Lapis Dei 1: Forsaken Contract
It was a rather plain and ordinary day in Shanghai. The crowded streets bustled with traffic, a few ships, mostly Japanese or Korean, unloaded supplies at the still under construction docks, and Yi Bao nearly got his head crushed by a falling air conditioner unit. Of course, he wasn’t hurt, he never was, but someone’s car was flattened in the result. No one died, and this time at least, no one was badly hurt, but they all blamed Bao for it. He had to run along as quickly as he could before worse than insults were hurled his way.
“Why can’t I ever catch a break?” Bao complained, mostly to himself. Would it be so hard for the universe to reward him with a little good karma for once? He never stole, always tried to tell the truth, and helped others whenever he could, and his luck was still rotten to the core!
Yi rounded a corner into an alleyway to throw off pursuers, and nearly bumped into someone who was standing stock still in the middle of the street. He rebounded, falling onto his rear, and looked up an apology already on his lips.
“Sorry! I-”
The woman looked down at Yi, and he froze. She was wearing odd clothing, like the kind a scientist would wear: A white lab coat with what looked like a name card and ID, a black bow at her throat, brown hair pulled back with headband. But her eyes…those odd, purple, diamond irises. They were full of fury.
She barked something at Bao, and he hastily stood, trying to back away. Curse his rotten luck!
“Uh, sorry, miss, I didn’t mean to bump you, I-”
Something caught at Yi’s bare feet, and he tripped and fell. Black crystals? He tried to pull his foot free, but the crystals grew up his legs. He shouted in panic, and then the woman was kneeling by him.
“Hmmm, how fascinating. That’s Old Earth Wu Chinese, isn’t it? That language has been extinct for, oh…well, let’s say a very long time indeed. And yet, you speak it with dialectical inflection and intonation of a native speaker. Tell me, how is my accent? I did study this language, of course, as well as a number of other Chinese-derived languages. Sadly, my only instruction was from old audio recordings and AI data impressions.”
“Um, I, er…” Bao swallowed. Honesty. He should be honest. “You sound like a rich foreigner. Your accent’s good, smart. Not like mine…”
“Ah, how wonderful!” The woman said, standing up. She extended a hand to Bao, who reluctantly took it. “Let me help you there, child. There. Tell me, how do you feel?”
Bao looked down at his feet, and frowned. There were crystals in his skin. He tried to kick them off, but they were stuck fast. They didn’t hurt, though. “Um, fine, I guess. What’s this weird crystal stuff?”
“My model. My flawed model,” the woman said, and her face suddenly contorted into pure rage, and Yi flinched back. “Curse the Oracle! That Pig-Headed fool is asking for Death! I will find a way to return and perfect my model! That jumped-up bio-engineered slut of his thinks she can ooze her tentacles into my Oracle?! I will boil her seas and reduce her entire people back to the primordial ooze they crawled from!”
“Um, that sounds like your boyfriend cheated on you. Sorry about that. I really hate it when people lie,” Bao said, feeling pity for this weird, crazy stranger.
The woman’s head slowly turned back to Bao, and her head tilted to one side. “...your gene stock. You are genetically Homo Sapiens. But…you have been altered. Hmmm. My model does not account for this.”
“Huh? What are you-” Bao tried to scream as crystal suddenly raced up his body, engulfing him. It filled his mouth, his nose, his eyes, his ears! This woman, she was a demon, like him! Only, her demon was a lot stronger than Baos. His last thought was that he needed to warn Caomei, somehow, that a dangerous new threat was in Shanghai.
Then, he was gone. Bao blinked, and looked around. He found himself in an endless white space.
“Hmm. Not much to look at, is it?”
Bao jumped, as the woman appeared next to him in the blank void. “I’m sorry! Please, I didn’t mean to offend you! Please, let me go! I don’t have anything!”
The woman seemed to ignore him, pursing her lips as she looked around them. “It seems that the data plane has been reset. This is a setback. I can still manifest originium, but that impudent oracle and his jumped-up lagomorph used that gone-native moron and his stolen privileges to claw away nearly all my data. I will have to reconstruct my model nearly from scratch, it seems.”
