Rachise felt like absolute garbage when she regained consciousness. It was dry and quiet, she was lying on something soft but firm, and her head was ringing. For a moment, she thought she had died and re-materialized in her coffin. However, she was still in her armor, and upon closer examination, the 'ringing' noise wasn't in her head at all.
The Architect was desperately trying to shift the Reaper off themself. Having lost connection to their externalized self and finding themself unable to restart their damaged exorig in manual mode, they only had a single upper arm available for the task. No matter how their internal hydraulics strained and whined: they simply didn't seem to have the leverage to move her.
Are my actuators really in such bad shape, or is her armor normally enchanted to be near-weightless? No, wait, why would that be dependent on her...? Well, hang on, is she dead or just unconscious? What kind of undead loses consciousness? Oh, Eternity, have I condemned-- Wait, how long is this latency, anyway?! They'd been left to theorize ('spiral', most people would have called it) for about half an hour when the body on top of them finally began to stir.
Something was pushing into Rachise's side. She opened her eyes. The faint glow behind the Architect's lenses seemed to be the only source of light in the dark room (?) she'd found herself in. With a mighty, uncoordinated movement assisted by her wings, she jumped off of them. The severed arm she'd kept wrapped in her wing hit them in the face.
They grabbed their arm and stood up, somewhat ungracefully. They wanted to say something, but their vocal modulator merely produced a burst of white noise.
The sudden noise made Rachise lose her balance. If it hadn't been for the instinctive movement of her tail, she'd have fallen over backwards. "Cease your sonic a- attacks, you wretch!" Her voice cracked on almost every word. "I propose a t- truce until we're back out in the open."
Oh, thank the City... I was going to propose a full surrender on the singular condition she lets me live. They thought. As their voice reset with a series of unpleasant clicks, they suddenly went blind. It occurred to them that they had still been vox-locating, and they amplified the light within their eyes.
It was still quite dark. "Very well. The opening you pushed me through seems to have collapsed. I'm sure we can find a way..." They trailed off, looking at their severed arm. With a quick incantation and a little bit of force, they reattached it to their left side, though it remained completely limp.
"Feh! There's nothing to find, puppet. Tell me which wall it was that I smashed you through." She demanded, still swaying slightly.
"Query log span [t -34min, t -35min]?" The Architect thoughtlessly said to themself.
Confused, Rachise stood there watching them listen for something for a few seconds. Uncanny! Destra was right about the brackets thing.
A jolt went through them, as if waking from a fever dream. "Excuse me. I'm incomplete right now." Seeing the Reaper's befuddled expression, they quickly added: "I- I mean-- That is to say, I'm not quite feeling myself. By our relative positions, I'd say it was... that wall over there, right behind you."
Oh, right. Could've figured that one out myself. She thought, turning around without a word. A completely ordinary brick wall greeted her. She looked around as quickly as she could without getting dizzy, but the other walls weren't much different. "Curse you! What did you do to the walls while I was out?!"
"I assure you, fixing up the wall was - and remains - the least of my priorities." The Architect coldly replied. "If anything, I'd have expected this to be another one of your inane illusions."
"Well, it obviously fucking--" She began. A whisper of decaying memories, stronger here than it had ever even been in her demesne, cut her off.
The realization hit her like another hydraulic elbow to the head. "Wait. We're... in the Shade."
Both of them went through several stages of grief in quick succession. It made too much sense to deny for long, at any rate.
Eventually, the Architect - staying surprisingly calm - said: "Right you are. Let me just restart my rig in manual mode, and I'll get to work divining a meta-leyline out of here."
Rachise slumped down against one of the unpleasantly-familiar walls, head pounding as she heard her rival fiddle with their metal parts. To her chagrin, it was taking forever. "Well, puppet? How long is this--"
"This would have been trivial with two arms and/or an undamaged exorig." The Architect pointedly interrupted. "Alas, someone decided to introduce several major complications to my day. And stop calling me 'puppet' or 'statue' or... Or what have you."
Without looking up, she answered: "Tch! I'll call you whatever I want. I'm not abiding by that pompous epithet, at any rate!"
