The forest near the Capital was drowned in perpetual gloom. A dense and unrelated fog hung between the dense foliage, reducing normal visibility to below 60 meters. Even with the Architect's voxlocation protocols active, they couldn't confidently say what was more than 160 meters ahead.
It was making them very, very nervous. Still, it seemed to confirm their hypothesis: this was where the Reaper was hiding her demesne. They levitated through the forest at a steady, yet impatient pace of 26 meters per second, leaving them only about 6 seconds to respond to any emerging threats. A column of two servitors, each carrying a heap of potentially-useful equipment, trundled along in their wake.
!! pattern alert [treeline (L & R), repetition n = 2] !!
Damn it all! Already?! The Architect thought, nullifying their momentum. This confirmed their hypothesis, for whatever that was worth. Metareal geometry leaking in from the Shade. The demesne's first line of defense.
They had followed the Reaper's trail this far entirely on the basis of her exit vector from the Spire. She had taken back Firmament-Flayer, which hadn't been an unexpected course of action. That she'd subverted the Spire's defenses had been extremely alarming, but would not have prompted them to pursue her in and of itself.
preliminary analysis returns: "mundanity" variable exploit | re-examining alert routines
They barely took notice of their partition's explanation. Not only had their adversary gotten lucky enough to find and escape with her weapon in the slim timeframe that the Architect themself was absent, but she'd also chanced upon one of the few courses of action that could force them out into the open.
She had taken a servitor with her. The material loss was painful, but ultimately insignificant - the reason they had to get it back was more personal. Much like their rig, each servitor housed a sub-partition of their externalized self. If it were to be destroyed without its connection to them being properly terminated...
Especially in a bubble of metareality like her stupid demesne! The Architect's coolant vents expelled a burst of toxic smog. They didn't want to think about it. The pair of servitors following them had already set up a Grid field emitter. The small, beacon-like device's bright-grey presence began averaging the surrounding terrain back down into Reality. This far out from their Spire, it also served to solidify their link to Eternity.
Wasting no time, they took off again, in the same direction. This process repeated six more times, slightly less far apart each time, before they had to set up a slightly larger relay. Blasting a clearing into the forest with a precise, furious incantation, they began constructing a small bunker for it together with their servitors.
I just have to get into her demesne, grab my servitor, and get out again. It wasn't a very detailed plan. They didn't know the size of her demesne, let alone if and how it was guarded. Other than being annoying to get to.
The trees in front of them made way for a winding, dilapidated road at several points, but the Architect had elected to ignore it. Suddenly, they picked something up at the edge of their vox-vision. They froze, staying perfectly still in mid-air.
The vehicle stopped, exactly at the edge of their visual range. The Architect's exocortex helpfully outlined the snout of a hooved beast of some sort, sticking out of the fog. As... funny... as a discorporate mule face floating through the fog may be, I've already vox-imaged the rest of the cart. So.
tension alleviated ✓
Destra, for their part, saw the barest outline of a trio of large, humanoid silhouettes floating in the woods. Martyr's bones! I think my heart just beat. What the fuck...?
Whatever this was, it could probably kill them if it was real - no matter what they did. If it wasn't, it'd make them look like a fool, at worst. Gathering their resolve, they shouted into the fog: "Not funny, Rax!"
impression = terrifying | ameliorate
The Architect translocated 40 meters directly ahead and landed on the dirt path. "Greetings, traveler. I mean you no harm."
What. Destra let go of the reins in bewilderment. No way! But she would've made an illusory one go like, 'Wah, I'm the scary dummy of the forest' or something. Which means...
They cleared their throat. Their acting was nowhere near as good as Rachise's, but it'd have to do. They didn't have to try very hard to sound apprehensive, anyway. "Um. Hey. You're that Architect person from downtown, yeah?"
"Correct." The Architect succinctly replied. Then, having been unprepared to speak and lacking any further social context, they failed to elaborate. Query identity [subject:cart driver]?
unknown | obscured by fog | hypothesis: local farm/lodge resident/owner
Makes sense. No one dangerous, then. Query social?
investigate identity | purpose | local occurrences
The Architect's vox modulator started back up. "And who might you be?"
