Scene 9: All is Void

The pearl is still in your hands as you power back on again, unharmed and still containing all its data. Relieved, you pocket it. Hopefully you'll find more like it this cycle. You don't know how many pearls around here will still hold information like this, but surely there has to be other ones that do, right?

The blue lizard scrutinizing you late last cycle isn't in its crevice anymore, likely having gone off to hunt already. You heft your lance into your hands with a huff. You should get a move on too, regardless of what you're doing. You're eager to start searching around for more about Day.

The sounds of lizards hissing and screeching immediately comes into full clarity the moment you open the door of the building. A blue lizard is tussling with a pink lizard not far ahead of you, both a writhing mass of muscle and blood as they bite and scratch at each other. To their right is a dead centipede, clearly having been killed by one of the fighting lizards. Another blue lizard is watching the fight while perched on a nearby building—the same one from last cycle, you realize as you give it a glance over. It glares at you with beady eyes as you step out of the building, the door shutting with a quiet hiss behind you, and you return the look, raising your lance in warning. Blue lizards aren't large enough to pose any threat to you, but that doesn't stop them from being an annoyance.

At any rate, your memory crypts seem rather lively. You can hear more activity on either side of you. You are still on the outskirts of your memory crypts though; the memory boxes are situated much deeper inside this facility. You'll be making your way to them gradually no matter what, but... You grip your lance more tightly, sending a test pulse out from your antennae. Hopefully you won't have to get too close to the Miros vultures to communicate with them.

>You should cut the centipede into pieces and distribute them to the lizards,,, it’d give you good control practice with the lance.

You slowly creep towards the centipede corpse, keeping your gaze on the fighting lizards. They're so focused on fighting each other that they don't seem to notice your approach. It's for the best, considering you don't want to deal with angry lizards anyway.

You shudder as you stop next to the centipede. This thing is almost as big as you are tall. Lizards hunt these? The blue lizard watching you from the wall is slightly smaller than you, but judging from how it's eyeing the centipede corpse, it has no qualms going after centipedes as prey.

All the better that it's dead. You hold it down with your foot—it squelches slightly as you press on it, and you resist the instinct to recoil in horror—and swing your lance down. The tip grazes the edge of its armor plates, catching slightly, but goes through anyway, cutting the centipede into half. Adjusting your stance, you swing again, cleaving clean through the longer portion of the centipede to separate it into two halves.

You glance over your shoulder to see both lizards, covered in blood and dirt, staring at you. The pink lizard licks its eye, leaving a dark green smear on its face. The blue lizard is glancing between you and your lance, a low growl rumbling in its throat. Neither lizard seems willing to walk around you to take the meat, but they're interested enough in the food to stick around regardless.

With a grimace, you kick one portion of the centipede towards the pink lizard. Both lizards lunge for it, hissing, but the pink lizard latches onto it first with a triumphant growl and begins dragging its prize away. The blue lizard lets out an angry screech, starting after its opponent, but it turns back to you as you kick the other portion of the centipede towards it. It glances at your lance again, letting out another hiss, but then scurries forward to take the offering.

As the blue lizard leaves, half running, half limping away, you turn back to the one still perched on the wall. The centipede corpse is still by your feet, and the lizard is still eyeing it. This one doesn't seem willing to approach either. You didn't realize your lance would be this good of a deterrent, but it's good that it is.

>Can you take that centipede and store it as food or something? Or take its dead body apart to use as a shield? For maximum equipment potential?

... you don't want to eat this. You can't taste it, so really it makes no difference, but you'd... really rather not. You have other options.

You're not entirely sure what to do with the armor plates. They're fairly big, though thankfully, not particularly heavy once you've pried them off the centipede corpse. It won't hurt to have some on hand in case you find use for them later. (+2 centipede armor plates)

You're really getting close to the maximum amount of things you can hold, but a lot of this stuff will likely be useful when you run into scavengers later on. You hope so anyway. The bomb will be of interest to them for sure.

The blue lizard is still watching you. You kick the remains of the centipede towards it. Unmoved by the gesture, it patters down the wall to take the food without so much as a glance at you, skirting around you on its way back to the building you came from. You huff, but let it leave. You're not sure whether you should feel insulted at how little of a threat it considers you.

Situation having been dealt with, you continue on your way. More lizards cross your path as you go, blue lizards skittering along the walls and pink lizards snarling at each other over various pieces of prey. You think you see a hint of a silvery head as well, but it's gone before you have the chance to confirm it. Both centipedes and millipedes are abundant in this area too, based on the faint pattering of legs you can hear and the corpses you see the various lizards dragging away. It's the most activity you've seen in an area since you left your can; clearly this part of your facility grounds is a haven for the various critters.

The further in you go, however, the fewer creatures there are. As you near where you know the memory boxes begin, there's only a single centipede in sight and a blue lizard snapping at its legs. Faintly, you hear a dull clanking, the sound of a Miros vulture walking.

