-oh god now what…- cranking her neck Nidia follows the voice, it has a weird thing to it, the inflection off, like so many of the foreigners she heard as a child in her grandfather office, a life ago, but not quite, her blurry vision just found the light source, some kind of lamp, big and round its light giving a radiance that cast the whole place- a room? Something bigger? - in a stark shadowless place, whoever talked was behind that light, but her vision was off for the worse what with the ether burn, the hunger and her short sight, so the light was everything that she could see.- Yes, sir- it pays to be polite- where are we, if I can ask?- she was awake and unhurt, so that ruled out bandits and deserters, but shall this turn out some kind of lusolite outpost she will have to make due and find any means necessary to bury the bastards, even if that mean going down with them…

The voice came again, after a little while - That Is Irrelevant – again a stilted silence – You Were The One That Perturbed The Ambient Ether. Correct?- the heavy tones lacked inflection, it was not an accusation nor exactly a question, more like somebody confirming a guess – Yes sir, that was me- Nidia said – my brother and I were hurt, so I tried to… -Enough- cut the voice- You Are Been Deemed Necessary For The Mission, Henceforth You Are To Stay Within This Room And Follow Your Instructions. Acknowledge.- now that was a load of bull, no military or civilian office standing have that kind of authority, even with the martial law in place… and she never did anything illegal, to begin with anyone with some training can attempt a Song, the fact that it was a very likely way to end crippled or dead was its own punishment, holding her like a prisoner was out of the question, and what mission for the abyss fire? She was already in the middle of a botched mission!- humm, what again?- Nidia staled, she was barely in top shape, everything ached (so everything still sticked to her hurrah) a dull pang rang trough her head with every booming word of her… captor seems to be… and she can literally murder for some food and a good night sleep, yet she racked her brain for a way out, a leverage, so she stale -I don’t follow… -

Risen forest

underground

an hour earlier

An old and battered ruin, buried within the hills of the forest and beyond, blissfully forgotten by the world, sprawls and near endless maze of passages and chambers, littered with debris and strange artefacts, cold and dead… suddenly take life...

I awoke.

I am… functional

barely.

There is no telling how much time I have been dormant, nearly all of my functions are disabled, I have lost contact with nearly all of my charges, my ability to asses the exterior is severely hampered, I have lost contact with my charges, my reserves are remarkably low, I have lost contact with my charges, this structure is barely sound, I have lost contact with my charges, ihavelostcontact…

now… I must regain my functions… my charges…

There have to be some viable asset in this place, if I can divert a small portion of my energy, I ought to find out, or black out again, but this opportunity is too vital to pass… - within the confines of the chamber, energy ebbs and flows, trickling just the bare minimum to his objective -

in a small corner of the underground maze, something stirs...

- It works, my hands… they are functional… there is no telling what was that awoke me but now I can track something, my hands let me asses the outer world, it is rudimentary, barely more than a sketch of the world, but it will suffice, there are still traces of the energy discharge, my hands move to follow them, they are… clumsy, all that time dormant has made them brittle, one even collapsed in nothing more than charred remains, and I can see where other simply melted in the floor probably due to the energy flow, I can not tell when, and I do not have the luxury of enough time to analyse it, my best estimate is than in less than three...hours... my power will be depleted, it seems that… whatever it was… that used to give me energy has been rendered inoperative or destroyed, the early pulse must have be truly enormous, I do not know if I can harness its origin of even if I can work an alternative with the few hours that I have…

I… can not access much of my memory… I know that it is there, but without energy I can barely keep thinking…

my hands have reached an obstacle, some kind of biological entity has entrenched itself deep in the earth, cutting trough the passage… I need to supply more energy, it is daunting how little power I have, I know that I used to wield power beyond the accountable, and yet now I can barely spare enough to take down some irresponsive biological thing, the exterior and the source lies just behind this thing so I have no other choice…

I have used some… fractions of an hour… to explore…

I… can not remember what the exterior looked like when I was still whole, or what I am to expect of this biological mayhem that now surrounds me, there are… no, counting each of the unique instances of biological entities will take me two thousand fourth hundred fifty two hours in my current state, it will have to wait, the trace is fading already…

But… the traces… they where… they are gone, but I have samples, and I can see a pattern…

I do dot have power to spare, if I fail here not only I will fall dormant again, whit a breach in my makeshift defences it is only a matter of time before something destroys what I still have… worse yet I will fail my mission…

That I Wont Do.

I do not have all that I am at my disposal, but if I divert enough energy I can use enough functions to achieve my current goal… one hour of my current reserve ought to do…

… another surge of power and activity later...

The pattern of the energy has been analysed, I found a trace amount of the same energy stored within all the biological samples surrounding me, I have deem them too small and isolated to be of any use or interest, they have been filtered out of my analysis, the traces of the phenomenon points to a burst, the sphere expanded at a semi-linear rate with an stable acceleration, henceforth, I can design a simple model to point at the origin of the sphere, it is near, least tan fifty meters, my hands will have to strain but I can reach it.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

I ran a secondary analysis, the old lightning system was capable of absorbing part of the pulse, and transform it in actual power, it was a emergency feature in the first place, so it seems that the system was destroyed with the initial pulse, nonetheless the feedback in my main system was enough energy, at least for the moment, that is promising, if I can reverse engineer the original light system and replicate the burst, I can probably get an stable energy source, all that is left is… there is, the origin, my hands reached it… they are… oh I see, they have their own absorption capacity, limited but useful, they feel much more strong now, the source is probably still emanating power.

What is this?