"What." The hypocrisy was so blatant that it went past 'annoying' straight into 'bewildering'. "Okay, 'Reaper of Reality'."
"Just 'Reaper' is fine..." She said, crossing her arms, waiting for a reaction. Instead, her rival had simply gone back to manically attempting to get their second set of arms working again. With a sigh, she conceded: "Very well. I do see your point. My name is Rachise."
A few seconds passed in silence.
Then, a few more.
"Well?" Rachise prodded, fidgeting with the collar of her coat.
"Hm? Yes, noted." They absently replied. Incredible - she somehow managed to sever most of the right arm's actuators and disable the override switch in a single swipe. Hm, but if I-- Yes! Alright, the override should be working again. So why is it not showing up in my generator's power schema?
Surely, Rachise thought, someone who managed to pacify every mortal paramilitary with just a few kind words can't be this oblivious?
She heaved another deep sigh. It was becoming tiresome, drawing the nothingness of the Shade into her lungs just to expel it again. "And, does the..." She was struggling to find another pejorative for constructs somewhere within her pounding head. Eventually, she settled on "...doll have a name, too?"
"Architect. As you evidently do already know." They replied, wearily looking up from their body. Never mind her. Calm. Aware. Present. Now, how do I safely initiate a restart of my arcane generator with only one--
"Archie." She smugly stated. "Your name is Archie Teched."
"It is most certainly not!" They shot back, quicker than they'd replied to anything else in the past century. "If you absolutely must have something with fewer syllables, I suppose you can call me Ark." I'm not giving my true name to this... berzerker.
"Was that so hard, Ark?" She mocked, baring her fangs at them.
"Don't--" They began. With an annoyed chirp, their vox modulator reset. "Never mind." I can't let her get under my skin. Not visibly, at least.
Rachise got up from the floor. The motion made her headache came back with a vengeance. That - and the fact that she still only went up to her rival's chest - kept her mood from improving too much. "Hmm. Very well, I'll just let you get back to work on getting us out of here."
'Us'? How presumptuous. The Architect thought, resuming their self-diagnostics. Oh, City's sake... My internal generator's resistors got stuck above the auto-reset threshold thanks to that... stupid manoevre I had to pull to convert my translocation home into kinetic energy. At 96% completion!
They looked back at Rachise, shaking their head. "First off, I'll need to reset my arcane generator." They indicated a specific point on their chest. "Could you channel the following combination of numerical sigils 22.4 centimeters behind this point: 1-6-1?"
"...what?" The Reaper asked.
"I need you to restart the flow of energy - just aim to have those sigils get through a resistance of around 160 mercury-equivalents." They whirred in frustration. "I'm afraid I can get through at most 80 with any precision, with one arm and no external influx of energy."
"No, like. What?" She reiterated. Fainter-than-faint memories of a magical theory lab she'd half paid attention to three centuries ago started coming back to her. It wasn't really helping her comprehend their request.
"Ah. You're..." The Architect stated. What's the most polite way to call someone 'uneducated'? Query soci-- damnit!
Rachise made use of their hesitation. "What use does a powerful Shade-blessed sorceress like me have for your pathetic standard measurements of magic?! I don't--" As she began to draw a sigil on her armor for emphasis, the throbbing pain in her head intensified into what she imagined a lobotomy must feel like. She froze up.
"Sorceress!" They exclaimed, quickly rubbing their silicone fingers together in a motion that had presumably been intended to make a 'snap'. "Thank you - that's just the word that had been escaping me." They tilted their head at her. "Well, regardless, I'll gladly let you handle navigating this place if it's 'in your blood', as it were."
"Rrghhh..." She said, clutching her head.
The Architect focused their gaze on her. Oh, no. Can she read my thoughts again? They dismissed the thought as quickly as it had arisen. After all, why would she take umbrage with being called ignorant, and not with my earlier impulse to leave her behind when I translocate out of here?
"Are-- are you unwell?" They finally stammered.
"My-- Owww! My head feels like it's about to fucking explode!" She shouted, glaring at them through her gauntlets. "You should be well aware of the why, you insolent... Insolent, um... effigy?"
