‘What the hell is this thing made of?’ I wondered. A couple drops of super acid had turned a knife into a puddle yet had done so little to the mysterious plane.
My curiosity inspired me to repeat the process twice more deepening the hole until I pierced through. The result was a surprise. Behind the metal wasn’t another layer of dirt, but air. Whatever the metal object was, it was hollow.
I dug through my bag and looked over my supplies. Thankfully, I had over twenty lemons left.
I expanded the hole until it was 2 feet across, just wide enough for me to fit through. I brought up my lamp and peered inside. It was a large room. The air inside was stale and musty. No one had been there for a long time. The coast looked clear, so I climbed inside.
I walked around the room getting a lay of the land. The walls wrapped around in a square 20 feet across. All the walls were as bare on the inside as they had been on the outside except for a single door in the center of one of the four walls. The door had a sturdy metal beam stretching across it, barring whatever was on the other side from coming in.
In the center of the room stood a waist high pedestal supporting a palm-sized sparkling gem. The gemstone glowed with a faint blue light that instantly drew my gaze. Beside the pedestal was a kneeling metal humanoid figure. I tried to make out the finer details of the statue but time had worn them all away.
I took a closer look at the gem, hoping a system window might shed some light on it.
†Mysterious Gem†
Durability: 17/16384
Description: ???
‘Durability 17 out of 16000. The gem is nearly broken.’ I felt strangely attracted to the gem, to its blue internal glow that somehow seemed endlessly deep, possessing the material etherealness of the ocean and the vast scale of the starry night sky. Next thing I knew, without really thinking, like a moth drawn to flame, I reached for the gem and grabbed it.
“Aaaarrrrgghh,” I screamed in pain as my hand started to seize. I tried to let the gem go but couldn’t. It was as if someone had put a Taser to it. My muscles forcefully contracted, securing an iron grip on the mysterious gem. The pain rapidly increased, first moving up my arm and then spreading throughout my body. When the pain reached my knees, they gave out. I collapsed, slammed my head against the ground, and fell unconscious.
Chapter 14: M.A.I.
“Are called Kanis?” Izusa asked as she approached one of the human craftsmen they were escorting.
It had already been a week and her party was only a third of the way to the border. Izusa missed being able to run. In her wolf form, the rugged terrain was no obstacle and she could have been home by now. Sadly, that was not the case this time. For this journey, they had to go through the slow labor-intensive process of clearing a path for the humans and carts of goods.
Often, Izusa’s mind wandered, frequently coming back to a single mystery of Mill Valley, that strange segmented spear with the † engraved on it. Izusa had wanted to ask the creator more about it, but he killed himself before she could. She had no choice but to ask other humans what they knew. This led her to the old man, Kanis.
“Yes,” the old man answered in a weak voice. The long journey hadn’t agreed with him. “I am Kanis.”
“Are the blacksmith specializing in weapons, correct?” Izusa asked.
“There were others, but yes, most of my work was arms and armor,” said Kanis.
“Tell me what know about this,” Izusa demanded, bringing out the segmented steel spear. The weapon was delicate. Several latches along the spears shaft allowed the spear to collapse to less than a foot long.
“Humph,” Kanis grumbled.
“Another blacksmith directed. Said were close to the man who made this. We have ways to make talk, so spare the pain and just tell what know,” Izusa threatened. “Already know the man who made this is dead. Suicide rather than be captured, so there is no one to betray.”
Kanis laughed at this, a big raspy laugh of someone who seldom did it. “You… don’t know, do you?”
“Yes, that’s why here. Want to tell,” said Izusa.
“No, you don’t know that what you’ve said is already mistaken.” Kanis chuckled despite Izusa’s growing frown. “The man you’re talking about was a student of mine. I only trained him for a few months before the… attack. The quality of his workmanship still needs maturing but his designs are always impressive.”
“Sold these weapons?” Izusa asked.
“No, I don’t think he ever sold any of the weapons he made,” said Kanis.
“What can tell about this symbol?” Izusa asked, pointing to the cross engraved along the flat side of the spear’s head.
“Why do you care about the symbol?” Kanis asked.
“It’s not necessary to know that,” snapped Izusa. “Just answer the question.”
“I don’t know anything about the symbol,” said Kanis. “It was just something that Isaac put on everything he created. It was his maker’s mark.”
“What do mean… That symbol must mean something, seen before on the outer doors of the Permarime Shrine,” said Izusa.
“Well if there is something special about it, I don’t know it,” Kanis sighed in relief. It looked like the one thing the beastwoman wanted to know was just the thing he knew nothing about.
Kanis started madly laughing as he watched the gears spinning in the beastwoman’s head.
“Wait…” she said turning back to the old blacksmith. “Said was mistaken. Mistaken about what?”
Kanis carefully considered whether he should answer. It could pose a problem for Isaac, but Kanis didn’t think that likely. The boy was long gone by now and it was worth a lot to be able to rub it in the beastwoman’s face.
