[Log 3.11.2]
[Pharus - 2]
Zephyro approached the edge of the roof and jumped over without any hesitation, his armor glitching as he landed. He turned to me, opening his arms as if to catch me.
I glanced down at the drop to the rat-infested street below, then looked at Zephyro’s outstretched arms. With a scoff, I took a few steps back for momentum and jumped. I landed in a roll, robes rustling, and sprung back to my feet. The clothes were completely ruined anyways, and the look on his face was worth it. Hadn’t we just agreed that I wasn’t some child to be coddled? Couldn’t reinforce bad habits.
Zephyro dropped his arms to his side sheepishly. Instead of saying anything, we both glanced towards the shattering, smoke-clouded firmament, and started running. We jumped from rooftop to rooftop, but all the running started to take its toll. I had been out of breath before, but now my breath started to rasp and my body began to ache with exhaustion.
Hey! Wait a minute…
“Zephyro,” I panted angrily. “I appreciate the realism, but can you please turn off the fucking ‘getting exhausted’ protocols?”
He shook his head contritely. “It is not me, Sultana. You are exerting yourself too much. If you would permit me to carry you…” A pointed stare in his direction made him stop.
“Chris, why the fuck is everything getting harder?” Not that I stopped staring at Zephyro. Still with the bad habits…
[User CHRIs is currently busy: Code_dojo.exe]
Fucking great. They’d always been like that. Give them a shiny new problem to nibble on, and they’d ignore you until it was solved, sliced to pieces, plated and adorned with little flowers as garnish.
“Chris! Info!” I said, louder this time, and was rewarded with an irritated “boop!” and a bunch of information I could have sworn was hammered into my brain extra hard.
{SAINTECH M1X - Portable Computing Device}
{Current Date7Time: ERROR}
{Device Name: Chr1s’ Mag1c Key}
{Operating System: memOS 11 - beta}
{Language: High Tevan}
{System Manufacturer: SAINTECH National, Ultd.}
{System Model: SAINTECH M1X - Portable Computing Device}
{VeryX Version: VeryX 1.6 BETA}
{BIOS: CHRIOS}
{Processor: SAINTECH Alpha 1 1200X 1-Core Processor}
{Memory: ERRO—10 LKB RAM}
{Hard drive: SAINTECH “Scripture” LSD - 17 LTB}
{Current CPU load: 99%}
{Core Temp: 79° C}
{Current Memory load: 7/10 LKB}
{Current Storage: 15.6 LTB/16 LTB}
My head felt like someone had just played a drum solo on it. “Fucking hell, Chris, couldn’t you have sent the line about core temperature and left the rest?”
Boop? Was the short, snarky, passive-aggressive response I received.
“Chris, I swear—“
[User CHRIs is currently busy: Code_dojo.exe]
[User CHRIs is currently busy: Code_dojo.exe]
[User CHRIs is currently busy: Code_dojo.exe]
[User CHRIs is currently busy: Code_dojo.exe]
[User CHRIs is currently busy: Code_dojo.exe]
“Yeah, I get it, I GET IT!” I yelled, causing Zephyro to startle. Groaning and with one hand on my temples, I waved him off. “Chris is being a bitch.” I explained.
“Who is this ‘Chris’?” Zephyro asked, but I waved him off again. It wasn’t important right now. What was important was that my goddamn hardware was overheating, which slowed us down.
But wait! I thought, grinning to myself. Now that I got some of my Wish— I mean Logic—back, that's not really an issue anymore, is it?
Turning away from the puzzled Zephyro, I took a deep breath, focused, then exhaled.
{YOU HAVE CONSUMED 30 LB}
The tolling of a monumental bell echoed through the city.
{Processor: SAINTECH Alpha 1 1200X 1-Core Processor
IS NOW
Processor: SAINTECH Alpha 2 1400X 1-Core Processor}
{Current CPU load: 75%}
{AVAILABLE LOGIC - 2 LB}
Immediately, my temperature started dropping steadily. I jumped up and down, trying to feel the difference. And sure enough, every movement came just a little bit easier. Not significantly so, unfortunately, but it was definitely noticeable. The only downside was that I was down to two bytes of Logic, which was pitifully little. Still, it was better to spend your resources often and early. “Ready to go?” I asked, turning to Zephyro.
Instead of standing next to me, where I expected him, the Vizier had fallen to his knees, face pressed to the ground in supplication. I frowned. Was he being sarcastic? I knew had taken me a while to figure out how to use Logic, but this was hardly the time or the place to be fucking around. Besides, he could have helped me instead of—
Is that true, Sam? I relaxed my fingers. I hadn’t even realized I’d been clenching a fist. No, Zephyro was a lot of things, but not a cynic. So it had to be about the Wish.