Destra, who had been about to attempt a follow-up question themself, thought about it for a moment. "The name's Des... forde. Desforde. Milady. What brings you out here?"
"I am investigating the theft of an important part of my--"
!! don't say --self !! impression = weird !!
"--property. Hm." They concluded with a click. "Tell me, have you seen anything suspicious near here? The Shadeward veil is thin here, allegedly on account of a nearby undead's demesne. Known as the 'Reaper' - something of an outlaw even among the unliving, apparently."
They're coming to get their servitor back, eh? Best warn Rachise before my new mannequin goes missing again! Destra contemplated, scratching their head. "I suppose it's been getting a bit tough to navigate here, the past couple of years. If you don't keep to the roads, that is. But I can't say I've seen any deathly-looking types around, myself."
The Architect nodded. These 'roads' definitely wouldn't take them where they were going, but it made sense: they were subject to a far greater density of impressions than the surrounding forest. "I see. Well, she's got a knack for concealing her presence, so I'm not sure a physical description would be of any use."
They put a finger up to their chin. "Perhaps she wouldn't think to disguise her voice in most situations. She's of a vocal pattern [mode:descriptive] somewhere between 'banshee' and 'warlord'. Have you heard of anyone like that near here?"
"Why, I've never heard someone pronounce a square bracket quite so well before! Can't say I've heard - or heard of - anything like that, though." Destra snickered. It was a rude, but accurate description of Rachise's voice. "Sounds like a real piece of work."
A disappointed series of tones escaped the Architect's vox modulator. "Oh, well. I thought I might as well ask, having already run into someone so near her demesne by chance." They resumed levitating.
excuse self
Never hurts to appear polite, I suppose. They agreed with themself. "Thank you for your time, regardless. I hope these paths treat you well."
Taking care not to expose too many teeth, Destra gave them a wide, mostly-honest smile. "I'm sure they will, if they've already led me to such a well-regarded person as yourself!"
The Architect didn't really know what to say to that, so they quickly resumed their original trajectory. 'Desforde' was out of their perception (and short-term registry) in a matter of seconds.
After they were 100% certain the automaton was far enough away, Destra let their shoulders slump in relief. So much for shopping. Maybe Rax can still intercept 'em before they even get to us. They reached down to pat the mule's backside. "Looks like it's your lucky day, eh? C'mon, let's turn around."
The Architect had come to a small tunnel a few minutes ago. Usually, they'd just have flown over the hill it went through, but they preferred to stay close to their line of relay beacons. They'd begun setting up another larger one to perform a few quick readings of the area immediately ahead of them. Barring anything too surprising, they planned to use the solid connection to their Spire to simply translocate past the hill.
disruption (8X%) in relay 3,3
The flow of arcane power through their rig suddenly petered out. A feeling of unease took its place.
conjecture: woodland critter
It was meant to be reassuring, no doubt, but the absurdity of their partition's suggestion made it anything but. For a moment, they considered fleeing into the tunnel. A small puff of smog escaped their rig as they slowly, deliberately turned around. They averted their desire to burrow by telling themself that they were not a woodland critter, but a powerful arcanist with a solid plan.
They bade their two servitors to stick to the dug-out structure of the final relay, then took off back towards relay 3,3. They opted to levitate slightly slower, this time, giving themself - both their core self and their partition - a bit more time to look ahead.
It took the Architect two nerve-wracking minutes to reach vox-sight range of relay 3,3. It had been knocked over, that much was obvious even from an image pieced together from sound waves. As they got closer, they felt a sudden sense of alarm. They froze, hanging still in the air like a cloud. The feeling wasn't going away.
scan returns 0 changes (known/irrelevant excluded)
With jittering apertures, they manually surveyed their surroundings one more time. Seconds passed, and nothing in particular caught their attention. Familiar-grey nausea took hold of them, snapping them out of their daze. I need to-- I feel like I'm forgetting something. What am I forgetting? Query excluded changes [order:size-descending]?
relay unit 3,3 status [vertical, operational] -> [horizontal, non-operational]; 0 non-self humanoids -> 1 non-self humanoid; 0 tracks -> 1 set of tracks (bipedal, t - 5m, terminating in non-self humanoid); leaf count on--
Their partition's list faded into the background, continuing to state minor variances in the nearby foliage. The tracks were new, but still not so far out of the ordinary that it would explain why they felt something was so severely amiss.