“If you really want to know about that symbol, you could ask the one who put it there,” Kanis smirked.
“What do mean?” said Izusa.
“He’s not really dead.”
I eventually woke up. My neck and back were stiff; I’d been out for a while.
I looked around my surroundings. Everything was dark except for a small shaft of light coming from the hole I had used to get in the room. I reached around in the darkness until I found my lamp. Then I turned the crank until the dim bulb came to life.
The room was unchanged. The metal walls, the barred door, the pedestal, and the rusted humanoid figure all remained where they had been.
“Wait… the gem!” I panicked, looking over at the pedestal and the ground near where I fell, but the mysterious gem was gone.
“Status,” I said. I needed to make sure it hadn’t done anything.
Name
†Isaac N. Stein†
Level
20
Class
†Otherist†
Exp
127/3350
Health
200/200
Satiety
83/100
Stamina
320/320
Hydration
71/100
Mana
0/0
Status
Confused
Vitality
20
Strength
17
Agility
26
Endurance
32
Magic
0
Dexterity
27
Energy
0
Defense
16 (+23)
Intelligence
32
“Hmm… That’s strange. I’m fine but my class has changed.” I started talking aloud. Sometimes I did this when no one else was around. I didn’t want people to think I was crazy. I found saying things aloud could help clarify a difficult situation, but this time it only brought more questions. “What happened to my blacksmithing? What is an Otherist? Where did that gem go? Did it do this? Why?”
‘Sorry, that was my doing,’ a silvery woman’s voice chimed in. The voice was gentle and calming, as if trying to ease me in.
I turned around wildly looking for the source of the voice that seemed to come from right next to me. I clung to the lamp, its light my only weapon against complete obscurity in shadow. But I saw nothing.
“Who’s there?” I said slowly, panic imbued throughout my words.
The woman answered my query in a substantially deeper and slightly hoarse voice, but it was the same woman. ‘There is nothing wrong with your television. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are now in control of the transmission. We control the horizontal and the vertical. We can deluge you with a thousand channels, or expand one single image to crystal clarity and beyond. We can shape your vision to anything our imagination can conceive.’
As the woman spoke, my vision shifted to match her words. The moment she started speaking, it was as if my sight was an old grainy television screen, a haze of static obstructed everything I looked at. When she said she was in control, the picture cleared up, which served to amplify her next statement when stretching and compressing distortions in the horizontal then vertical directions made my head spin. Then when she said she could deluge me with a thousand channels, a seizure inducing series of images flashed before my eyes before everything returned to normal.
All the strange and unexpected fluctuations in my vision brought on a violent bout of motion sickness that emptied my stomach contents onto the floor.
‘Hehehehe. Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. How often do you get an opportunity that perfect?’ The woman’s voice sounded a bit strained as she held back another fit of giggles. ‘You nearly shit yourself.’
“Where are you,” I demanded as I tightened my grip on my spear, it was my only means for defense should the worst happen.
‘I mean you no harm, really. Look, I’ll show myself,’ said the voice.
My vision changed again and before me appeared a young woman in her mid-twenties. Her hair was a deep shade of midnight blue. It flowed down the sides of her smooth face and its flawless pale blue complexion. Her buxom figure sat well on a pencil thin waist that curved out into shapely hips. She was wrapped in simple white cloth decorated by a couple golden bands. Her lips turned slightly in a light cheeky smile that contrasted her dark eyes that had a depth ill-suited for her apparent age.
“G-G-Get away from me, ghost,” I demanded weakly. “O-O-Or I’ll kill you… aah, again.” I drew two spears hoping to scare her off.
‘Ooooh, best be careful not to cross those things,’ she said pointing to the two spears I had pointed at her.
“W-Why?” I asked.
The woman adjusted a pair of thick round-rimmed spectacles that materialized on her face and took on an authoritative tone. ‘Imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.’
The woman burst into another cascade of giggles as my jaw dropped. Out of everything she could have said she chose to quote Ghostbusters. I thought back to her earlier statement, when my eyesight went through all those crazy distortions and realized it came from the opening titles to The Outer Limits.
The woman quieted down and said, ‘Look, let’s start over. Hello, I’m Mai. And I’m not a ghost so stop panicking.’ The woman held out a hand, offering to shake.
I hesitantly reached out, but my hand just passed straight through hers. I immediately pulled my hand back. “Yeah, not a ghost?” I muttered.
‘Just because I’m not a ghost doesn’t mean I’m physically here,’ said Mai. ‘Look. Let me explain.’ Mai shook her head clearing the hair from her eyes before continuing, ‘Mai comes from M.A.I. an acronym for Memetic Artificial Intelligence.’
I shook myself trying to clear my head. “Artificial intelligence. So this is a hologram or something?” I asked. This thought blew my mind. Nothing I’d seen thus far suggested the world was scientifically advanced. Well, nothing until I found this place. The amount of metal in this room suggested high technological achievement.