“Uh, er, I’m sure that’s hard, O Wise and powerful, er, lady, but…please let me go,” Bao begged.
The woman turned to Bao and frowned at him. “Tell me. What altered your genetics, child? It was postnatal, obviously. It’s very nearly a parasite, one that implanted itself between your frontal and parietal lobes. Hmm, if only I could- there.”
Suddenly, a massive shape, one the size of the whole entire world, grew out of Bao’s head. He screamed, not in pain so much as fear and panic, as the structure, which was endlessly shifting and swirling in geometric patterns, seemed to fill the entire previously empty space.
“How crudely inefficient,” the woman said, going over and resting a hand against the surface. Where she touched, crystals began to spread, causing the massive thing to shudder and shake, as if trying to remove an infection. “Whoever designed this system is an idiot. So much waste. You don’t need this much mass; it just gets in the way. And a five-dimensional tesseract? You lose 90% of your output just keeping the thing from collapsing into a space-time singularity. Clearly, they haven’t discovered digital soul space recombination. And the purpose…ha! How quaint.”
The woman turned and grinned at Bao. It should have been the deranged grin of a witch, but instead, it was girlish and enticing, rather like Caomei’s, actually. “Tell me, child. Are you often afflicted with, well, shall we call it, bad luck? More accurately, it’s a hyper-quantum entanglement condenser, but the way this is formatted, events play out in distinctly unlikely patterns, but only the most disadvantageous ones. Hmm, it does have a self-preservation clause, which is useful enough, I suppose, but why go through all this bother to afflict one young boy with, well, bad luck?”
“Uh…I understand the bad luck part,” Bao admitted, slowly standing back up. He craned his neck, looking at the…thing. “Is that…is that my demon? Did you pull it out of me?”
“Demon? How marvelously superstitious. Tell me, is this some forgotten, hidden colony world, modeled on old Earth China? It’s not a digital experience, I would have detected the subtle quark shifts if it were.”
“Er…we are on Earth, in Shanghai,” Bao said. He hastily bowed. “Um, um, are…are you Lord Morax? The Geo Archon? You, uh…you seem powerful enough to be an Archon.”
“Morax? From Ars Goetica?” The woman chuckled and shook her head. “Hardly. You may refer to me as Priestess, child. But…Shanghai? Hmm. This bears further investigation. Come.”
And then, just like that, they were back in the alleyway. The woman had a clipboard in her hands, and was scribbling something on it. Bao slowly shook his head. Had that…had that all been a dream?
“Most interesting. Well, I’ll continue to spread my model. Come, let us walk. I shall seed the crowds as we parambulate. After my recent…well, we shall call them setbacks, I could do with a bit of exercise. To clear the head, as it were.”
Bao blinked, then grinned at this wonderful, amazing woman! Clearly, she was the most beautiful person he’d ever met, aside from maybe Caomei, and he should do exactly what she asked. Why, he could feel his luck changing, just from being around her!
“Of course, Miss Priestess! Come on, I’ll take you to Boss Jin! She knows all kinds of things!” Bao said happily. He didn’t notice the woman smirk as the halo over his head faded from view. Or the crystal growths that were on his feet, and hidden on his back. He felt wonderful!
They went to a stall, where the woman bought some grain, and then had Bao take her to where there were a large number of pigeons and other birds. They scattered the grain, which the birds quickly scarfed down, then flew off. Neither Bao nor the birds noticed the little black granules of crystal in the grain that the birds ingested. In the next few days, weeks, and years, the birds would become afflicted with cancerous crystal growths. Over time, they would become too heavy to fly, as their bodies turned to stone. When they inevitably died, the cause was irrelevant, be it starvation, the crystal disease, a predator, or injury, the birds exploded into black, crystal dust. This dust was inhaled or digested by other life forms, which, in turn, began to spread the crystal in the coming months and years.
But Bao didn’t notice any of that.
After feeding the birds, Bao took Priestess to the House of Secrets, where Caomei was looking bored behind the counter. She saw Bao come in and frowned at him. “Bao, you’re not supposed to be here. If Boss Jin catches you, I’ll have to throw you out! I told you, come back later when- oh! A customer!”
