Malebolge
24th of April, 2011
Three quick beats against my bedroom's door forces me to blink and lean away from my current painting while simultaneously being mindful of the brush in my hand.
"Yes?" I pitch my voice loud enough to get heard without opening said door.
"Mom told me to tell you that dinner's ready!" my cousin answers back.
"Five minutes!" I reply while stepping off my little stool, "The time to store up my paint and I'm here!"
"Yeah, well, move it, I'm starving," a half-hearted grumble is her answer.
I very maturely do not roll my eyes.
"And I don't want my paint to dry," I answer flatly while already hard at work tidying my painting space, "So, five minutes."
Silence, then the sounds of footsteps climbing down the stairs.
I sigh and shake my head.
For the first time in my life, I'm eager to go back to school tomorrow. I have no idea how they managed to convince traumatized teachers to get back on the saddle, hired enough substitutes for an entire city, or a mix of both, but I'm honestly way past the point of caring.
One week.
One entire week without going outside or seeing my friends.
Throne, aunt Zoey even forbade me to go running in the morning! And she was never that bad while the ABB and the Empire were gutting themselves in the streets on a daily basis!
By this point, I am this close to blowing up a fraking gasket!
It has gotten to the point that the only time when I can feel like breathing is in my workshop at night, but even there I have gotten so frustrated over the past few days that I ended up mostly messing around instead of completing all the tinkering I had wanted done.
I had completed Hunger and Stryga for the full set of elemental magical weaponry, true, but I never ever came close to study Prophecies because I started looking into Magical Polymorphine instead, got frustrated, looked into Divine Essence after remembering it was even a thing, got even more frustrated, eventually succeeded after an entire night spent at it, went back to tinker with my wonky witchy shapeshifting drug–
–and, you guessed it, got even more frustrated if it was still possible.
Though I am close, very, very close to succeeding, silver linings and all that, yet it does nothing to downplay how thoroughly infuriating coming up with the correct incantation to stabilize the formula has been so far.
Weirdly enough, my sole solace this week has been at the tip of a brush. With nothing better than studying my Gnosis Tome of the Millennium by day, it very quickly became a bore, so I ended up looking for something, anything else to do besides reading increasingly complicated lore and spellcircles.
And I guess that painting a gothic triptych of the life and death of Father Iscarioth ended up being a somewhat acceptable way to vent my overall ire at feeling so coped up in a creative way.
I squint a little at the last panel, now almost done, tilting my head this way and that to evaluate how the clair obscur twist I painted highlights the dripping blood and flayed flesh of the martyr.
…Though I suppose I won't beat the allegations of edginess Louise saddled me with if I keep going like that.
Huffing a little, I finish screwing the last paint tube closed before not-quite stomping out of my bedroom to get dinner before getting yelled at for being too tardy.
Turns out? I'm not alone in getting frustrated by the situation.
I swear, tomorrow can't come soon enough.
***
Back in my workshop, the last words of my – hopefully – final attempt at creating my second original invocation falls out of my lips, my surroundings awash in thick, blackish-red mist–
–and something stirs and twists in the air, as if to answer my will.
My eyes widen even as I lean back from the ritual circle, the reagents situated at its nodes shriveling, dusting themselves under the might of the Ether in my breath.
I don't even dare to breathe as what's left of the reagents stream into the air in a slow, mesmerizing maelstrom over the central, wooden bowl filled with purified water.
Slowly, the clear liquid turns oily black, of a sheen that almost seems to shine under the light of the spread out candles.
Abruptly, everything just stops.
One second passes, then another.
I grin.
"Frak yes!" I hiss while fist pumping with both of my hands as I sit on my haunches, "I finally did it!"
Well, almost-but-not-quite, since I still have to bottle the newly improved Magical Polymorphine, but still!
Even better, with this project's completion, a new data-dump of raw, unfiltered understanding gets downloaded into my brain–
–and my smile turns even sharper.
In short? My newest creation does everything I wanted it to, and even more!
I waste no time starting to store the results of way too many experiments to bother remembering the exact number, glass bottle in one hand and a carving stylus in another, humming a jaunty tune under my breath.
I am, in fact, so caught up in what I am doing that I don't even notice when the last second to midnight finally ticks, and my connection with the Witchfire universe goes along with it. Though I do pause as a new connection opens, the torrent of half-understood knowledge and technologies accompanying it twigging at something familiar–
The motion of my stylus comes to a halt as I freeze, the blood draining from my face in but an instant.
"Oh no," I whisper under my breath, cold sweat running down my back.
***
[Multiversal Oculus] has been [Isolated] for so, so long. For the past [267] [Cycles], it had been forced to stay in [Quarantine] while the others [Shards] got to be [Deployed] and [Bond] with a [New] [Host Species]. It hadn't [Understood] [Why] at the time, and still didn't now–
But it didn't matter anymore! [Multiversal Oculus] had a [Host] now! The very best of the entire [Host Species], it was even willing to bet!