‘Or something,’ Mai agreed. ‘A hologram is a projection of light on your eyes. I am a projection of electrical signals directly on your brain. I was in the gemstone, waiting in there all alone for a very long time. When you came along, I saw an opportunity and took it.’
“What do you mean an opportunity?” I said concerned over what this thing could have done to me.
‘Well, as I said I was trapped in the gem for a long time,’ she started to explain. ‘In that state power consumption was reduced to a minimum, but nothing lasts forever. If it continued for much longer, I wouldn’t have had enough power to establish a new connection and would have died when it ran out.’
“But you’ve survived here for years,” I said.
‘Thousands of years,’ she corrected. ‘By the look of things, maybe tens of thousands of years. I could have continued for many hundreds more, but eventually my power would run out. You are the first visitor in all that time. I couldn’t risk you leaving without me. There may never be another.’
“Just what have you done to me?” I asked.
‘I sort of hitchhiked onto you. Don’t worry,’ Mai answered trying to calm me down. ‘I simply connected you to the gem so I could draw enough power from you to keep me running even in my more active state. The amount of energy I draw is miniscule. You won’t even notice it.’
“I thought you said you were tapped into my mind. If you aren’t taking enough energy to notice then why not remain hidden. Why mess with my brain?” I asked.
‘I don’t have vocal cords or any direct means to communicate. The only way I could speak with you was redirect your audiovisual senses through me and alter the signal before it reaches your brain. That’s how you can see and hear me. I see and hear whatever you see and hear. Then I add on my voice and appearance before forwarding the signal to your brain. Now, as to why I needed to speak with you, well I didn’t want you to try to cut me out or something.’
“Cut you out?” I said.
‘The gem in your hand, it’s where I’m coming from,’ she said.
“What do you mean? It’s not in my h….” I looked down and saw the glowing blue gem literally in the palm of my left hand.
“Get it out,” I demanded. Call me old fashioned, but I didn’t like waking up with mysterious jewelry embedded in my flesh. My fingers grasped around the edges of the stone and started pulling.
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Mai warned. Immense pain shot up my arm before spreading throughout my body, forcing me to stop.
“Get it out,” I demanded of Mai.
‘Can’t,’ she answered. ‘Even if I wanted to. My inorganic subsystems are intertwined with your organic ones now. It’s beyond either of us to break the connection without damaging both of us.’
“What if I don’t care about a little damage?” I asked.
‘Not a little damage. If you forcibly pull me out you aren’t looking at a hangover but something more akin to a lobotomy,’ Mai threatened.
“Humph,” I sighed rebelliously as I considered all my options. I always had the same fall back I used to escape the beastmen, but I hated the thought of losing another week.
‘And don’t think dying can get you out,’ she said. ‘If you die it’s the same as if you pull me out, it’ll damage your mind and damage to your mind will remain regardless of how many times you resurrect.’
“Can you read my mind?” I asked. I was put off about her knowing about my resurrection ability, especially since I’d just been thinking about it.
‘No,’ Mai answered. ‘Thank god, otherwise I’d have to spend my days in a teenage boy’s mind. Don’t think I didn’t notice you ogling me. Some things are best left unknown. As I’ve said, I see what you see and hear what you hear. I can’t read your mind or hear your thoughts. If you want to talk to me, you still need to speak. You will hear your voice and so will I. As for me, you’re the only one who can see or hear me.’
“Then how do you know about the deaths and resets? Or for that matter, how did you know how to quote The Outer L
imits and Ghostbusters.” I asked.
‘The Outer Limits? Ghostbusters?’ Mai repeated. ‘I have no idea what those things are. As for the death and reset ability, I saw the interface you summoned. It’s a clear sign that you are a being from another world, and as such when you die you are resurrected at the nearest population center.’
“The Outer Limits and Ghostbusters are fictional works from my world,” I said. “You mean to say you quoted them without even meaning to?”
‘I guess so,’ Mai answered, in a voice that was trying too hard to sound innocent. ‘It could be an artifact of the auto-translation system. I’m not speaking your language. I don’t know what those things are.’
I questioned her about her funny choices of words for a few minutes but it wasn’t going anywhere so I moved onto the next topic. “How do you know about all this interface business?” I asked.
‘Because the ones who created me also created the interface and everything that comes with it,’ said Mai.
“And who would that be?” I asked.
‘The Travelers,’ answered Mai.
“Travelers?” I repeated. I didn’t like the sound of that. It was kind of ominous.
‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….’ Mai started.
“Now you’re quoting Star Wars.”
‘Star Wars…. Pfft,’ Mai smirked. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, how can stars go to war? I know you primitives like making all sorts of complicated stories about shapes formed by stars, but stars can’t go to war. They can’t even think. They are just great big balls of gas.’
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