I was used to people falling to their knees around me, of course. Everyone had that same reaction when they saw me turn a bow into a rifle or whatever. Yep, every single person I met, with a few notable exceptions. Witchcraft…! Away with you, warlock-tyrant!
I didn’t care for supplication very much. It made me feel almost naked and alien, and I always got a little angry that people would waste their time on their knees when they could be doing something more valuable. As for Zephyro, I was just disappointed. I expected more from—essentially—the most advanced machine in existence.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
“What?” I asked. “Come on, get up, we don’t have time.”
Zephyro kept on the floor for a second longer, then rose to his knees. “Sultana, what you just did…
“Yeah, I do it every morning to brush my teeth. Let’s go!”
The vizier blinked rapidly. “For you, it might be like a grain of sand among the desert, but to such lowly creatures as I, it is transcendental…”
I rolled my eyes. “No need to play it up,” I said, unease rising. “You can do the same thing, and probably way better than me.” God, I hated sycophants. I hadn’t taken Zephyro to be one—despite his insistence on calling me Sultana. We needed to get moving, not try to make me feel special.
But when he raised his head, I was shocked to see tears on his cheeks. “No Sultana, I can not do as you do. Do you not see? Your Blessing, it is a wild thing. It is alive and it can not be tamed. To use it on yourself is to invite madness and mutation. It is why it is haram to claim more of your Blessing than was allotted to you at birth.”
Huh.
I was about to start asking questions when I saw a long, hairy leg poke over the side of the roof.
“Uh, Zephyro, why wasn’t I damaging the Ferals earlier?” I asked, carefully moving between him and the creature.
“Because you aren’t attacking them, Sultana?” he asked. He seemed puzzled at my question, but when he saw my stance, and how I’d raised my scepter, he got to his feet and brought his back to mine. The spider pulled itself onto the roof with that disgusting flowing movement typical of their kind. It approached with predatory ease, its eight eyes focused on me. The burning city around us reflected in metal parts welded to its body, a stark contrast to the twitching hair that covered most of it. Our shadows danced to the insane rhythm of the fire. It clicked its mandibles, and electricity arced between them with a threatening crackle.
“What is it, Sultana?” Zephyro asked.
“Spider, 1 meter tall, looks like it's mechanically augmented or something.”
“How many eyes? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Eight, and besides some metal parts, nothing.”
“That is good, but we need to move. I won’t be able to aid you, Sultana, and the beast will devour you.”
“I can kill a single spider,” I said, frowning. The spider chittered, and I retreated slowly, back pressing against the Vizier.
“Of course, Sultana. In the Real, nothing compares to your might. In worlds like mine, however, you are incapable of damaging—“
“I’m pretty fucking sure I am hitting them with a very heavy scepter, Zephyro. That should do some damage, shouldn’t it?”
“Ah, Sultana, that is true, but while you are swinging an object, you are not attacking. As much as it pains me to admit it, the scepter is a mere ornament, not connected to something in the Real.” In a sudden move, he rolled his body around mine to put himself in front of me and swung his sword. The spider hissed and reared, dodging the blind swing with ease. I didn’t even know spiders could get up on their hind legs like that.
“Alright fine! But if ‘swinging objects’ doesn’t do anything, then why are you using your sword?!” I asked.
“While it looks like I am swinging my sword,” he said, taking a step forward, stabbing and missing once more, “I am in truth not swinging, but attacking.” He launched a series of quick strikes, and one of them clipped the spider in the leg. It hissed and danced aside. He didn’t seem to notice the creature had moved out of his path and kept pressing forward. The spider started inching around him, its injured leg curled against its side.
“This is why you cannot fight here, Sultana! While in the Real, I have no doubt your skills are great, but in here, you would never be able to wield my sword.”
“I told you to stop belittling me!” I spat. “Also, it’s already circled around.” and got back to back with the Vizier again as the spider finished outmaneuvering him and fixated on me. It had long since decided I was much easier prey.
“Sword, now!” I said, holding out my hand.
To his credit, Zephyro did not hesitate. Finishing one last ineffective swing, he paused and dropped it into my waiting fingers.
My hand nearly broke as the damn thing smacked against my palm and then slammed onto the ground like it weighed fifteen metric tons.
