.
Off to the left of the hard-to-ignore destruction of their old home, Dante could see where Mara’s ship had been beached, however most of it was obscured in a thick cloud of dust that stretched for at least half a kilometer further to the left. From a distance, it was hard to see what the source of all the disturbance was, but the sails of her ship were gone, so there was little reason to concern themselves with it.
From here, Dante was relatively safe from the immediate threat, but the ash produced would be an issue for the next few days, and everything within a good five to ten kilometers would be overrun with the stuff soon enough- All they had left to do was test if they were truly free to travel, or if the wooden boundary in the distance would still bar their path.
Stepping off their ‘stone plinth’, Dante spared once last glance to their former vessel, then set off inland, heading towards the mass of jungle they’d not needed to cleanse of their own mistakes.
Their pace was neither slow nor rushed, it would take a bit more than some ash to even begin to interfere with their movement, and with the improvements they’d made to their own chassis’ cortex, power was trivial, and if their research continued to yield results, long-term fuel concerns would be a thing of the past.
Striding with all the speed of a casual walk coupled with the gait of a three-meter tall mech, and finding a rather stark lack of interesting things to see in the nearby area, Dante saw the time as an opportunity to once again focus on their ever-growing fixation, more specifically, their latest project- Regnats.
A hybrid constructed of a concept suspended in mana and airborne nanites intended to serve as an intermediary between the manipulator and the manipulated mana- To both protect from potential backlash while enabling further study of the nebulous ‘force through time’ that might solve all the Cabal’s problems, beyond rudimentary energy concerns.
As the first bits of ash began to fall through the air around them, Dante focused on the particulate, each laced with a veritable payload of nanites converted from the raw energy and byproducts still being produced from the Obelisk’s disintegration- Courtesy of their last minute mana-work.
Now ‘in range’ once again, Dante wasted no time in re-establishing connection with now the literal cloud network, eager to find out how the first ‘test’ went, and within moments had received a return message from their initial handshake.
[[ Regnats Reconnected - One Pending Article ]]
Emotions were still new to them, but after so many false-starts, that singular message was the first real sign of success since they’d landed in Somniantes- Not only was Regnats still operational after using it to manipulate mana, it also appeared to have achieved its secondary goal.
Selecting the article, Dante wasn’t sure what they would find, they’d left the means to the mana to figure out, but the final report was handled by the nanite half- The hope being the combination could discern more than the sum of their parts, lending a lens to the indiscernible, and a pen to the indescribable. However, as the response packet began streaming in, Dante had to come to a stop as they read and re-read the ‘article’, the results far from anything they’d been expecting.
[[ Anomalous Event Detected - ‘Subtract Material’ ]]
|| Disturbance Origin: ‘Dante’
|| Intention: Void selective parts of an non-sentient construct
|| Investment: Erosion, Solids, Time
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|| Conflicts: None
|| Converted: 724 Grains
|| Exceptions: N/A
|| Response: Log & Defer
While it had left the analysis to the mana to compose, what Dante was reading was far from anything they’d intended- Multiple things in the ‘article’ eluded definition- From the term ‘grains’ to the presence of fields like ‘conflicts’ and ‘exceptions’.
By all metrics, what Regnats had produced was so far beyond astounding, it was actually suspicious. As if their efforts to interface with the exchange of mana had actually interfaced with something more.
Glancing around once more, just to check they weren’t being watched, Dante resumed their walk under the ever sprinkling distribution of nanite-laced ash, their mind awash with extrapolating potentials around the surprising output of their creation.
The report indicated a far more detailed understanding of the mechanisms at play than Mara’s simple definitions, but yielded little in the way of further instruction.
Reading it over again, it appeared that the basic concept of their surface intention had been recorded, along with their name and some composing concepts as attributes of the intended ‘disturbance’- A rather verbose breakdown for a relatively minor manipulation.
However, the most interesting, and potentially concerning, bit of Regnats’ report was the ‘grains’- A named metric for mana. Though, why it was called that, or why the term ‘converted’ was used instead of ‘cost’ was all rather curious.
It was one thing for Regnats to extrapolate information from its readings, it was a whole other to assemble a report full of assumptions, omissions, and novel terms- Tell tale signs they’d accidentally plugged into something far more tangible than ‘free floating mana’.
At a high-level, the cogs in play were relatively simple, Regnats was just to operate as an intermediary, and the nanites’ programing would never have produced a report like article Dante was still pouring over- Which meant one of two things, either their little ‘mana construct’ was far more adept than it had any right to be.
Gazing towards the jungle ahead, both halves of Dante’s mental cortex were abuzz with potential inroads to the conundrum, but none were an answer outright. Some part of them felt like they’d peered into a deep and hidden part of the world, too precious to tread further, but another wanted a more concrete answer- Something they could build upon.
With what little rationality they could apply to the situation, Dante turned their attention towards the composition for clues- Creating a construct out of temporal force was already fraught with unknowns, the whole concept was illogical in the first place, so perhaps there was room for a bit more.
“If mana is a force through time, not space, then it wouldn’t be out of bounds to consider that a construct built within it would be bound by different rules than that of spatial endeavors…”
The idea of it was preposterous of course, but the more they considered it, the more it made sense in a backwards kind-of way. What if mana constructs existed in a way beyond time? What if they were now interfacing with something more than just their own inputs, but rather a sum of all future inputs- A paradoxical headache, but one that offered some level of explanation.
Pondering the hypothesis while they strolled ever closer to the jungle, Dante wasn’t finding any holes with the logic, but the proposition of ‘creating’ a thing that has always existed was strange. The ramifications alone were inherently unpredictable, and the feature set of such a construct would be unfathomable.
Dante knew what they had designed, and the subsequent nanites that it puppeted, but if their theory was right, the mana-half had a whole host of potential functionalities that were impossible to discern until discovered- Or, more likely, created.
Their mental state in a mix of confusion, excitement, and stress, Dante wasn’t sure if they should be enthusiastic about the potential or terrified of the ramifications, but, for the moment, emotions would have to take a back seat- There were still other questions to answer, and seeking their resolution could easily lend light to the situation.
The most pressing, and potentially pursuable, question Dante had was about one particular thing- ‘Grains’. Where did that term come from? What did it represent? There was clearly a specific quantity involved, so what factors led to such a result?
Suddenly, a moment of inspiration hit Dante squarely in the center of their cortex as two tangent ideas came together like lightning in a bottle, and they completely stopped in their tracks.
What they really needed was to be able to query Regnats, dive further into its responses- Functionality it hadn’t initially intended, but might already be there…
Pulling up the data it had from its last mana manipulation, Dante looked over the analysis, stopping as their gaze hovered over the renegade metric.
Trusting their ‘gut’, Dante followed the same steps they would to manipulate mana, but targeted towards the unknown term, lacing their intent with an ambiguous desire to know more- And were rather surprised when a new data packet from Regnats suddenly appeared on the network.
[[ Granular Analysis of ‘Subtract Material’ ]]
|| Curiosity: 4
|| Intuition: 200
|| Emotion: 150
|| Validation: 140
|| Reflection: 60
|| Novelty: 170
|| Total Grains: 724
“Great. More terms- But… It appears these are types of ‘grains’? I thought it was a measurement of mana… Perhaps it still is?”
Once again feeling the need to glance about, as if someone were lurking over their shoulder, Dante found naught but scorched ruins, but opted to continue making their way to the jungle with a bit more haste than before- Once was a coincidence, twice was a pattern, even if it was just a rogue feeling.