{Loading…}

{Loaded.}

[>>Now replaying: Log 3.7 - Fodder to the Flame]

Date: Error

Location: The Bunker at Progress’ Head // Zephyro’s Domain

//We don’t need no water.//

//Pouring an accelerant such as gasoline onto an open fire usually results in some form of violent reaction, often dangerous to everyone around.//

[>>DATA CORRUPTED]

E1 %She had received a Gift from God, a power that allowed her to take an everyday object and make it better.

E2 %Using demonic magiks, she corrupted priceless artifacts into base versions of themselves, bound to her because she controlled the energy that powered them. It is said that those she wanted to destroy, she used these same magiks on, turning them into bloodthirsty monsters she could then slay to prove she was a ‘hero’.%

Two figures emerged from the smoke.

They looked like postmodern storefront mannequins, low-polygon-count, shaded dark orange to red, moving slowly through the flames as if they couldn’t feel them at all. Their forms suggested a torso with one head, two legs, and two arms. They only carried simple gray rods, without a single detail in sight to tell me exactly what they were. It wasn’t necessary, though. It was clear that those were weapons.

Zephyro tensed. Cyan light crackled over his form, and he became more substantial, his outline more defined.

The militia fired their crossbows. Instead of the bolts I was expecting, beams of light tore through the air. They slammed into the red figures and shattered them like glass. The shapes hung in the air for a second, then dissipated into nothing and released a shower of blue sparks that got sucked into the whirling smoke behind the gate.

“Go, Vizier!” Alkashafa-14 yelled, firing again as another red figure entered the square. To our left, a burning building collapsed into a heap of cyan blocks. The cubes immediately began rolling towards the wall, increasing in speed like styrofoam sucked into a vacuum cleaner.

“Forgive me, Sultana…” Zephyro said, and before I could ask what for, he made a twisting motion with his hand, and the cubes dissolved into strands of cyan light that shot into his core. The blood on his face vanished as a modern tactical combat vest assembled itself over his chainmail, and for a second, I feared he wanted to stay and fight.

> As a general, you don’t wade into the middle of the fight, Sam. You simply fucking don’t. It doesn’t matter if you’re immortal or not, you have more important things to do. Look what it cost you!

>

> What it cost us!

>

> And how much more would we have lost if I hadn’t taken action? How much could you actually have done without me?

Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

I snarled. My breath came in tiny bursts. The anger reached my eyes and pooled there. Liquid fury rolled down my cheeks.

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

“Let me help, for fuck’s sake,” I yelled at Zephyro, just as two more enemies jumped over the wall toward the hard-pressed militia. Distracted for only a second, Zephyro turned to look at me.

It saved his life.

He brought up his sword in a whirl of motion, and barely managed to parry a blow from a third red figure that suddenly appeared in front of him. If I hadn’t said anything, its slate-gray simulacrum of a sword would have sliced into him, right below the neck. And then… and then what? Would he have died? Can these programs die?

My entire body itched. Every hair stood on end. It was all I could do not to storm forward, to ignore the cost. To not care about anything besides venting all this… rage.

Zephyro kicked the red figure in the chest to disengage. Behind him, the militia kept firing at the other two enemies approaching them. Beams of light slammed into the red figures, but they barely managed to slow their inexorable advance. They just kept walking like these bolts of pure energy were pleasant springtime rain.

“Kun darban!” As Zephyro clenched a fist, pure white energy coalesced around it. It arced upwards and with a violent gesture from the Vizier, it shot into his opponent.

The red shape seized, then collapsed and shattered into red and orange pebbles. A fountain of cyan sparks rose from the remnants. The same color as the one swirling around the laptop, I realized in a moment of clarity.

The sparks traveled towards the gate just as another two enemies approached. I caught a glimpse of Zephyro’s anguished expression as the energy flew into the enemies.

The one on the left immediately grew larger. The one on the right dramatically increased in definition, its movements assuming a languid, predatory grace.

Zephyro strode forward to meet it in battle, leaving me standing slack-jawed as the last of my rage left my system.

The shock was just too great.

Holy shit, were those things improving their own software on the fly? How were they using these cyan nanite swarms that quickly? I’d never heard of nanite swarms that could reprogram software. Wait, no. That couldn’t be right. Why would virtual programs release a swarm of nanites when they died? This had to be a metaphor for something else. Nanites made no sense in the Real, either. You could just program these swarms to self-destruct before or after they reached opposing forces. Trying to use foreign swarms on yourself would be suicide.

The entire thing didn’t make any sense. With enough time and resources, you could print an endless amount of nanodevices. Perhaps the resources they needed to make this stuff was limited? But if that was the case, storing a large amount of nanites in fully functional machines was beyond wasteful.

Mana, then? The Conservationists had always hoarded the stuff in their reservoirs, bled the leylines dry for it. But this didn’t have that monumental feel of Mana. It was soft and gentle, and the humming sound it made reminded me ever so faintly of bells ringing in the distance.

Besides, Zephyro called it “my” Blessing, so it had to be something only I could—

Then it hit me. The machines weren’t improving, they were advancing.

“Fuck,” I sounded thin, as I had suddenly forgotten how to breathe.

They were using the Wish. Logic was my Wish.

How could that even be possible?

The Wish was my skill and mine alone. Given to me by an actual fucking Angel of capital-G-God, if I hadn’t hallucinated the entire episode after the plane crash. It was so rare to have a Skill, to have access to Magic at all that I had believed I was the only person on Tobes who had one for months. Of course, after I had been to Wexler and seen what the Tradeweaver did to his people, I’d been reminded that I wasn’t special at all.

But that didn’t explain why these robots were now flinging my skill around, and why I didn’t have access to it at all anymore.

You couldn’t explain the Wish, or any other Skill to begin with. You couldn’t measure them, study them, let alone reproduce them. Even if you could, there wasn’t a single human being on Tobes that could provide you a sample to reverse-engineer besides me.

I was sure of it. I had looked everywhere.

And yet, these red, low-polygon mockeries of human life casually used it to modify themselves on the fly.

But if they could do it, why couldn’t I? Wasn’t I surrounded by a giant cloud of the stuff in the real world? With the smallest amount of effort, I checked again and yes, the place where my Wish should have rested was still empty. If I focused harder, I could still feel how its energy infused every part of me, like steel framing in a high-rise. Just like that steel framing, however, it was definitely load-bearing. Ripping it out from where it was and using it to modify this digital avatar sounded like a terrible idea.

I’d needed to say thanks to Chris for stopping me from doing that, later.

As soon as the worst of the shock settled, I came to a quick, but rational conclusion. The Wish was a divine Skill, in the truest sense of the word. None of the other Mage Lords had ever told me how they got their own powers, but I suspected they’d gotten it much the same way I had. Granted by God, or at least an Angel. Or something pretending to be an Angel.

It was completely impossible that robots could just use the Wish to improve themselves. Not while I couldn’t.

This Essence, this Logic had to be something else. If it wasn’t as simple as nanoswarms, perhaps it was as simple as nanoswarms infused with some of my Wish. My Wish had weird effects if I used a lot of it at once. Perhaps it was a highly advanced version of swarm-AI that I had somehow unleashed when I tried to advance memOS? It behaved a lot like my Wish, but there were distinct differences. A competing product, then, possibly built by the Conservationists. That sounded a bit more reasonable, and just like something these dicks would do, even though they should all have been long dead by now.

And yet, it seemed as if the war was still very much alive.