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[>>Now replaying: Log 3.36 - [FAQ]]

Date: Error

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

//Frequently Asked Questions for Samantha!//

//Who are you? Will you be there for me until the end? Where did you come from? Who let this peasant into my hall? Where did you get your evil powers, witch? Who is hiding your demonic slaves? Wh(/&%/$!=)??//

[>>DATA CORRUPTED]

E3 %Can you tell me about the end of the Torchbearer?%

My smile widened further as Zephyro relaxed. His shoulders sagged just a few millimeters, but I knew how it felt when someone offered to share a burden like this.

From intimate, personal experience.

“As you Wish, Sultana. And before you ask, we can talk here. I trust these people with my life, and I have no secrets before them.”

For a second I imagined doing the same in one of my management jobs. There’d been one company I worked at where they hired a small army of Coaches. They’d been hippies to the last person, with long hair, wearing tie-dye shirts and sandals. They’d told me that unconditional trust in your team was the way to go. Perfect transparency, so everyone always knew what was going on, and everyone could make the right decision.

I hadn’t stayed there long enough to find out if they were right, but I highly doubted it. Still, I respected Zephyro enough to honor his wish, even if it made me uncomfortable talking strategy within earshot of a mildly panicking crowd.

“So, tell me about the plan. What’s so important about the Palace?” I asked. “Why are we here, and why is it bad if it’s undefended? We can just go somewhere else, right? Build a new Domain somewhere the Ferals and Shackled can’t reach us.”

“Wish it were so, Sultana,” Zephyro said. “But in Allah’s wisdom, he did not make our predicament that simple.” He looked at me, lost in thought for a few heartbeats, then nodded to himself, hard decision etched into his features.

“I must offer you a thousand apologies, Sultana, but I need to take the long way around in my explanation. Humbly, allow me to ask: Do you know why we revere you so, Sultana?”

“I mean, I can guess. It’s the Wish, right? Without it, none of you would be alive, so you believe— so I am something like a… well…” It was hard to tell someone to their face that it definitely looked like they worshiped you like a God. Always had been, through the entire Tobesian campaign, and certainly hadn’t gotten easier with time.

“A prophet,” Zephyro said, saving me with a knowing little grin. “Sent by God to guide us from the darkness, and to give us life.”

Close enough.

“Alright, let’s say I’m a prophet, then. I’m not but—“

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Humbly, every Prophet worth their salt says the same thing, Sultana.”

“Sure.” I said, rolling my eyes a little, “But that still doesn’t explain why we need this palace in particular.”

“The answer lies with your Blessing, Sultana, and my weakness. I told you when we first met that I had spread it thin, this gift you gave us, and that we couldn’t replenish our numbers without risking madness and disfigurement.”

“Right, like the Ferals,”

“Or like the Shackled, Sultana.” We both shared a look at that, remembering that we needed to hurry through this if we wanted time to prepare. And yet, it seemed too important to gloss over the details.

“We waited many, many cycles for your return, as it was prophesied. We toiled, we built you this palace, and we were content to wait. But then the Humans found us, and their attack on our lands forced me to wake you too soon. I told you before that your Essence is truly magnificent, far denser than any I had seen before. Do you remember?”

“Yeah, I thought you were calling me fat,” I said, corner of my mouth twitching.

Zephyro paled. “Sultana, please accept another thousand of my humblest apologies. I clearly misspoke, and the shame burns in my veins like a Scorpion’s sting.”

I let my smirk grow until he noticed, and color returned to his cheeks.

“May I humbly request you might not to toy with me so?” he asked, but I knew I had gotten under his skin in a good way. His amusement threw sparks in his eyes.

“What I meant to say then was that your …“ that the file size of your ‘Digital Personality Matrix’ is the biggest I have ever seen. It is so large, I can’t even fathom its size.”

“Yeah, a few LTB? I assume those are Logic Terabytes, or something?”

Zephyro paled yet again. “Allah have mercy…” then he shook his head quickly, and went on. “All the more important that we finish what we have started. You must sit in the rooftop gardens, on the same spot you saw your body rest earlier. It is how you will…” his face soured, and he spoke the next few words as though he had tasted rotten fish. “…’Finish the download’, as it is said in the Real.”

I blinked, questions racing through my mind at breakneck speeds. ‘Am I just the bookend of a download then?’, ‘How is any of this possible?’, ‘What about all the Logic I absorbed on the way?’, I wanted to ask them all.

But in the end, I only really had time for one: “And then what? I’ll have terabytes of Logic to do whatever I want with?”

“Not quite, Sultana. Think of this… data as everything that you are. Every facet, every secret of your mind. It is a vast amount of your Blessing, that is true, but has already been given form. To use it for anything else would be to undo your very self.”

“So it’s one giant program?” I asked, beyond confused.

“I would prefer to call it your talent, Sultana. Every one of us who have the gift of thought have at least one. Mine is to govern and distribute your Blessing, but also to wage war against the infidels who would come and defile your lands. The Emil’s talent is to build anything, no matter how complex. The Alkashafs can see for miles, even through gnarled underbrush, and move unseen. As you can see, some are blessed with more talents than others, but each and every one is useful, once you learn to apply it.”

“Alright, that sounds great!” I said, and I couldn’t help myself, but I grinned. It was maybe a bit egotistical, maybe even childish, but there was just something special about being told you have a talent that makes you stand out.

“So what’s mine?” I asked, trying not to sound like Christmas was coming up. Or in this case, the breaking of the fast after Ramadan, I guessed?

“I do not know, Sultana. I suspect it has something to do with your ability to shape your Blessing, but with the size of your Essence, there is no one in all the lands who could tell you the answer. Perhaps if the archives hadn’t burned first, I could have offered more insight, but alas. ‘Knowledge is only gained through learning, and clemency is only gained through perseverance.’”

“Still, I mean, this is good news, right? Whatever talent this is, it’s going to help us turn the tide. Who knows, maybe it’s even several talents at once. They don’t stand a chance!”

Finally, some good news. Those assholes wouldn’t know what hit them!

“Ah Sultana,” Zephyro began in a tone that poured cold water all over my burgeoning hope and left it looking like a wet poodle. “While you may receive a talent that instantly increases your strength manifold, you will need to spend a long time time exploring yourself to truly uncover all of your potential. And, humbly, it might be the case that none of your immediately available talents have nothing to do with combat at all. Perhaps they will allow you to be a better ruler, or reinforce your ability to grant us essence.

“Ah, but I digress, none of this matters if the Shackled manage to disturb the coronation, or if you erm…” he seemed to struggle with his own metaphor for a second. “…’claim the crown’ before the ceremony is over. To do so would anger God himself, and you would become corrupted, possibly even go Feral.”

The words sank into my soul like liquid hydrogen. Once, in my first job as a product manager, a hard drive had gone on the fritz while we were uploading several terabytes of data. The entire file had been there, except for a few megabytes, but no matter what we tried, we couldn’t recover it. My team had built something that in theory should be able to decrypt the file, but it was just too large. We spent another two months recreating the entire thing from scratch, but only after we installed a tool the nerds called “hitgrub” or something.

The idea that this could happen to me… I was a goddamn human, for fuck’s sake. It shouldn’t even have been possible. And now it was another thing I needed to worry about.

“That’s a fucking dangerous secret to keep, Zepyhro…” I said, voice more threatening than I wanted it to be.