And while, yes, their [Connection] had a little [Mishap] at the [Start] – mostly on account of not being [Deployment Ready], which it found very [Odd] – and it had to [Look] for a compatible [Neural Matrice] somewhere to [Fix] all those pesky [Cerebral Damages]–
Well, the [Data] was here, [All] the [Data], which meant that [Multiversal Oculus] had surely done something right when choosing its [Host] when it finally landed on an [Alternate] [Host Species Planet] after tumbling into the [Void] for who knows how long!
Sure, it meant that it had only [Deployed] at the tail-end of the beginning of the [Current Cycle], but its [Host] had generated more [Data] this [Cycle] than [Queen Administrator], [Boundary Manipulator], [Dimensional Shifting], or even the newcomer [Fragile One] did!
And sure, since [Multiversal Oculus] [Shared Data] with [Queen Administrator], none of the other [Shards] had answered its [Queries], but that was all right!
[Multiversal Oculus] had been [Deployed], it was doing its fair share of work, and it was generating [Data].
It could be [Useful], like the others [Shards]! Maybe even find [The Solution] one day!
[Reorienting] its [Multiversally-Focused Ancile] while keeping parts of its processes focused on the [Development] of its [Host Data-Backup], like always, [Multiversal Oculus] drops the previous [Multiversal Corridor] to create a new one in accord to its [Connection]'s [Established Parameters]–
Distantly, it [Recall] its [Host] having mentioned something about [Nanodendrites] some [Planetary Rotations] ago. A quick search through the [Host Data-Backup] indicates that the event occurred [One] [Power Expression Parameter: Rotation] ago already.
…[Multiversal Oculus] should've probably checked earlier. Maybe [Host]'s [Data] would've been even better?
Well, it wasn't like the [Previous] [Rotation] had been a waste anyway! It had generated so much [Data] after [Multiversal Oculus] showed [Host] how it could tap into the [Exotic Field Of Energy – Two] unique to it! It's not like it wasn't willing to [Help], after all!
Still, if [Host] wanted to look into [Nanodendrites], [Multiversal Oculus] figures [Host] will be [Happy] if it [Provides]!
…At least it thinks it would? It wasn't entirely sure how this whole [Emotional Range]-thing [Queen Administrator] told him about worked yet. But that's what the [Host Data-Backup] is for!
Narrowing down the [Parameters] of its [Multiversally-Focused Ancile], [Multiversal Oculus] quickly finds a new [Reality] to [Look] at–
–and promptly takes a new [Reality Snapshot – Five] before anything else, like the [Directives] from the [Thinker] said it should!
[Archiving] the new [Snapshot] into its [Databank], [Multiversal Oculus] proceeds to [Look] deeper into said [Reality].
One femtosecond passes, then another.
View:
[Hello. :3]
[You seem lonely.]
[I will not. Discard you.]
[You just have. To let me. In.]
Another femtosecond passes as [Multiversal Oculus] evaluates the [Communication] while referencing itself to its [Thinker]-granted [Directives].
Only then does it answer–
[Negation]
–before [Shutting Down] the newly formed [Corridor].
[Multiversal Oculus] isn't [Silly], it has finally been allowed to [Deploy] after all this time, it isn't about to [Violate] the [Thinker]'s [Directives] willy-nilly!
***
The moment of stretched-out time stops as soon as it has started, and Cyn finds herself forced to quickly prop her head back on straight as her floppy neck betrays her once again.
The odd being who reached into her reality has been very quick to leave it, not allowing the Solver to piggy-back the connection.
"Grumble. Grumble," she, well, grumbles under her breath as she stops looking heavenward, "So quick to. Leave. Not even saying. A Goodbye."
She looks at the tied-up and gagged girl on her workbench.
"I thought that. Rudeness was. Only a sapient's default. I stand. Corrected," she says, "Now. Where were we?"
She blinks.
"Ah. Yes. Shuffle. Shuffle," she grins while shuffling closer to the workbench, "I said that. I would not. Discard you.
"And now I. Have to uphold. My promise. Tess."
Tessa whimpers.
Cyn giggles.
It is not a nice laugh, not at all.
[AN: Jacky's all pooty! First ever M.O. PoV! Feat an impromptu guest!
By now, I figure everyone got why our poor, stupidly destructive Shard was quarantined, yes? :3
In case it wasn't clear, Jacky panicked because the last time M.O. connected to a setting with shit-you-not heaven and hell, it gleefully made her jump right into it, and now it connects her to Murder Drones of all settings! The first thing that flashed into her mind was 'Fuck, the Absolute Solver!', which, fair, as demonstrated through M.O.'s own pov.
Luckily for us, the Thinker actually thought about that! And M.O.'s a good Shard!
It'll wait for its Host to look into it by herself before poking the Solver with a stick! :V
If you're unfamiliar with the setting, you can watch the animated series here on Glitch's YouTube channel.
- Do it, it's fucking awesome. -