Ordinary? Vague dread turned into a more specific sinking feeling. They felt silly, being so on-edge over nothing, but... Better silly than dead, as they say. Init disenchantment protocol [moderate, pattern P].
A modest abjuration, tailored to counteract perception-altering magic, swept through the little clearing. Even without knowing of 'mundanity' as an exploit-vector for their Spire's defenses, they regularly practiced defamiliarization: Isn't it novel to be alive? Doubly so, then, to be whatever it is I am.
It helped center them, usually. In this case, it was a bit disorienting, having one's sense of what was 'normal' and what wasn't shifted so abruptly. They tried their best not to let the Reaper of Reality, who had been standing three meters away from them for the past minute or so, notice.
Rachise had felt a weak antimagic field crawl across her skin like a spider's web. She'd readied her scythe, but she simply had to wait just another second, to see if she could make the Architect look any more surprised than they had in the lecture hall the other day. Their eyes finally stopped flitting about.
!! firing contingency 6 !! auto-init emer--
As soon as the Architect's lower set of arms began sigiling, she pounced. Her energy-imbued scythe cut through several important-looking cables near the right arm's shoulder joint. A few drops of oily liquid spattered out, and their arm went limp. She bared her fangs at them. "You're not getting away from me this time, puppet!"
As much as they wanted to point out that it was the Reaper who had 'gotten away', last time, now was not the time for semantics. They flung themself backwards, decimating several dead trees, and exclaimed: "You! What do you want from me?!"
She sneered, beating her wings as she dashed after them. "A good, flashy fight. Preferably with spectators, but that didn't go so well last time, so..."
City's sake, what a lunatic! They thought, initializing another mid-range teleportation in their damaged exorig while preparing an offensive spell with their other set of arms.
Shadetail, knock over your beacon! Now! She telepathically demanded. Moments after her familiar's irritated mental response, a bright-grey flash of light lit up the forest. "I said you're not getting--"
The Architect instantly nullified their velocity relative to the world and swung their lower-left arm down onto the Reaper. Their metal elbow hit her square in the forehead, sending her careening into a nearby tree stump. Rig bellowing smog, they unleashed a gout of super-heated air from their upper arms into her prone form.
Rachise used her wings and scythe to push off the ground again - far quicker, she gathered by her only mildly-singed hair, than her rival had thought she could... but still far slower than she was used to. Inky blood clouded her field of view.
Oww! If my skull was any less flexible... It was a bracing thought. If she died here, there was no telling if she'd still be able to move without her armor once she was returned to her coffin. Her hyperflexibility had gotten worse and worse over the centuries, and demesne-hopping hadn't helped.
That blow was calibrated [9X% confidence] to shatter a baseline human's skull! Explains the lack of helmet, I suppose. Eurgh, focus! The Architect admonished themself, hurriedly using the last few moments of connection to their Spire to draw two semi-automatic pistols from the metadimensional space within their rig.
Continuing evasive maneuvers, the automaton opened fire, aiming directly for their adversary's head. They fired twenty centidiameter bullets at her within six seconds, after which their somewhat more delicate upper arms were straining to maintain stability.
Of the twenty bullets, fifteen had hit the Reaper's scythe or plate armor, two had missed entirely, one had tousled her hair, and one had knocked her cap off. The final one, however, hit her in exactly the same place the Architect's exorig had clothes-lined her a few moments ago.
Clutching her head, she doubled over in pain. After retching, she yelled: "Rrrgh! Cheap shot, you--"
The causal loop in the Architect's enchanted cartridges completed. Another twenty bullets forced the Reaper to fold her wings around her head for protection, allowing her rival to escape into the fog. Wasting no time, they silently took off 63 degrees leftward (a sufficiently random direction), making sure to dodge the foliage wherever possible.
