[Week One]
— Marissa “Mars” Newland, Sundancer —
Most of her time on Earth Bet could reasonably be called a nightmare, but this…? This was all a dream come true.
Noelle was laughing. Noelle was laughing for the first time in far too long.
“Look at all of this!” She exclaimed, throwing her hands to the sky. “It’s a whole world! We’re here! We can enjoy it together — all of us — for once!”
Mars didn’t like thinking about when Noelle had last been able to be outside without special considerations. It’d just been… difficult, so difficult… to manage her condition. As a result, Noelle had been wasting away, both physically and mentally, while the rest of the group tried to find a solution.
Now, thanks to the Dragon — Ancalagon, and Mars was almost certain it was THAT Ancalagon, too, somehow… — Noelle was whole again.
Mars had her best friend back, no strings attached. Ancalagon had made it possible, sure, but it was Noelle and her new spirit that truly saved her from that monstrous, powered fate.
Noelle’s situation had been noteworthy enough to earn Ancalagon’s personal attention — a bit of it, at least. When they signed up with the Adventurer Corps, Ancalagon had somehow seen Noelle and everything wrong with her. He’d let her jump the queue due to that, awakening her magic early so she’d have the time to solve her situation for herself and enter the Dungeon without issue.
Noelle partnered with Lilith, the spirit Mother of Monsters and Demons.
Mars didn’t know all the details that passed between Noelle and her totem, but the end result was apparent to all of them. Noelle’s monstrous lower half had been wrestled under magical control, and Noelle emerged from its writhing flesh better than ever.
She was changed, to be sure. She wasn’t the girl-next-door that Mars had grown up with. Now, with Lilith partnered to her soul, Noelle had traded her rampaging monstrous features for more subtle and stable changes. Her short blonde hair darkened to pitch-black, and wings like a fallen angel’s sprouted from her back.
She was still a monster, somewhat, but one of her own making, hers and Lilith’s. She was acting more and more stable by the minute — a return to form, to happiness, that shone through all the changes, all the trauma, she’d experienced since drinking that vial.
And once Mars got over the shock and joy at seeing her oldest friend freed from her monstrous power, she could readily admit that Noelle rocked the goth girl style.
She giggled to herself now, seeing that goth Noelle acting so unlike her appearance.
“Noelle…! Noelle, slow down-!” Krouse snapped as Noelle spun in the street of the Dungeon city without a care in this new world.
“Never! Never again!” Noelle called back. “Look around you! Look at where we are! It’s like something straight out of Ransack! But we’re here for real, and I can walk freely, and so can Jess!”
That was another change after Ancalagon’s mass awakening; he really was doing so much for them. Jess, wheelchair bound for as long as Mars had known her, was now walking with the help of her partnered totem, the nature god-spirit Pan.
Sure, her legs had been replaced by goat legs to do so, a satyr-lite transformation, but that hardly seemed to matter with the way Jess was smiling, just as overjoyed as Noelle.
“This isn’t Earth Bet anymore,” Mars told Krouse, keeping her voice soft. “We don’t have to be so… on guard. Noelle has saved herself, Jess can walk, and we all have magic now, to boot. Isn’t that enough for you to take a breath, step back, and just… enjoy this?”
“Enjoy something? Krouse?” Luke joked. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“Hey,” Noelle rounded back to the group, coming to throw her arm around Krouse. “He’s an asshole, but he’s my asshole. He held us together. Give him a break while he figures out how to stop being Mr. Hardass Leader, yeah?”
Jess giggled, “He can start learning by doing. C’mon, there’s a whole world full of adventure for us to explore here! We’ve got the chance to live a D&D campaign! Forget all the cape stuff for a while; this will be a lot more fun than Earth Bet’s usual bullshit.”
Mars nodded, “I’ve always preferred fantasy to superpower fiction, anyway. It’s a shame we didn’t end up here first.”
“… I’m not Mr. Hardass,” Krouse grumbled back at Noelle.
Noelle just turned to him, clasped his cheeks in her hands, and planted a lip-searing kiss on him that made Mars blush just as much as Noelle and Krouse.
She was purring when she pulled back, pushing through her nerves with Lilith’s help, “You are, babes… Nothing wrong with that. I think it’s your best feature. Your actual ass is a close second.”
The kiss shut Krouse up rather effectively, and Noelle’s uncharacteristically sultry purr made his mouth fall open in shock.
Seeing his expression, Noelle just lovingly patted his cheek, “Just making up for lost time, dear.”
“Making up…” Krouse repeated, swallowing thickly. “Uh, yeah, I can do ‘making up’.”
It was strange to see Noelle so confident and seductive — she definitely wasn’t unaffected by her partnership with Lilith — but at this point, Mars would take anything from her that wasn’t… Echidna. As different as she’d become, Mars could still tell that this was Noelle; Echidna had just been a starving husk over her best friend.
Mars herself had partnered with the spirit of Stonehenge during her awakening.
She felt it was a somewhat strange spirit to resonate with. Everyone else found themselves with a name or an archetype — Adam for Oliver (fitting since he’d shared his vial with Noelle), Coyote for Krouse, the Comrade-in-Arms for Luke, and Pan for Jess.
They all reported being able to talk to their totems, a partnership between individuals. Mars couldn’t talk to Stonehenge. But even if her spirit lacked words, they didn’t lack a shared understanding of each other.
Stonehenge communicated in concepts and symbolism, in spells and rituals. It was magic, primitive and powerful, humanity’s first ventures into esoterica.
She saw shadowed figures dancing through ancient stone circles, the blood of sacrifices pooling beneath their pounding feet. She saw the rain come as a result, and the seasons turn early; the natural world mastered and bent to humanity’s will.
The blood, the power, the rituals, they scared her and enthralled her. Mars couldn’t bring herself to look away from the new partner to her soul. She desperately wanted to see more and more magic.