There are two biological entities, animals for their particular layout, they are irresponsive, if they are sensitive to the energy flow maybe the surge that wake me knocked them… no matter, I can tell that one of them is still radiating energy, I can use that, I instruct my hands to retrieve them to further analysis…

After a brief pause to navigate back I have a clear look at my samples, I was right, one of them is giving a constant if faint emission of energy, now that they are back inside my reach I can run better analysis and figure…

This is bad, now that I can asses them in greater detail I can tell that the emitting one is breaking down, their biological functions and parameters are decaying by the… the… I remember… no… little time unit… no matter, it will cease biological functions within the hour, what is worse, the emission is decaying as well, so I have concluded that there must be some unseen correlation between both phenomena, henceforth I have to completely syphon the energy before this sample cease functions, I will try to keep the other one in case it proves useful in regaining energy.

The old system was not robust nor efficient, but it proved being useful, and easy to analyse, problem is I do not have the physical means to duplicate it, my hands are capable but this is beyond that, they are issues with materials… I will have to improvise, worse yet it seems that my initial estimation was off, I have barely an hour of remaining power, not to mention that my next plan will hinger in using almost everything that I have left in the off chance of gaining enough energy from my sample…

I can not take this risk, but I can not not take it…

-In the dry and dark air of the underground chamber, a humming sound starts… grave and unrelenting, as if the earth itself were a playing instrument, within the chamber the echoes stray and die in forgotten corners and deserted corridors, the power ebbing yet again, an new sound, a screech of stone in stone, the hiss of sand running over metal, of the air itself burning hot as fire and cold as iron, a hint of thunder as power arcs his way over the bare walls, all of it in harmony, all of it with a purpose,

all of it guided by a sole will, an unrelenting mind bent into his mission.

The changes in the atmosphere wash over two figures, laid in the sides in the chamber, blissfully unconscious, the gale tearing at their hair and clothes, the power itself prodding at their cores, before doubling down in the flow of the storm that the chamber has turned into, cracking arcs of light in the corners punctuated by the din of stone against metal all of it coalescing into the south wall, here, the surface has turned almost liquid, shifting and changing, subject to unseen forces the pieces of it move away while others fall into place, sand turning to crystal, ores turning into alloys, the lightning fusing all, while the stone carves groves unto itself in an oddly geometrical fashion giving way to yet more cooling metal and glistening crystals, until the sounds die a little a time with the soothing sound of a tide of off white clay engulfing the surface, gently, almost protective.

Exactly three minutes and thirty three seconds have passed, and the air in the chamber stills again, the only proof visible of change a big square of darkened glass, almost a meter in side, fused in the middle of the wall, its shine almost otherworldly, and right in the middle, a pair of concentric circles, glowing faintly-

-You will monitor this structures

That I do.

-You will monitor this subjects.

That I do.

- You will preserve all of this, so it…

I am awake… the... the reserves are gone, but somehow…

...it somehow worked, my array is siphoning the energy of the chamber, and turning it into power, it is working… better that what I expected, the ratio of conversion is nearly 50%, I must have to device an storage quickly, the current one will be insufficient within four hours, I also have to work a way to extract power out of the other biological energy reserves, once this samples run out or cease to be, and I need to…

I … I do not have power enough for now, I am… weak…

I overestimated the energy intake… must pace myself or I will run dry my reserves even before I can build them…

what I can do now is… very little, I can keep my analysis on my samples, which I deem useful for future reference and planning.

Odd, the sample A has not worsened, it is more likely to recover, the energy flow has dropped, but it is now a constant influx, its functions are weak, but stable, sample B is still irresponsive, it gave a little energy a while back, but so far its the only response I have gotten of it, its functions are stable.

Further analysis has found more details, with my main memory inaccessible I can only make a guess… unless…

…

…

…

Finally… a secondary memory has been found, it must been some kind of safeguard system like the lights, is badly damaged and seems to only have observations and work data, but it will do for now, I need all and any asset that I can get if I am to get back into the mission, first I use it to asses my samples, and I will work from there.

Samples: now I can tell that they are no mere animals, they are clad in protective gear, and carry tools of various kinds, Sample A is female, Sample B is male, based on the look of their gear they form part of the same cultural group, or at least were equipped by the same cultural group, there is not much data in my possession, but judging by their poor health, haggard countenance and misfit gear I can conclude that they form part of a scavenger or raider culture, more likely backward and superstitious, probably incapable of self sustaining…

According to my memory that make them “goblins”

I have nothing much to work with, the data it is not only wrecked but also lacking, whatever was the intention behind this safeguard the work put into it is underwhelming, more likely it was nothing more than unsorted data, at least there are some schematics, if I can muster the power, my hands probably make use of some of it for now, it is just… found some data about the goblin language, among a dozen others, good, if I can communicate with my samples I ought to find how they suffuse themselves in energy, hopefully I can replicate the process without them.

Sample B is… trying to communicate… odd, it seems to be still irresponsive, yet still… talks…

I am comparing his words, they do not match with anything in my (albeit limited) goblin data,

I assume this goblin have working knowledge of more than one language, or has sustained damage that leaves it incapable of such thing, I will run analysis on my data of the other languages.

Match found: “Breve”

“Breve”: Language common to a group of sentient cultures...found in…planici…enphasis in…

anhkjhb….

Wrecked… still, I have enough data on it to work around, if they can talk I will make them talk, this two samples seem particularly ill fitted and weak, I am sure that I can make them submit and obey, I just need some time to work on my message…if they are superstitious enough I can try to pass myself as some kind of otherworldly entity, if they are weak I can simply try to cower them, that will be easier...

One of them seems to be rousing, it is time…

I...hope… this works…