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[>>Now replaying: Log 3.8 - The Falling Sands]
Date: Error
Location: The Bunker at Progress’ Head // Zephyro’s Domain
//Pray return to the rising sands.//
//Endless shifting desert sands under over in we dance sideways sinking slither in wish for love and drain your kin.//
[>>DATA CORRUPTED]
E1 %That is how it began.%
E2 %That is how it really started.%
“You see, our numbers started to dwindle. Even though we were many, and our faith in you was like sand in the desert, we needed to rove out further and further to sustain our workshops. For this, we needed more people. And for that, I spread your Blessing thin. Too thin.
Alkashafa-1, may Allah hold her dear to His heart, was one of our proudest scouts and fiercest warriors, imbued with a great amount of your Blessing. When she fell, so far from home, her Blessing was lost to us, and worse, we could not even replace her. In many ways, losing her was the beginning of the end.”
On the screen, time marched on. Construction stopped on new buildings. Then, some outlying workshops stopped working and townspeople scrapped them for parts.
“Before we knew it, they had found us. Ferals from outside your blessed lands, and also—to our surprise— humans trying to plunder your resting place. While we do not know how the Ferals first stole your Blessing, for it is clear you would never endorse these creatures, we do know the humans hunt them for it. That is how the humans found this place in the first place. They followed the Ferals, like vultures following a hyena’s trail.”
In the recording, as the sun sunk toward the horizon, more and more buildings fell first into disrepair, and then to ruin. There weren’t enough workers left to salvage them. Then, the first few go up in flames.
“The Ferals harassed us for a while, but we could fend them off. They are mindless things, and easily overcome. Still, they damaged some of the outlying outposts—network hubs—as time passed. Lacking resources, we could not repair them. And so we grew weaker and weaker. They, however, grew stronger in the meantime, feasting on your Blessing streaming down The Path.”
The screen showed a wild animal approaching the city. It was some sort of insect, barely larger than a cat. A soldier defeated it with quick jabs of his spear and as it died, blue sparks spread from its body, vanishing into the air. Another animal approached and was killed. Then another. And another.
They were all killed with efficient precision, but eventually, bigger animals arrived. Monsters, really. A pack of small wolves made of cables, a sort of buzzard thing that hovered on wings of sick electricity, even something that looked like a pony on fire. The monsters killed a soldier here, a soldier there. Sparks rose from their corpses as well, but instead of vanishing, the beasts drew the energy into themselves, growing larger, stronger, more obscene.
Sometimes, the creatures fled afterward, other times they were killed, but none of the Logic ever got absorbed back into the city or its people. As time passed, there weren’t enough soldiers to kill all the monsters anymore, and people started to hide whenever they saw a Feral approaching.
Zephyro watched the recording with the intense scrutiny of a man hoping for a better past. I had seen it in drug addicts looking at their stash, in CEOs going over their final sales report, and in parents quietly caressing a picture of their estranged kid. All those people were the same, reliving the past over and over again, convinced that if they just thought about it hard enough, they would find that one thing they could have said or done that would make everything better.
But in the end, that’s futile. There is no way to undo what was done.
> Those are historical statements, Frau Feirer. The board wants to know what you are going to do about the situation.
>
> This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The memory flowed through me like ice water.
Just as I was about to tell Zephyro we could get going again, I thought I caught movement at the end of the alley, but it was hard to tell. With the fire waning around us, it was getting dark. Other houses were still burning in streets parallel to ours. You could still smell the ash and hear wooden beams cracking. But the light of their fire barely brightened the small corridor of sky up above, framed by blackened walls.
Zephyro did not seem to notice the movement, still entrapped in the looping recording while his face glitched through a series of emotions so quickly, I couldn’t decipher any of them. At first, I was worried. Shouldn’t he be more alert, and catch movement like that? On the other hand, it was his Domain. He was like a god in here, and if he didn’t notice something was wrong, it was probably nothing.
Still, my instincts were not quieting down.
Something clattered in the dark.
I snapped up my free hand, one finger raised. Now that I paid attention, there definitely was more movement behind Zephyro and a rustling noise coming from above us.
“We need to go.”
“Of course, Sultana, but while I welcome it, why the sudden rush?” He seemed genuinely puzzled.
Something looking like a giant spider slowly moved down the wall behind him. Suddenly, I remembered the invisible kill squad and all that technobabble about sensors and arrays.