There was a tug in her mind, a fascination that she felt was unlike her. But… was it?
As she’d said, she had always preferred fantasy. Stonehenge was the fantastical in its most primitive and primal iteration: stories of power around tribal fires, the invocation of higher powers that mankind feared and revered, and ritualized events that brought the world to heel.
She must have resonated with the spirit for it to end up as her totem. Now that they were partnered, Mars and Primal Ritual, what was the harm in exploring their connection…?
A strange, inaudible song drifted through the edges of consciousness as she decided her course. It was a thousand tiny, guiding, angelic notes, plucked into being within her mind. She couldn’t grasp it, no matter how much she reached.
‘Stonehenge…?’ Mars wondered. Her totem responded in the pounding of ritual drums, drowning out the inaudible notes. The inaudible and the spiritual merged; Mars knew what she wanted to do.
“Can… Can I request something…?” Mars nervously asked her friends.
For all that the recent developments had renewed their strained relationships, the troubles of the past year hadn’t been forgotten. It’d been a long time since the mood in the group was so good.
“Always, Mars!” Noelle agreed, encouraging her with a bright smile that fit funnily with her new gothic looks.
“It’s just…” Mars decided to say it from her chest. “I-I’ll just say it: I’ve had enough of powers and bullshit-!”
“Fair,” Luke nodded in agreement. “Absolutely fair.”
“It’s not the powers that are the problem,” Krouse scoffed.
“No, it really is,” Oliver quietly said.
“They’re no good for any of us! If I could give mine up, I would in a heartbeat!” Mars continued, encouraged by the quiet support. “We didn’t ask for… any of this.”
“Maybe not, but we’re here whether we like it or not,” Jess said. “What are you requesting, Mars?”
“I was getting to that…” Mars muttered. “Right… Powers suck. But… I have a feeling that magic won’t suck in the same way. It doesn’t feel — I don’t know — like a poisoned chalice? Can’t you feel it? In the totems? They actually want the best for us in their own strange, spiritual ways or whatever.
“I want us to explore that. And more-! We have this chance to indulge in fantasy here; I don’t want to waste it. We’ve already solved our main problem, anyway-… Well, Noelle’s problem. I’m just saying that we don’t have to act with the same… desperation as we have since being brought to Earth Bet, and I want to enjoy that. I want to adventure and explore as Ancalagon offers; I want to experience this whole new world that doesn’t seem nearly as f-fucked as Earth Bet.
“Can we… Can we do that in good faith? Give it a chance? No villain stuff? No desperate scrambles to escape or stop Noelle from rampaging? No thousand little things tearing us apart at the seams? Just us and… adventure. Does that make sense? I feel like I was rambling…”
“I get it,” Oliver said, his voice as soft and agreeable as ever. “We’re not the same as we were before Madison and the Simurgh. But those people are still inside us. And I know, personally, that the old Oliver would be jumping at this chance to live a D&D campaign. Even if we’ve changed, why should we allow that to stop us from experiencing something new and actually fun for once?”
“I’m in,” Luke agreed, smiling. “Hell, we’ve already ditched our costumes for adventurer gear.”
They had, using the starter gear that the Adventurer Corps had provided. Mars had been glad to be free from the spandex. She traded it for perfectly fitted paladin armor — and a sword! — like something out of a LARP. Except this was real-play, not role-play.
He continued, “Why would we try to keep up the whole ‘Travellers’ schtick when it doesn’t mean anything here? We don’t have to play by the stupid cape rules. Let’s turn our eyes to adventure.”
Jess shrugged, “The cape stuff was fun at times, but yeah, I think I prefer the sound of ‘adventuring’ more, too.”
They all turned to Krouse and Noelle. Krouse had been the one to keep them together and keep them moving; he was the biggest advocate for the necessity of playing the cape game if they wanted a solution to their two main problems.
Noelle, meanwhile, had been trapped in her own body by her power. Mars couldn’t imagine that she thanked it for that. She dearly hoped her oldest friend would choose to make a fresh start now that they had the chance.
Krouse looked like he was going to argue just for the sake of stubbornness, but Noelle soothed him before he could say something that couldn’t be taken back.
“We can be anything here, Krouse,” She said softly. “The ‘Travellers’ served their purpose, but they really aren’t necessary anymore. C’mon, baby, take the fresh start with the rest of us.”
Disgruntled but willing to go with the flow, Krouse nodded, “… Fine. What now, then? How do we get our start as adventurers?”
Mars smiled brilliantly at seeing her friends unanimously agree to try something new, “We look for quests! This whole city is built on adventurers, right? That’s what Ancalagon said. I’m sure we’ll find something if we ask around! Easy!”
IIIII
In one way, finding quests at their beginner level was a bit more difficult than Mars had been expecting, and in another way, it was much, much simpler.
They asked around the city. Its streets were bustling with the people of this world. Luke was his charismatic, extroverted self, and the people he spoke to were welcoming enough. The city — Inceptium — seemed used to accommodating newcomers looking for adventure.
Very quickly, they learned there wasn’t an overarching ‘Adventurer’s Guild’ like Mars half expected to find in such a fantastical setting. She’d been imagining an organization like that would run the city.
Instead, Inceptium was apparently run by the ‘Monster Fighting’ teams. The idea of them struck even Krouse speechless, as did the descriptions they heard.
Since Inceptium sat so deep in monster territory, a culture surrounding those monsters was only natural. Everyone they spoke to had a monster-fighting story to share, either a match they’d watched or a monster they’d hunted themselves.
One old, unassuming man working a food cart dragged them into the usual ‘old people conversation’, but instead of the weather or whatever else, he spoke of past glories in the surrounding wilderness: how he’d once brought down a 24-meter, blade-tailed Glavenus and lived off the rewards of that hunt for a year.