"Can you blame me?" The Architect asked, feeling no small amount of satisfaction about having chosen the correct combat strategy against her. "Don't answer that. My point is: you should really wear a helmet."
Rachise straightened her back. "Feh!" She hated that she had to glare up at them, even then. "I channel my most powerful illusions through my eyes."
They nodded appraisingly. "As is vampiric tradition. Well, you could still get one made with a visor. Even with those horns of yours."
"I..." ...don't exactly have access to a competent blacksmith. And I... lost my previous helm after some poser stole it from me when I took it off and dropped it while gloating.
Worth. But why would I tell them any of that?! She cleared her throat. "I don't need a helmet! It would only detract from my aesthetic."
Myriad design possibilities filled their mind. They scoffed and raised their good hand in objection. "I could have envisioned and created a fitting one for every day of the week in the time it took you to regain consciousness after smashing your head into that wall."
Her tail twitched violently. "That's the least you could do for getting me into this mess!"
Again, they experienced bewilderment instead of anger. "You... attacked me? Not the other way around?"
"Tch! It's your fault for fighting back so vehemently." She replied, staring at the limp arm they'd reattached to themself. "Do you not feel, like... pain?"
"There are other warning signals I've come to rely on instead." They half-lied, remembering some choice social advice their other partition had once bestowed. Oh, how I miss myself! "But there are more pressing matters, no?"
"True." She admitted, frustratedly kicking what she supposed must've been someone's idea of a rock at one point. "Listen, I've been in the Shade plenty of times. I can navigate out of here. It's just..."
For just a moment, the Architect saw a hint of worry creep into their haughty adversary's expression. There was, in truth, much to be worried about: even assuming she was correct to be confident in her ability to get through the un-Real terrain, they doubted either of them would survive a run-in with a shadowfiend of any significance.
Rachise closed her eyes and composed herself. Not in front of your rival! After a moment, she continued: "I've no idea how, er... meta-far? We are from Reality. And I'd rather not be stuck in here for any longer than a few Real days."
They gave her a curt nod. "Your demesne. Of course." As dimensionality increased, so did the relative flow of time. From what they remembered of the literature without their usual assisted recall, it wasn't good for a vampire to be parted from the site of their coffin by too much space or time, let alone both.
She hissed at them, eager to reaffirm her strength in their eyes. "Tch! Who cares about the gaggle of vagrants that've made their home in my shadow?! I only need it to restore my power, you see."
They 'blinked', shuttering their eyes for a moment. "That's... what I meant?" I feel like I'm missing something. Quer-- Ugh!
With a huff, she turned away from them. "A- anyway. As you... evidently intuited, all I meant to say was that my physical strength will not regenerate on its own."
She looked at their chest, as if trying to discern the 'arcane generator' underneath. In the process, she couldn't help but notice how much more life-like they got from the shoulders up. Like someone chopped through a mannequin underneath the arms, then painstakingly sculpted a bust on top of it. Odd. But...
"Say, Ark..." She began, doing her best not to grin at the irritated crossing of a singular arm the nickname illicited. "There's plenty of energy inside you, yes? You said you just needed to restart the flow, correct?"
"Broadly correct." They cautiously confirmed. Somehow, they felt like they weren't going to like where she was going with this.
Rachise gave them a wide, fangful smile. "Would it work if it started flowing outward, too?"
"Commendable insight." They said, in the same tone as one might praise a toddler for figuring out that every peg actually does fit through the same hole when you put enough force behind it. "However, you are putting the cart before the mule. If there is too much resistance, I cannot even begin to output any outward current, and thus--"
"Yes, yes." She interrupted, taking a step towards them. "Fortunately, I can draw this first current out from you. So, if you'll just lend me your neck..."
City, preserve me! Perhaps I hit her on the head a bit too hard. The Architect thought, taking a larger step backwards. "Reap-- Rachise. Come on! You are aware that the current inside me is not conducted by blood. Right?"
"Tch! As if a powerful sorceress like me would even care for such the delivery mechanism for power." She insisted, taking another step. "My Shade-blessed fangs can draw pure arcane strength from any vessel! I will easily be able to match your 160 whatevers."