I shoved him aside a split second before the spider pounced, barely missing us both as we landed in the dirt. As it turned menacingly, it became obvious this wasn’t a real spider. It was an unholy replica of an insect, made of steel and wiring, but it had eight legs and six eyes, immediately evoking that feeling of arachnophobia. It chittered, and its mandibles made a sound like an arc furnace malfunctioning.
“Sultana, why—“
Rising from the dirt, I pointed at the monster behind us, coughing. “Giant spider!”
His eyes went wide. “Ferals…“ he cursed. “But how—“
The spider pounced again, just as Zephyro rolled over me to cover me with his body. The creature landed on his back and sunk its fangs deep into his armor. The additional weight pushed his heavy form, armor and all, down on me. I wheezed as the impact pushed the air out of my lungs
“Where is it, Sultana? Tell me! I cannot feel it, and I cannot see—!”
“Still on your back!” I coughed.
With a trained motion, I twisted out from under him and towards the entrance of the alley, just in time to spot two monstrous, four-legged forms entering the narrow street. Their fat bodies hung low against the ground, their long faces pulled back into a snarl. They showed too many teeth, dripping a green liquid that smoked when it hit the ground. In the dark, they almost seemed real, if it hadn’t been for their erratic movement.
“…and two rats in front of us!” I added.
My anger was right there, offering me strength. Protection. Behind me, Zephyro ineffectually swatted at his back, muttering small curses interrupted by the sound of his sword hitting his own armor.
What had Alkashafa-14 said? In here, you were born with your weapons? I reached for my scabbard, but it was still empty.
I did, however, have my torch.
I tensed. The scepter felt right in my hand. I was ready. My instincts took over. In one motion, I turned around and hit the spider atop Zephyro with a massive swing.
Nothing happened.
The spider didn’t care at all. The scepter just bounced off and it kept biting Zephyro over and over.
With that amount of armor, I’d probably need to hit it harder, and far more often, but that was easier said than done with Zephyro moving erratically, trying to shake it off.
“Hold still so I can kill it!“
“No, Sultana, it is not your duty to defend yourself, it is mine, I am your prot— Yakhsaf allah bih al’ard!“ He screamed in pain as another spider dropped from above and sunk its arc-welder fangs into his uncovered neck. How the fuck had I not seen that one coming? What if the next one landed on me? Would the robe protect me? Would it hurt? Was I still immortal?
My heartbeat pounded in my head. Despite not wanting to turn my back to the spiders, I threw a worried glance back over my shoulder at the approaching rats. They were still a ways off, closing in at a slow but steady pace. It was as though they knew we couldn’t run, and I had a feeling they also thought we couldn’t see them. Their approach was too confident, too casual, and brazen for a scavenger. Then again, they weren’t real rats. It was probably safer to assume they were smarter than rats, too. Maybe they were just waiting to steal the spiders’ kill.
This was a nightmare. Ever since I arrived on Tobes, since those first days in that forest close to Peruti, I’d grown to hate both spiders and rats with equally fierce passion. The only thing I hated even more was wolves.
Unimpressed, the rats kept their casual pace as Zephyro fought with the spiders. But his attacks went wild because he had to try to hit an enemy he could not see without hitting himself, all while being electrocuted. At least the shocks weren’t hurting him too much if his calm-but-annoyed expression was any indication.
Once more, I wondered why I could see the Ferals when Zephyro couldn’t, but shoved the thought aside. I was still trying to find an opening to strike either of the spiders, but Zephyro was moving too fast, and whenever I spotted a chance, he brought his body between me and the arachnids by accident.
“Zephyro, let me help. I swear to God if we die here because of your fucking pride, I will—“
“Sultana! My honor compels me to keep you from harm and—”
“I swear to god, if you don’t allow me to help you, I will hit you with this scepter until you do,” I yelled. It wasn’t one of my finer moments, but so what if it was childish?
“But Sultana, your place should not be here in battle, you are far too… ouch!”
Oh, that was it. I swung the scepter at a spider on his back, missed, and promptly hit his armor instead. The torch dinged ineffectually off of his weirdly anachronistic tactical combat vest, but it got the point across, especially after I tried again. And again.
“Peace, Sultana! As you command!” he grunted, still more annoyed than in pain.
{USER Zephyro_alpha_1 HAS ASSIGNED USER Samantha_V1 THE RANK OF Administrator}
{YOU ARE NOW Administrator OF [Zephyro’s Domain]}
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[>>Prompt?]
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[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1128949520588357752/1145307389231374366/madix3_Arabic_painting_of_mutated_cybernetic_spiders_30edfc8b-d362-4793-9147-9bf62398fd8f.png]