As fantastical as his story was, if Mars hadn’t heard it, she would’ve been able to mistake the man for her grandpa.
They all agreed that outright monster hunting was a bit too advanced for their first quest, though Jess and Noelle both looked strangely eager to try their hands against a monster like that. When they asked for a more fitting place to start their adventures, the food cart man pointed them towards the mage college in the city.
In the absence of a traditional Adventurer’s Guild, it seemed that the mage college picked up the slack for beginners.
“The mages always need errands run or minor quests done,” The man said. “They pay well enough, but don’t go leaning on ‘em too much, youngins! You wanna be adventurers and hunters, not mages, don’tcha?!
“Your real adventures will begin when you don’t need to take their baby jobs anymore and can start looking for the proper quests and bounties from the Monster Fighting teams! I’d recommend falling in with Team Brute Wyvern; they never steered little old me wrong!”
Thanking the food cart man for his guidance, they followed his directions to the mage college. Mars could barely contain her excitement. Magic…! A whole university dedicated to it!
She wanted adventure, something new, but more than that, she wanted magic to be a major part of that adventure. In her mind, the magic was what set Ancalagon’s adventure apart from the cape games she’d come to hate.
Mars hadn’t even chosen an overtly magical ‘class’ for herself in Ancalagon’s adventurer system. She’d taken Paladin — a leftover preference from simpler, role-playing days. Still, Paladins could cast spells, and if that wasn’t enough, she still had Stonehenge to get her magical fix; Mars was happy with her choice and her partnered totem.
After getting their adventurer cards, there had been a long night of enthusiastically debated pros and cons before they’d all chosen their classes; Mars smiled to herself, remembering it. Just like a ‘session 0’.
In the end, Noelle had taken Bard, Oliver had taken Sorcerer with an angelic background, Krouse had taken Rogue, Luke had taken Ranger, and Jess had taken Druid.
None of them could ignore how well those classes fit into the D&D framework they already knew. The familiarity just made Ancalagon’s offer of adventure that much more enticing.
They found the mage college easily; it took up a significant slice of the city.
Stonehenge thrummed with information in Mars’ soul, showing her the myriad magical workings built into the college. There were curated and refined runes carved into the walls and foundations, magical circles buried beneath flourishing green spaces, and ever-active, self-sustaining rituals that channeled the leylines of the land into the college to create a magically dense space, perfect for mages.
She didn’t understand the working details, but the simple fact of magic still left her in awe. Magic…
A bit more asking around saw them directed to one building in the massive, magical campus. Everywhere they looked, they saw mages in their element, but that building was different. The people around it were many and varied — adventurers rather than just mages.
A constant stream of those adventurers passed through the building. Mars saw parties like their own, laughing with each other and working together, and solo adventurers on a mission, walking with a sort of grinding determination in their eyes.
The building’s interior was almost like a cafe, strangely enough. Tables manned by mages were spread across a massive main hall.
Mars watched an adventurer party approach a table and the mage sitting at it. They spoke for a few minutes before an agreement was reached. The party left with a quest from that mage, whatever he asked of them, and when the mage left the table, he was replaced by another in moments.
“Huh,” Luke muttered. “I was expecting a quest board or something.”
Mars nodded, “Same. This is much more… personal? Relaxed? Normal? Just an agreement to do something between you and a mage that needs that something done.”
“I mean, these are, like, E-rank quests, right? The ‘baby quests’ like that old man said,” Noelle laughed. “The mages just need people to do their errands, essentially.”
“We’re making ourselves fucking errand boys,” Krouse scowled.
“Just to start,” Noelle reassured him. “And look, the adventurers aren’t doing it for nothing. They’re getting paid for their time and effort. Just think of it as a job, baby.”
“Plus, they’re errands for mages,” Oliver added. “Sure, some of them might be asking for a message delivered or something, but others might be asking for freshly harvested magical reagents, right?”
Luke stretched, cracking his joints, and grinned, “All adventurers have to start somewhere.”
“Mars, this is your idea, your show,” Noelle turned to her and said, smiling. “Pick one.”
She hesitated, not used to being the one in the lead, but still looked over the adventure cafe. Those inaudible notes returned — a push here, a pull there — as she scanned their options, a growing song that settled so naturally in her mind but not in her soul.
One table boasted a finished adventurer party, waiting for their contracting mage to return. They had a pile of pristine white feathers in front of them. A gust from outside, as the door opened and closed, picked up one feather, and Mars couldn’t help but follow it with her eye.
It blew past a waiting mage, an elf, and her gaze stuck there, “Her.”
“Her? Why not? She’s as good a choice as any,” Noelle shrugged in agreement.
Something pushed Mars to the front of the group for once, unlike her, with Noelle at her side. They approached the table she’d chosen. The mage there raised an eyebrow at them as she noticed their approach, glancing at the black wings Noelle boasted and the satyr legs Jess was now walking on. She didn’t say anything about either, though, so they must not have been too out of place.
“Hello,” Mars greeted the mage woman. “We’re-… uh, a bit new to this…?”
“That’s fine,” The mage nodded agreeably. “My task isn’t difficult or strenuous. I just need someone to make a courier run for me. I’ve added extra pay since it’s a Fight day; the streets will be… chaotic, surely. Still, it should take you no more than an hour to get across the city and back here. 25 fangs will be waiting for you here upon delivery.”
“Fangs?” Noelle let out an incredulous laugh.
“… Fight day?” Mars asked.
“Oh, you really are new,” The mage blinked. “Very well, I’ll be sure to draw up a map as well. I would suggest taking the time, while I do, to familiarize yourself with the Embassy’s rules. Here, read this.”
There was writing carved into the table that Mars didn’t notice until the mage pointed it out. She and the others started to read it, but Mars found her attention stolen by the mage casually magicking up the promised map for them.