{INCOMING DATA TRANSFER FROM: ZEPHYRO}
{[ALQAMAR FAWQ ALQASR, the Blade of the Vizier] v.3.1 - Electronic Warfare Suite}
{Estimated added CPU load: 5600%}
{RAM required: 15 LMB}
{Estimated time remaining for transfer via REDTOOTH 1 at 0.05 LB/s =
18641351 hrs., 06 min., 40 seconds}
“Fuck!” I snarled, surprised. The spider pounced and I gave it a kick, sending it sailing over the heads of three more spiders climbing over the side of the building. How are they finding us? The cube in my robes twitched towards them. Shit, the Logic!
In a smooth roll, Zephyro dove to the ground, grabbed his sword as if it didn’t weigh more than a letter opener, and came back up in a fighting stance. The bastard even had the gall to look smug for the briefest of moments. “I will get eyes on them soon, but until then, you need to tell me where to swing Sultana.”
“That won’t work. There’s three now, and they’re too agile,” I said, slowly retreating towards the edge of the roof opposite the Ferals. One more time I swung the scepter, and again the spiders retreated a little, just as the first one climbed back onto the roof of the building.
Unbidden, my mind flashed back to all those years ago, back to the clearing.
Back to the stick I held in my hand, and back to my desperate attempt to fight off a spider as large as a cocker spaniel.
Back to the sound of the bell in my head that grew louder and louder the more I tried to shut it out until I finally gave in and it flowed out of me and into the stick and changed it in a torrential rush of divine power.
Back to the pain as the stick went through hundreds of variations of what the concept of a stick could be until it finally just burst into flames.
The concept.
I grabbed the torch tighter, focusing on the concept of power and authority.
I took a breath…
{INSUFFICIENT LB}
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
The spider on my left pounced, straight at my chest, and this time, I wasn’t quick enough to dodge. The creature slammed right into me, sending both of us flying. I hit the roof back first and I slid another half meter with the damn insect trying to ram its electric mandibles to my eyes. I scrambled and barely managed to avoid the drop to the alley below. Using our momentum, I rolled on top of the ugly thing and hit it with my scepter, just out of reflex. It did nothing. The cube inched out of my robes, bathing both of us in blue light. I could hear the other two spiders approaching behind us, and—
The cube!
I grabbed it with my free hand before it could fall onto the spider, holding it close to me, and instead of trying to break it open, I imagined breathing it in. With a gentle chime. it evaporated and sank into my skin.
{INCOMING LOGIC - 50 LB}
{AVAILABLE LOGIC - 57 LB}
Euphoria rushed through me. The spider hissed, wriggling its legs. I rolled off of it just as one of the others tried pouncing on my back. The insects crashed together, spitting and hissing at each other. At first, I thought they would separate again immediately, but they kept biting into each other’s carapace probably trying to devour one another’s Logic.
From the corner of my eyes, I saw the last remaining spider advancing on Zephyro, just as he stopped swinging to come to my aid. The spider pounced and they both went down. He yelled something I didn’t understand. To my side, one of the spiders had gotten the upper hand on the other. The winner turned to me and skittered closer with insane speed.
My side hurt from where I had hit the hot stone of the rooftop. I took a deep breath.
Zephyro yelled again. I didn’t have time to listen. I shut out everything. Everything but the scepter.
I focused on power, authority, might, and exhaled
{YOU HAVE CONSUMED 30 LB}
{AVAILABLE LOGIC - 27 LB}
An eternal bell echoed over the rooftops. It was more than sound, a tangible thing that pushed aside smoke and dust and embers and flattened the flames for an ephemeral moment.
In the span of two seconds, the item in my hand advanced. It rose into the air while gears and capacitors sprouted from the handle, turning it into a hilt. The upper part, a stylized iron cage around a flame made of gold, widened into a bulbous shape, and a small screen appeared where it met the handle. Two buttons materialized just slightly atop the hilt, where my thumb could easily reach them. Another shift rippled over the scepter, streamlining cage and metal flames into a unified whole. Rugged leather wrapped itself around the handle.
The torch looked regal, authoritative with its gold and hardwood.
It looked dangerous, sinister with flames of iron writhing around a spiked metal cage.
It dropped back into my palm.
My fingers fit around the handle perfectly.
{AUTHORITY_DOOAD_1
IS NOW
[Pharus, Wrath of the Torchbearer] v.01 - Electronic Warfare Suite}
{NOW RUNNING: [Pharus, Wrath of the Torchbearer] v.01 - Electronic Warfare Suite}
{Available RAM: 0 LKB}
I pushed off the ground, got to my knees.
The spider pounced…
…Straight into a burst of bright teal flame erupting from the Torch.