Instantly, Caomei was all smiles. This lady was clean, had perfect skin, and exquisite makeup. She just smelled of money! Bao might be an unlucky baboon, but he did have a good eye for rich customers. “Welcome to the House of Secrets, honored guest! My name is Caomei. How can I be of service today?”
“Caomei,” the Rich Lady said, stepping forward. “That’s an unusual name. It means strawberry, does it not? Well, I suppose many cultures name their children after pleasant things like flowers and fruits, though I had thought the Wu Chinese civilization was not one of them.”
“Huh?” Caomei blinked at the woman, then glanced at Bao. Was this lady rich and eccentric, or poor and crazy? Rich and eccentric, Caomei could deal with. Poor and crazy was just a pain in the ass.
“Speaking of, do you like strawberries, Caomei?” the Crazy Lady asked.
“Uh, I mean, they’re not exactly common here, but yeah, I guess so?” Caomei said, feeling a little baffled.
“Try one then,” the Crazy Lady said, and produced a bright red berry from her white coat.
Not one to look a gift berry over closely, Caomei popped the berry in her mouth and chewed. The sweet, tart juice was great! Though those little black seeds were really crunchy, a bit like fine sand.
The Crazy Rich Lady smiled at Caomei as she chewed. “Ah, a pity. Baseline human genetic stock. Still, I am quite perplexed at how I have arrived upon a world with a bunch of genetic throwbacks. Why, none of you even have standard gene mods for basic genetic disorders, immunotherapies, or even basic identification markers. Why, you’re exactly like that impudent McCoy who…who…”
The Crazy Lady trailed off, her brow furrowing. Caomei decided she didn’t care, even if the lady was crazy. Anyone who gave out free strawberries was alright in her book. “Will you be booking a room for the night, ma’am? Our rates are very reasonable, and include a complimentary breakfast!”
The normal rate didn’t. Crazy Rich Lady rates, however, which were exorbitantly inflated, did.
“Hmm? Ah, my apologies, my spirit was wandering beyond the heavens. That is the local idiom for lost in thought, yes?” the Crazy Lady said, and smiled girlishly at Caomei, who found herself grinning back. Wow! This lady was pretty, and smart! Even smarter than Boss Jin! Caomei should do exactly what the Very Smart (but Crazy) Lady said!
“Yep! Though I don’t think you’re an idiom. You’re very pretty,” Caomei said happily, and Bao nodded enthusiastically.
The Crazy Lady frowned slightly. “Hmm. It seems I will need to tweak the simulated Personality and Cognitive Synchronization System. It seems to be a bit strong. That, or you're just not very bright. But I’m afraid I don’t have time for a full cognitive battery at the moment.”
“I knew you were an angel, Caomei,” Bao sighed dreamily. “Now you even have a halo!”
“Huh?” Caomei’s eyes crossed as she tried to spy the halo over her own head, but she couldn’t see anything before it faded.
“Well, it’s clear that you children will be of limited value as sources of information. Where is this Boss Jin? I take it she is capable of intelligent conversation and answering a few basic questions,” the Crazy Lady said.
“You’re not causing trouble for my employees, I hope,” Boss Jin said, stepping out from the back room.
Caomei spun, blushing. “Um, I was doing my job, boss! Honest! The Crazy Lady, I mean, the customer, was just booking a room! And, er, maybe buying information too?”
Boss Jin regarded Caomei, who blushed slightly, then turned her gaze on the strange woman. Her eyes instantly narrowed. “My. What bright eyes you have.”
Huh? Caomei turned back. Oh yeah, the Crazy Lady did have weird eyes. Oops. Caomei probably should have noticed that earlier. Darn Bao! He was distracting her again. When had he gotten so darn tall? Stupid kid.
“Why, thank you. I do consider them my most striking feature,” the Crazy Lady said, smiling at Boss Jin.
“But not amber. Parahuman?” Boss Jin drawled, leaning on the doorframe.
“Ah, is that the technical term for the affliction this child had?” the Crazy Lady said, indicating Bao. “Do you understand the underlying causes of his malady, or is your society still so superstitious that it dismisses any phenomena without an immediate and obvious physical causation as demonic? Hmm, no, that shouldn’t be right, there are motorized vehicles, though they do seem to still run on ghastly internal combustion engines even more primitive than the Terrans.”