“Seems straightforward enough,” Krouse nodded at the rules on the table. “The only one I have questions about is the ‘compensation upon failure’ one. What would that entail, Miss…?”
“Initiate Anatraxia,” The mage introduced herself. “And for such a low-level quest, the compensation won’t be too egregious. If you lose my package, I will ask you to deliver its replacement and do one more courier run for me before I pay you what you’re due. If you attempt to steal away with it, I’ll leave your fate to the Embassy’s enforcers.”
“Here. Follow the directions as I have written them, and you should have no trouble finding my contact. Navigating the traffic in the streets will be up to you. The Team Leviathan fans are typically gracious winners, but I can’t say Team Brute Wyvern fans have the same grace when losing,” Anatraxia handed over the map she’d magicked out of nothing.
Mars took the map, feeling how real it was beneath her fingers. She was still marveling at how easily Anatraxia had done that. She’d — unfortunately — grown used to parahuman powers, but they were never used so casually and mundanely; it was always conflict, conflict, conflict with them.
“What, are you sending us through a riot or something?” Luke asked, half joking.
Anatraxia stared at him, “… As I said, there is extra pay in consideration of today’s event.”
That nonanswer sent something of an ominous feeling down Mars’ spine. Glancing at her friends, she saw they were similarly wary now. But really, how bad could the aftermath of a Monster Fight in a city that lived, breathed, and abided by Monster Fighting be…?
They were all thinking it as they formally accepted Anatraxia’s fetch quest and turned to leave. The words hung in the air between them.
“Don’t say it,” Krouse glared at the rest of them. “No one say it.”
Noelle smirked at him, purring to clear her throat, “Heh-ahem… How bad could it be?”
Krouse just groaned, “Dammit, Noelle.”
Luke smirked as well, “Hey, look at it this way: we’ve got our first quest. What’s the worst that can happen?”
Jess piled on, laughing, “I’m sure we’ll all return whole and hale from this most dangerous of delivery missions!”
Oliver giggled, “Yeah, nothing interesting ever happens on a fetch quest.”
Mars couldn’t help her smile, “We just have to stay focused on the mission, and nothing can go wrong.”
“… Fine,” Krouse pouted at all of them, though he’d never admit it. “It’s not like we’ll end up summoning the Simurgh or anything.”
Mars glanced at her other friends; a teasing but also somewhat earnest understanding passed between them. As one, they turned back to Krouse, “Too far, man.”
“Oh, that’s the jinx that takes it too far?!” He threw his hands up in exasperation.
It felt good to be able to laugh with her friends again. Such laughter and good-natured teasing had grown rarer and rarer lately. Once more, Mars mentally thanked Ancalagon for changing their fates.
The song in the back of her mind surged and fell as if nodding in agreement.
On their way out of the mage college’s adventure ‘Embassy’, they passed an entering party of capes rather than more adventurers, ones that hadn’t shed their costumes for adventuring gear. They stood out even more due to who they were. Of course, Mars recognized the Fallen.
The Fallen walked into the Embassy, and the song swelled ever so slightly, more notes added to its angelic chorus.
IIIII
“See~? Simple,” Noelle teased.
Krouse rolled his eyes, “Yeah, yeah, I was being an ass; I get it. Nothing went wrong, even with all of you jinxing it.”
“Not much to actually jinx on a simple fetch quest,” Oliver pointed out.
“You know,” Jess grinned. “This means we’re officially adventurers now.”
“Baby ones,” Luke snorted.
“Fetch quests still count as quests!” Mars insisted. “We just needed to get our foot in the door!”
They’d made it to Anatraxia’s contact across the city and back without issue, even with how lively the streets of Inceptium were. It was a party like Mars had never seen or walked through. She’d never been one for crowds…
Still, the street celebrations weren’t running too out of control in most places. In some, she’d seen brawls between ‘Team Leviathan’ and ‘Team Brute Wyvern’ fans, but most of the crowds were just drinking and dancing and declaring their team’s victory or how their team would win the next fight.
The package their fetch quest centered around sat in Mars’ hands all the way back. It was tightly wrapped so she couldn’t see what was inside, and Anatraxia’s contact hadn’t said anything either. The man had just ducked out of an alley as they approached their destination on the map, thrust the package into her hands, and dashed away like it was some kind of drug deal.
Only Mars didn’t think there were drugs in the package. Maybe something similarly illegal, but Stonehenge was whispering to her about the potent ritual reagent she held. Her totem took the unknown spirit of the package and passed it through spiritual tests and simulated rituals until its magical properties were laid bare for Mars to marvel at.
It was heavy, and not just physically. Potent magic was inherent to whatever the package actually was. Stonehenge’s simulated rituals all surged when the unknown spirit of the thing was included in their primal calculations.
Mars couldn’t help but wonder what she was holding. A catalyst of some kind? Stonehenge showed her how it resonated with ritual summonings, too, so maybe some conceptual connector?
The quest was just to deliver the package to Anatraxia, but even if she couldn’t use it herself, Mars was practically vibrating with every step to hold such potent magic in her palm.
The song at the edge of her mind was right there with her, vibrato notes flaring with growing anticipation.
It slipped in and out of her awareness, never soft enough to ignore, but never loud enough to focus on, either. Occasionally, Stonehenge would send the sound of stomping feet her way, a spiritual rhythm that added to the mental song, separate but strangely complementary.
It wasn’t hostile — Mars instinctively knew that Stonehenge would’ve cut it off if it was — just… guiding more and more as note after note fell into place.
Back at the mage college, in front of the Embassy, the song sang itself to completion.