About half a minute later, they had stopped perceiving their adversary. Magnetically holstering their weapons onto an arbitrary point on their waist, they turned another 16 degrees to the left, continuing to move as quickly as they could without leaving a trail. Query damage [self:exorig]?
right ▒▒▒▒▒ inoperable | field r▒pairs [detection ve▒tor auditory]: ~76 seconds | non-▒▒▒ ▒▒anslocation [d▒▒ection vector meta▒▒▒▒ical]: ~16 seconds
The spotty connection and second-long latency made them anxious. Query success chances?
▒▒▒jecture: env▒▒▒▒▒ent-depend▒nt | sh▒rter ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ ▒▒nerally favor▒ble (0X%)
Indeed - the quicker I get out of here, the better! They concurred with themself, doing their best to panic only as much as was productive.
They flew for a few more seconds, eventually coming to a halt in front of a rather ominous ravine. A preliminary scan revealed that it seemed to be the source of most of the topographical corruption leaking in from the Shade. A meta-leyline? Excellent! This should conceal my presence well enough.
They dove into the dark ravine. It was far more spacious at the bottom than it had any right to be in purely three-dimensional Reality. The Architect didn't care: they were fully occupied with the intricate ritual of intentful gestures involved in a translocation spell without their patron's channeled power.
As the Architect continued moving, all was calm for a moment. In another eight seconds, they would be standing within the safe confines of their Spire again - still down a servitor, but otherwise mostly unharmed. I suppose I'll try again in a few hours. The two additional servitors I brought should have begun returning on--
!! ▒▒▒▒▒ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ ▒▒▒ ▒▒▒ !!
It was positively torturing Rachise to repress a battle cry as she swooped down upon her hapless, preoccupied prey. Firmament-Flayer's blade sliced through their upper-right arm above the elbow, cutting through silicone 'flesh' and the construct's metallic endoskeleton with the same ease. She scooped the severed arm up with a wing just a moment before she hit the ground sliding.
She'd expected them to howl, hiss, or at least whirr in pain, but their only response was: "Are you fucking kidding me?!"
They repurposed some of the arcane energy they'd built up into a simple torrent of energy. It hit her in the chest before she'd fully managed to right herself. The Architect followed it up with a kick aimed precisely at - for the third time - the same spot on her forehead again. Furious momentum carried them forward.
Rachise's vision began to blur. More so than usual, she felt like death. At least... If they kill me here... My armor will be relatively close. That prospect nearly took the edge off the excruciating pain. Then, she remembered that her rival was likely to take it for themself. Without it, the slow decline she'd been experiencing over the past century would get a hell of a lot faster.
She wasn't sure she cared anymore.
On auto-pilot, she blocked the Architect's eye-poking maneuver with a horn, albeit barely. However, it had merely been a feint: their lower arm grabbed onto her scythe, wrenching it from the grasp of one of her hands. Another kick from their almost mantis-like legs pried it loose from the other one and sent her sprawling onto the floor.
"Get away from me! I just want to go home!" The Architect boomed at her, voice modulator clipping. They brandished Firmament-Flayer at her as menacingly as they could, holding it with their only two remaining good arms as they backed up against one of the ravine's walls.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Rachise saw them raise her own weapon against her. The way things looked, it seemed likely she'd be at least partially beheaded if she tried to attack them. At least... They'll take good care of my... Scythe... With a pained, manic laugh, she begun charging at them.
The Architect had no idea how the peculiarities of the Reaper's form of undeath worked. They also knew her scythe had a tendency to veer towards vital spots on its own. No. No! Surely not even this lunatic deserves-- Deserves--
There was no telling how long the latency for their patron's guidance would be. No matter how they tried to steel themself, certainty still eluded them. In an 'us or them' scenario, it was always permissible (necessary, even) for them to choose 'us', but they still wished they'd had more information.
Split-second decisions had never been their strong suit.
!! ▒▒ !!
At the last second, they twisted the blade around, attempting to use its bladeless side as an oversized sap, of sorts. As a result, their strike impacted the Reaper a split-second later, doing nothing to halt her forward momentum. And so, Rachise barreled into the Architect with full force, slamming them into the wall - then, through it.