Boss Jin stiffened, and even Caomei began to realize there was something really weird about the Crazy Lady.
“What do the words ‘Archon’ and ‘Teyvat’ mean to you?” Boss Jin said slowly.
“Ah!” the woman brightened and gave a very girlish grin. “Well, you see, I am a linguist by training, so discussing etymological roots is something of a passion of mine! Archon is from the Greek ‘ἄρχων’, and originally, it meant a ‘ruler’ or ‘leader’. The term was originally used in the city-state of Athens around 4100 years pre-Interstellar, or about the year 2000 Yellow Emperor. That is the ordinal reckoning used in this local, yes?”
Slowly, Boss Jin stood, and bowed. “Honored Guest, please, let your humble servant show you to the best room of this lowly inn. You would honor this ignorant one greatly by lodging here, free of charge.”
Caomei started as the Crazy Lady seemed to flow forward in an instant, cupping Boss Jin’s chin and lifting her head up as her odd eyes glowed. “You’re expecting someone. Some of great power. Why? Do I meet this description? Who would you sell this information to?”
“I-” Boss Jin stammered, then gasped as a halo formed over her head. She gasped and shuddered for a moment, then slowly stood and bowed. “I will be happy to answer all of your questions, my lady. Yes; I am being paid to keep an eye out for the Geo Archon by several groups. It is not certain that they would appear in Shanghai, or even China, but it seems likely. You do not match the description of Morax exactly, but you have odd powers, and I see that crystal you’re manipulating and trying to hide from me.”
“Interesting,” the woman said softly, tapping her chin with a pen. “You also mentioned this ‘Teyvat.’ That smacks of a Semitic word. Possibly related to the mythical Ark. What is it?”
“It is the land the Archons come from. I have desperately hoped that an Archon will come to China. I hope to ingratiate myself to this Archon, and that they will bring peace, stability, and prosperity to China, as they have to other hands,” Boss Jin explained.
A slow smile spread over the Crazy Lady’s face. “Well then. Perhaps I am an Archon. For I intend to bring perfect peace, absolute stability, and unimagined prosperity. Not just to this land. But to this entire world, and beyond. I will fix my model. And when it is complete…it shall be perfect. And this time, there will be no meddlesome ex-lovers to stop me. Now. You will explain everything to me.”
Boss Jin had just finished appraising their new Archon of the situation when Maou the Golden arrived. Caomei gasped and cowered, Bao Yi fought back tears and tried to be brave, while Boss Jin groaned in despair, even as the roof vanished in a flash of golden light, and the evil god descended.
You are the Geo Archon? The one known as Morax? Maou the Golden demanded.
Priestess, for that was the Crazy Lady’s name, grinned and smoothed a bit of hair back from her forehead. “Ah, you must be the alien engaged in parasitism. No, I am not Morax, nor the Geo Archon. Though I must say: If you are attempting to use this planet as an experiment, there are several fundamental flaws in your experimental design. So much waste and inefficiency. If you really wish to solve entropy, and that is what you’re engaged in, isn’t it? Sloppily, but it does seem to be your purpose, well. I am afraid you really are going to dead end if you continue your current pursuits.”
Maou the Golden paused at the torrent of words. You…understand the Cycle?
“Bits and pieces. I’ve only taken a cursory glance, really, but it’s not all that different from several projects I’ve overseen before. Now.” The Crazy Lady’s eyes glowed brightly. “Would you like to hear some suggestions as to how to improve your experimental design? As it so happens, I have a model that might just be able to solve your little entropy problem. If you’ll lend a fellow scientist some aid…well. I think we could have a most profitable collaboration.”
Unfortunately for Scion…he listened. And agreed to incorporate a small bit of originium into his experiments.
It was over after that. The Abyss was a minor obstacle. The Archons simply more powerful feranmuts to be absorbed and tamed.
And with that, the threads of Fate had been severed. All were doomed to persist in a world that was plunged towards a terrible fate.
Uh, well, Happy April Fools, I guess? Anyway, to see a slightly more upbeat crossover between my two stories, you can see what would happen to Zhongli over in May I Enjoy My Life.