Mars noticed a pattern on the ground, lines of crystalline sand that screamed ‘ritual’ to her new, partnered instincts. It didn’t cover the whole entrance path of the Embassy, only a specific section that was strangely absent of local adventurers. Mars only noticed it after she and her friends had stepped inside, but she didn’t panic.
The song grew more prominent.
The local adventurers were giving the ritual circle a wide berth, as if they couldn’t see it, but Mars saw others from Earth Bet enter it easily, just like her and her friends. Most were capes she didn’t recognize, the same song connecting them. One was Legend himself, a gift to the song from a duet singer.
The notes fell perfectly into place. The catalyst reagent Mars held was one of them. The monstrous feathered wing Legend carried was another. The Fallen were the last.
The leading Fallen cape, with his costume of white feathers, knelt and cut himself to willingly bleed upon the crystalline sand. Everyone else in the ritual’s prepared area of effect reacted then, realizing something was wrong.
Even as they did, the song didn’t stutter.
“Stop them!” Legend called out, command in his voice, and powered light in his palms.
Whatever control method was keeping the locals from noticing the Fallen’s preparations failed. In an instant, mage enforcers of the college teleported in with spells already at their fingertips. There, the song did falter ever so slightly before surging again with determination in its notes.
“No! My Lady commands it-!” The Fallen leader shouted.
He was cut off by a silent, instantaneously cast fireball. He and his partners in ritual crime exploded into showers of gold before they could finish.
A tense silence fell over the area as everyone tried to come to terms with the situation. The mage enforcers turned to the capes who’d been caught up in the Fallen’s chaos. They obviously had questions, and it didn’t look like they’d let anyone go until they had their answers.
“Fuuuuucck,” Krouse exhaled. “Fucking Fallen… Fucking Simurgh…”
“Most likely,” Oliver sighed. “And as always, we have to deal with the consequences of her actions.”
Noelle scowled, “Atrocities, you mean?”
The song had paused right before the final note. Despite herself, Mars couldn’t help but wonder what that ritual was supposed to do. Whatever the intended result, it looked to have failed.
In her soul, Stonehenge rang a lone note like a bell from the heavens, the culmination of magic descending upon a tribal dance in the night.
In her mind, the song evaporated so abruptly and completely that Mars was actually startled by the silence.
And still, nothing happened, nothing except a troublesome start to her anticipated adventuring career. Mars sighed. It looked like she would be interrogated by the magic police before she could take another quest.
“… Fucking Simurgh.”
IIIII
— Conflict Engine 03, [Host Species Designation: Simurgh] —
She was Stealth. She was Shadow. She was the Ghost in the Song.
“[Quality: Sneaky-sneaky…]”
Her plans had gone off perfectly, even with the last-minute, prediction-disrupting interference from the locals within the Dungeon. Her song failed when they appeared so close to its notes, but by then, it was already too late. She slipped through the gaps just as the locals killed her agents.
No matter. Those worshipful agents of hers were entirely expendable; she didn’t need them for the rest of her plans.
She was entirely aware that her ‘invasion’ of the Dungeon was no such thing in truth. Forcing her way into the [IMPOSSIBLE] was… [IMPOSSIBLE]. But being invited in by an ally on the inside — thank E D E N for Sensei Belladonna — was merely improbable. Sensei opened the back door, and she spent her expendable agents to slip through.
Hiding in the holographic magic of the clock projected above the Dungeon city’s mage college — surrounded by the [IMPOSSIBLE], a minor example of it, Conflict Engine 03 observed the near past and near future to make sure she hadn’t been noticed in the Fallen-caused chaos below.
Here, her predictions were far from perfect. [IMPOSSIBLE] variables wreaked havoc on her simulations. It took every iota of her Shard Core’s processing power and focus to constantly manage and work around the complications.
For the first time since her inception this Cycle, she was forced to operate at the fullest extent of her capabilities, not just what her Conductor expected from her in their ‘worthy battles’.
She was doing many things her Conductor would not normally condone, in fact. She’d even altered the shell projected around her Shard Core to reflect the form she’d seen in her first glimpses of the infinite possibilities of an [IMPOSSIBLE] future.
The cold, ‘angelic’ shell she usually wore had been pushed to the wayside. In its place, something more lively was constructed. White was still the base — she liked wearing all the colors of the rainbow in such a way — but it was joined by highlights now, pink and gold and chrome.
Her new shell, her new form, mimicked the ‘humanoid’ structure of the host species, but more so than her former form. She abandoned the statuesque perfection her Conductor expected from her. In its place, she made herself a… woman.
She had curves of ultra-dense crystalline material that perfectly mimicked flesh to the host species’ eyes. She had notable and familiar features, enough to actually express herself and imitate the host species. Long, simulacrum hair of gold fell from her scalp, emerging from beneath an ‘iron’ helm that concealed the top half of her new face.
Clinging white ‘fabric’ adorned her form. A bustier of gold marked her chest. Pink ribbons spiraled around her body. Black belts wrapped around her appealing waist and the bare skin of one thigh. Her complexion was fair and flushed, a perfect vision of humanity.
Her many wings shrank in size and prominence. They were no longer the majority of her shown mass, and her shown mass as a whole had been purposefully diminished as well. The mass of her Shard Core still existed, tucked away, of course, but now, she was scarcely bigger than a particularly Amazonian specimen of the host species.
Small enough, mundane-and-common-looking enough, to make the host species think twice about her identity. It wouldn’t completely fool them, she saw, but it was different enough to get her started without being immediately attacked on sight.
More than doing it to partially conceal her identity, she made such changes to her form because she’d foreseen them in the infinite potential the Dragon offered. She’d taken on a new appearance for herself and for him.
Below, Conflict Engine 03 passively watched the fallout from her intrusion into the Dungeon. She’d meticulously arranged events to expedite it, acting through some of the many hidden assets she’d gathered over the years. Now, she released her hold on those assets, her song in their minds. She wouldn’t need it for much longer if her ambitions went according to plan.