They put their head in their good hand. If it was true, it could work. If it wasn't, both of them were about to look very, very silly.
Rachise got even nearer to them. From this close, she realised that not even her horns went all the way up to their shoulders. She also realized the piercing din that filled the room was coming from within them, and wasn't, in fact, a mere byproduct of her headache.
Again, they took a step backwards. A small puff of residual smog escaped their rig as they placed their hand on her shoulder. Their glowing eyes studiously examined the darkness behind her. The din swelled in intensity, culminating in a pained "Very. Well. Go ahead and... bite? My arm. Whatever it is you think will overcome my generator's--"
From anyone else, in any other set of circumstances, the offer would have offended her. As it stood, she jerked her head around and bit into their warm, relatively soft 'flesh' like a snake would've lunged for a small mammal.
Immediately, the Architect registered a draw on their generator. It seemed the sorceress hadn't been lying: in just a second, she'd overcome the adaptive resistor that had been blocking the current out of their core. Within moments, they'd set it up to provide backup power to their exorig and restarted it in manual mode. With a satisfying hydraulic whirr, their rig's left arm came alive again.
"Excellent! I must apologize for doubting you, Rachise." They said, smiling down at her. "You can stop drawing that current, now."
She didn't seem to have heard them. "Rachise. Rachise?" They prompted. In vain - her energy draw was, in fact, increasing. It was getting to the point where it was in danger of exceeding their internal rate of production. "Rachise! This body does not have a particularly large... internal capacitor. I... I...?" What is this... feeling?
The light behind their eyes flickered and began to dim, startling them back into action. "S- stop it, you glutton!" They shoved her with their newly-powered arm. She made a displeased noise, but relented, leaving behind two little scrapes with her fangs.
Rachise unfurled and flexed her wings. Her usual purplish pallor was interspersed far more noticeably with inky-black veins, now, and she seemed to be standing taller than ever. She instinctively wiped her face with the back of her wrist. "Ahh. Such pure power... Well worth the rubbery aftertaste!"
"Eurgh!" With a fluent motion of their clean arm, they conjured a current of sterile air to wipe off the lightly chewed one. "Please pay more attention to my directions regarding delicate processes you know nothing of." The Architect demanded, as forcefully as they could.
She huffed. A thousand objections formed in her mind, but her rival had been nothing but reasonable, all things considered. Achingly, loathesomely reasonable. I mean, really - who has the time for so much 'maybe' and 'somewhat' and 'please'? Someone's been in academia for a decade or ten too many!
Still, she wasn't about to let that stop her from defending herself. "Tch! I've drained the essence of a plethora of different creatures. I know full well when to stop if I intend not to inflict any lasting harm."
The Architect shrugged. It was an odd gesture, performed as it was with shoulder joints at different heights. "Be that as it may - we have bigger problems. At least we have the means to solve them, now."
"Ugh. Fine..." Rachise agreed. There was no winning an argument against someone so unwilling to argue. "Go ahead and do... whatever it is you're planning, Ark."
They hadn't bothered to wait for her approval. Weaving the sigils of this divination with two different arms was a challenge, to be sure, but it was a fun one. More like a puzzle, then.
Ten seconds later, they found what they'd been looking for. "Alright, I've got it. We need to go... Hm." It ocurred to them that it would be difficult to explain, considering the distorted, meta-real geometry. "Please accept the following telepathic exchange."
Rachise opened her mind to them, albeit gradually and reluctantly. A three-and-then-some-dimensional map appeared in her peripheral vision. She intuited that the grey dot marked their location, whereas the green dot marked the destination Ark had divined. It was no further from Reality than where they'd ended up, but...
The Architect frowned at the curses Rachise was muttering. Still telepathically, they responded: Is that not a point we can navigate to? That would be most unfortunate, because the next one I've divined is--
Shut up and let me think. A half-formed map with a much, much further green dot vanished from her mind's eye as she closed the telepathic link. It could've been a lot worse to navigate to, save for the distance away from Reality they'd have to go at some points.
She was pretty sure that green dot marked the Shade-side of her old demesne, though.