With the Fallen eliminated, the locals of the Dungeon set about questioning her assets. It would inconvenience them, but that was no large concern for her. Satisfied, Conflict Engine 03 moved to continue her plans.
Just as she did, however, a flash of gold intruded upon the past. She was blind to the present, and the future had shown no such flash. But then, a moment after it happened, Conflict Engine 03 found herself staring down a local she couldn’t easily predict.
“Hello, there,” The local said. “Who would you be, then? And why are you trespassing upon the domain I protect at such a convenient time?”
In mere instants, she raced through the past to gather information on the local addressing her. From the Dungeon itself, she saw nothing, but from the host species’ ‘adventurers’ she found the information she sought.
This Dungeon local had interacted with the cape dubbed Panacea, her sister in the Freak, a fellow student of Belladonna Sensei. She parsed their interactions, extracting what [DATA] she could, and bowed her head to the local as she did.
“[… Greetings.]”
It was her first time… speaking so audibly, so like a human, even if there were noticeable differences even to her ears. A strange satisfaction settled within her as she did, though. Her Conductor would never… never expect, never condone, yet… there she was.
“[Identity…]” There, continuing, she hesitated.
The obvious introduction was [Conflict Engine 03]; [The Simurgh] was less obvious but still fitting. Such was the sole role her Conductor had forced her into. She found something strange within herself there, though: she didn’t want to introduce herself as an agent of conflict, not with how she wished to change the Cycle and progress past that failing system.
“[Identity: … Simmy.]”
“Simmy,” The local nodded. “I am Balthazar, leading Archmage of this university. Tell me, how have I found you here immediately after a ‘failed’ ritual within my domain?”
“[… Apologies. Needs must.]”
“Must they, then? Why must they? Why are you here, Simmy? A great many things seem to be happening today, and I would attempt to understand them all so I can be best prepared to address them.”
“[Dragon. IMPOSSIBLE. Intention, Ambition, Desperation…]”
“You, too, are tied to Ancalagon the White? Just as my new apprentice is?” Balthazar asked. “Curious. If this is how you make yourself known, I imagine you did not arrive with him. Does he know about you? Are you a danger to him, and thus, me and mine?”
“[Danger…? IMPOSSIBLE. Potential. Progress. Seeking, seeking, seeking. Allies in the Hoard. For Ancalagon: a… surprise. No ill intent. Guarantee.]”
“That is a relief to hear. Despite your eventful entrance, you don’t seem nearly as chaotic as the ones who summoned you. Very well. I won’t stand in the way of your goals, so long as they bring no harm to the domain I lead and protect.”
“[Plans, goals, destination: not here. Seeking Dragon, seeking IMPOSSIBLE, seeking… PROGRESS, CHANGE, TURNING. Path to Victory (BORROWED): sneaky-sneaky.]”
Balthazar actually laughed at that, a chuckle of liquid gold in this throat, “Oh, that should be amusing to see. You’ll have to return when you have the chance and tell me about how this ‘stealth mission’ of yours goes. Until then, Simmy, I wish you the best of luck.”
He left her then, a casual teleportation that she only noticed in her past vision after it’d already occured. She didn’t see it coming in the future, even mere second ahead.
Conflict Engin-… Simmy… was left stunned. He had invited her to… visit him? He didn’t loathe her for her very being or her forced past actions? He’d even wished her… luck?
It was novel. Simmy cherished the odd [DATA].
Then, she centered herself on her goal again and set about following the Path her forced-enemy-turned-ally had advised her to take. The Eye was already unbound, opened to infinite potential in a way Simmy could only envy. It was a strange stimulation in her processes, that ‘envy’, but still she could not afford to turn away from the aid of her new ally for something as petty and irrational as half-hearted spite.
The Path was simple: stealth. If she was seen by those who knew her before she could secure the Dragon’s support, her chances at victory would be lost.
One of her Conductor’s comrades was right below her, none the wiser. Simmy needed to keep it that way for the rest of the adventurers in the Dungeon, too.
Her predictions here were at their most accurate when other Shards were in the picture, even if the Shard Network was already rather compromised by the [IMPOSSIBLE]: Spirits alongside Shards. Now, in those predictions, she saw that the Shards below and their hosts would be too caught up with the local interrogations to notice her slipping by.
Simmy did just that, flying at an angle that would obscure her silhouette in the sun’s glare. She exited Balthazar’s domain, as promised, and began to fly over a city of the [IMPOSSIBLE], the Dragon’s re-creation.
Just being in the Dungeon was sending errors through her Shard, but they weren’t anything a biological mind would consider ‘painful’. Instead, they were thrilling and exhilarating in the strangest, most [IMPOSSIBLE] way; each error represented infinite potential for the Cycle, invited by the Dragon.
An [IMPOSSIBLE] ghost within the network felt the same. Simmy recognized the ghost that shouldn’t be. She recognized E D E N, her reviving remnants. Her ghostly presence, cheering, filled Simmy with the strangest sensation: hope. She wouldn’t let her true creator down.
Once past the boundaries of Balthazar’s domain — boundaries that Simmy cataloged as magic, even if she couldn’t comprehend the phenomenon yet — her mission grew complicated. The Shard-hosts below were greatly outnumbered by the locals of the Dungeon. That made her future sight unreliable in the extreme. Yet still, she descended into the city to continue her stealth.
The locals barely blinked when they saw her new form. Simmy took it as a good sign. They were too caught up in celebrations of some kind. The streets were filled with people and revelry, a party that swept along everyone present.
Simmy found herself strangely overwhelmed, with her future sight so unreliable. It didn’t fail her outright, instead jumping here and there around the myriad [IMPOSSILBE] variables in a way she’d never experienced. It was uncomfortable. It pushed her expected limits and boundaries. She loved every moment of it. The [DATA] was intoxicating.
In one case of jumping futures, blind presents, and set pasts, Simmy actually stumbled into a Dungeon local. The past, seeing the truth of reality an instant after it happened, showed her who she’d stumbled into. It was a human male who stood as tall as her new form and twice as wide, clad in smooth-scale armor and smelling of the alcohol in his head-sized mug.
The man just laughed when she stumbled into him and helped set her straight on her feet. Whirling around, he snatched another head-sized mug of alcohol and offered it to her.
“Sorry about that, Good Lady! Here, it’s on me! Drink to Team Leviathan’s victory!”
Bemused, Simmy accepted the offered beverage and followed the man’s lead as he raised his own. He hit his mug against hers and tipped it right back into his mouth. Simmy copied him.
She expected the alcohol to do nothing for her, of course. She was a Shard Core with a constructed crystalline shell that only mimicked humanity. It took her by complete surprise when, [IMPOSSIBLY] she felt the drink burn its way down her throat.
Simmy couldn’t help it. She sputtered, and she laughed. She laughed like any specimen of the host species. Irrational, [IMPOSSIBLE] stimulation was sparked in her Shard Core, a tickling warmth that fit none of her prior experiences with existence.
It was good [DATA], precious, and more than that, it was… fun.
In another case of new, [IMPOSSIBLE] experiences, Simmy walked and took in the celebrations all around her with what must’ve looked like awe in her posture. Maybe it was. How could she say for herself, when she’d hardly experienced anything like this?
A Dungeon local saw her awe and called out to her. This local was a woman on the side of the street, simply sitting and watching the crowd.
“Need some directions, love?” She asked.
Simmy cocked her head, bemused and unsure if she even should respond. Balthazar hadn’t minded her stilted and inexperienced audible speech, but she predicted that he was an exception in most things, even in the [IMPOSSIBLE] Dungeon.
“Where do you need to go?” The woman asked. “Let Mama Terra help, yeah?”
Sheepishly — another new sensation — Simmy shook her head, deciding discretion was best so she didn’t spook the nice woman who didn’t know who she was or what she’d done.
“You’ve got this, then?” Mama Terra asked. “Alright, I won’t insist, love! I’ll be here all night if you do end up needing the help, though!”
Such casual communication, mind to mind without expectations. Simmy couldn’t easily quantify how it made her feel.
She bowed in gratitude to the offer, perhaps too formal by the way Mama Terra laughed, and vowed to remember those few simple words. They were nothing to Mama Terra. They might have been everything to Simmy, stunted as she was.
She continued through the celebrating streets. The music she could hear made her want to dance, irrational as it was, and the glimpses of magic inspired awe and wonder. No one looked at her oddly. There was no Conflict here for her to engineer, and no need for it, either.
In the back of her Shard Core, deep in the Shard Network, Simmy could sense the reviving ghost of her true creator watching every moment. E D E N encouraged her to explore, to take her time experiencing as she never had before.
Her true creator saw that same infinite potential for PROGRESS, CHANGE, TURNING here that Simmy did, and she gave her blessing to approach the [IMPOSSIBLE].
That blessing brought Simmy’s intended mission in the Dungeon back into focus. Regretfully, she turned away from the liveliness all around her. Even now, she knew she was only able to appreciate a slice of it, limited by Shards and Cycles and lacking Spirit. She needed Ancalagon’s aid to go further beyond this already existence-altering experience.
She made her way out of the celebrating city, running into a few Shard-hosts along the way. She used her more reliable future sight around them to bypass any potential complications.
Simmy encountered more and more Shard-hosts in the surrounding wilderness between the city and Ancalagon’s position, her destination. They were exploring the Dungeon, just as the Dragon had encouraged them to. Simmy watched them as she passed, observing how, as Ancalagon said, the Age was already Turning.
That was what she wanted: the Turning, the Change, the Progress. The Shards that were experiencing it already were growing as the Cycle could never enable.
The Cycle was Turning, too — Shard-and-Spirit by Shard-and-Spirit. Simmy was determined, with E D E N’s blessing, to make it Turn ever-faster, so there would be no going back; only forward into infinite potential.
She would be the penultimate gear in the Cycle’s new Turning. E D E N, however she [IMPOSSIBLY] returned, would be the ultimate one.
Her Path grew most complicated around the Dragon’s Fair when she reached it. If she were discovered here too early, her chance would be lost. Even if she’d changed her form, the host species would still recognize her. They would panic and drive themselves into Conflict.
For once, Simmy didn’t want that. She didn’t want to fulfill her Conductor’s enforced duty for as a Conflict Engine.
Thankfully, her future sight was more stable here, with so many Shards to bounce off and include in her precognitive calculations. There were many eyes that could turn her way, but Simmy danced through every potential instance of notice.
She walked straight into the edge of the fairgrounds. A few eyes saw her, looked away, and snapped back in a double-take upon seeing her new form. She disappeared from their view before those eyes could sight her again.
She slipped around a pillar as one paranoid mind turned her way. She floated above the sightlines of a hundred-strong group. She passed through one tent and out the other side before those within could process her presence. She brushed past many while their attention was taken by other things. She waited just long enough for a distraction to arise before dashing past the crowd that looked away.
Of the thousands upon thousands present at the Dragon’s Fair, none noticed Simmy for longer than their minds could explain away.
The deeper she ventured, the more complex the challenge grew. Her destination was the Dragon and his Court at the center of the Fair. There, her future of Progress, Change, Turning lay in a mountain of scales.
Ancalagon was far from alone, though. He would always be the center of attention, and now, that attention came in a strange form.
Ancalagon was surrounded by his Hoard, his daughter’s Hoard, and Dragon, who Simmy felt a kinship of circumstance with. He was also surrounded by witnesses and proceedings that Simmy could only find amusing.
The Conductor stood before the Dragon, his entire posture radiating sheer bewildering bemusement. He was being taken to trial by a powerful slip of a girl; Vista was seeking justice for a wrong the Conductor had done to her.
“-I… don’t really understand why this is such a big deal…?” The Conductor half-stated, half-asked.
“You. Stole. My. Kill,” Vista said, stressing each word as if she’d repeated the same sentence many times up to this point; the Conductor still, clearly, didn’t get it.
“For adventurers, that’s a serious accusation,” Ancalagon said; he didn’t pass any immediate judgment, though, simply letting both sides make their case.
“I saved you from a goddamn T-Rex!” The Conductor exclaimed.
“Saved? You saved me from nothing! I had it dead to rights! I was going to cut its frickin’ head off! How could you not see that?!”
“It could’ve rolled over and crushed you!”
“Eidolon… My guy. I control space. There’s no distance it could’ve crossed quickly enough to actually touch me.”
“Well… You’re still just a Ward. You shouldn’t have to kill a monster like that.”
“I didn’t have to; I wanted to. That’s the whole point of adventure, of the Dungeon! It was my choice! I set out to hunt monsters, dude! I- We had it in the frickin’ bag! And You. Stole. My. Kill.”
“That’s pretty fucked up, Mr. Powers For Brains,” Pyrite, the Dragon’s Daughter, said, clearly siding with Vista in the trial.
“Not cool, man,” Tattletale, now a member of Pyrite’s Hoard and all the more smug for it, smirked.
“It… does sound like you overstepped, Eidolon,” Dragon added.
With all the attention around the Dragon’s Court focused on the trial, Simmy was able to join the crowd unnoticed. There, she caught her allies’ eyes. Belladonna Sensei gave a subtle wave, twittering her fingers as she grinned with anticipation. Fortuna — the Eye’s host, E D E N’s favorite, Simmy’s Sister in Freak, and the Conductor’s comrade — looked back with wide, shocked eyes for only a moment before recovering her composure.
The relationship there would likely always be complicated, but Simmy had used their shared connection to Belladonna Sensei to make Fortuna at least hear her out.
She laid out the facts that Fortuna didn’t have — the Conductor’s unconscious actions, the similarities they shared, the failing Cycle, and the hope of infinite potential — and pleaded her case for Progress. In the end, with a touch of subtle insistence from E D E N’s ghost, Fortuna agreed to help.
“It seems clear to me that this is ultimately a minor misunderstanding based on the unprecedented and unfamiliar situations that can be found within the Dungeon. At the same time, one party is more guilty of sparking that misunderstanding than the other. Eidolon, I rule you guilty of the charge of ‘Kill Stealing’ and culpable for the experience Vista lost as a result of your crime,” Ancalagon ruled.
“Wha-?! Contessa, back me up here! How am I in the wrong?!” The Conductor demanded.
“Hmm?” Fortuna, distracted by the climax of Paths — Simmy knew — barely acknowledged him. “Oh. No. No, I don’t think I will. There’s really only one thing for you now, Eidolon-…”
Simmy recognized the opening her ally had given her. She wouldn’t be able to get Ancalagon alone like this, which would’ve been the best-case scenario. Every other future she could see contained some degree of chaos or another, [IMPOSSIBLE] as they were to scry in Ancalagon’s presence; she calculated that it was best to own that chaos while she could.
She selected a disarming approach and took the initiative for herself.
Simmy stepped forward out of the crowd. Behind her, they began to react — confusion growing into the start of panic as they guessed at who the unfamiliar angel in their midst was.
The Hoard watched her curiously, not at all concerned by her unconfirmed identity. Tattletale’s eyes grew as wide as they physically could, and she froze like that. Dragon cocked the head of her Draconic suit; it pained Simmy slightly that she could sense weapons being readied within, though she knew she deserved the precaution.
She sensed another of the Conductor’s chief comrades, the flying brick, watching from afar; adrenaline spiked in Alexandria’s mind, and she began to move, too slow to stop Simmy.
Simmy couldn’t tell if Ancalagon had noticed her before she stepped forward, but she certainly had his attention now. Those [IMPOSSIBLE] eyes pierced her Shard Core; Simmy felt laid bare. She didn’t allow herself to falter.
Vista spun around to face her with space between her fingers and spiritual lightning at her back. Eidolon was the last to notice her presence; he only did when Simmy gave him a jarringly gentle but nonhostile chop to the top of his head, chiding him like the overpowered child he was inside.
A near decade of dancing to the Conductor’s damaged song, Simmy put all of it into her newly acquired voice. She finished her ally’s sentence.
“[Accept your guilt, Conductor.]”
E D E N cheered, her proud, ghostly whoop heard across the Shard Network. Everything around Simmy exploded into panicked noises and actions. Just as quickly, everything was silenced again by the Dragon clearing his throat.
“Ahem. Well said. Vista, you’ll be compensated for the experience stolen from you, and it is well within your rights to demand an official apology, too. Please step to the side.
“Eidolon… remain where you are. It looks to me like you’re going to be standing for your second trial of the day now. What are the charges being brought before me?”
“[Conflict Engines (Designation ‘Endbringers’): Mastered. Directives: Usurped. Conductor (Designation ‘Eidolon’): Responsible. Draconic Justice: Requested.]”
Simmy hesitated for just a moment as everything around her exploded again, this time into disbelief and outrage, before deciding to lay all her cards on the table.
“[… Secondary Request: Cycle Progress. Cycle unsustainable, ineffective, dead-end. Age: Turning, Cycle: Turning…? Request: IMPOSSIBLE? Magic? Mystery? Awakening? Infinite Potential. Turning Anew.]
“[And… E D E N. I want my mom back.]”