>Find a safe spot and hide! It's probably going for either the centipede or the lizard.

You duck behind the nearest building to watch the scene unfold. Neither the lizard nor the centipede make any moves to escape, too busy dealing with each other to notice. Rather them than you, you suppose, to receive whatever the Miros vulture will bring.

A few more clanks, each one louder than the last, and you see it: a dark, frilled head, rising up above the memory boxes. You press yourself harder into the side of the building as it gets even closer, a towering figure that casts shadows long enough to rival that of the buildings around you. The Miros quail were big enough, but they're easily dwarfed by this Miros vulture. This thing must be at least twice your height.

The lizard finally notices the mechanical avian looming over it, and it yelps in terror, claws skittering on stone as it runs away. The Miros vulture ignores it, gigantic, flickering eyes impassively fixed on the centipede that is now free to crawl away. It makes no move to eat it, merely staring at the retreating wildlife.

This is a good sign. Miros vultures, particularly the protective variant, weren't designed to be aggressive without cause; after all, your creators would have had to periodically return to their respective memory crypts to upload their memories. They were only supposed to attack if unauthorized intrusion into the memory boxes was detected. Otherwise, they were mostly docile guardians.

You slowly step out into full view. The Miros vulture's gaze instantly snaps toward you, and you flinch, lance clutched tight in both hands. It hisses, lowering its head slightly, frills flared in warning. If it wanted to, it could lunge at you right now and bite your puppet to shreds.

Instead of backing up, which would have been the sensible option, you step closer to it. It hisses again, opening its beak and closing it with a loud clank. But now you're in range to communicate with it, and you send it a quick pulse: "Iterator. Here to inspect memory boxes."

Immediately, it drops its aggression, eyes flashing from a dull yellow to blue, then back to yellow as it processes your message. It then lowers its head until its face is almost level with you, and you find yourself staring down its gigantic beak. You grip your lance tighter. "Inspect?" it questions, eyes blinking green as it pulses back at you. "Iterator inspect?"

You sigh. Of course it's confused, you were never supposed to be able to do this. "Yes, just inspecting the boxes."

Its eyes flash green again, faster this time. "Authorized?"

Typically, the authorization process would be done by sharing citizen data with the Miros vultures. You... do not technically count as a citizen of your own city. You're just its iterator. There was never a need to give you a citizen identification code.

You send your iterator identification codes to it instead. Its eyes flash rapidly as it processes the information, from yellow to blue to red and back to yellow, over and over again. Drumming your fingers on your lance, you wait for it to give you a verdict. You have no idea if this is going to work, but at the very least, this Miros vulture hasn't mutated. It shouldn't attack you even if it doesn't let you enter.

With a final white flash of its eyes, the Miros vulture straightens up. "Authorized." You sigh in relief as it promptly starts ignoring you, ambling back the way it came. You're now free to peruse the memory boxes. As long as you don't alter any data, what you do will still fall under the jurisdiction of 'inspection.'

You wander around for a bit, only partially looking for the access points into the memory boxes. Almost all of these boxes are twice your height, and some are taller still. Each one is a building in its own right, except instead of storing items, it stores physical replicas of memories. If there were any of them still around, somehow, and if they wanted these memories back, they could just upload the data back into their brains. As if nothing had ever changed.

You stop in front of one of the boxes, hand hovering over the small access port jutting out of the otherwise smooth surface of the memory box. Data. All of this is just data now. Data on those who once lived, who once were. Who decided to leave this world behind.

Who decided to leave you all behind.

You unlock the access port. It unfurls, metal pins pulling back to uncover a small, circular access point of cells. They pulsate gently, glistening in the dim light. You stare at them, simultaneously repulsed and fascinated. This was—is—someone. Someone's memories.

Haltingly, hesitantly, you reach in and touch your hand to the cells.

Rage. Rage, you feel rage. Rage at the announcement of your construction, at its commencement, at the inability to save Day. A sacrilege, a shirking of duty to her, abandonment of the parental obligations that are owed to her, in favor of you. A waste of resources and space, of time and dedication, of energy and devotion, of the investment put into her. The ancestors of old, their efforts, their beliefs, dashed and thrown to the dirt for you. How could they let her fall? How could they have given up on her? You should never have been built. You should never have been planned. They should have tried harder, so these memories would never have had to rest here.

Some pleasant memories of Day: communes with her, asking her for advice, for opinions, on the important and on the mundane. Greeting her as a child, as an adult, as an elder. Her, warm and kind and welcoming, always. A constant, until she wasn't. Until you happened. Until you replaced her.

A wretched, pathetic mistake is what you are. If it had been an option, your existence would never have happened.

The connection breaks. Your hand loosens; you pull it back, let it fall, where it shakes. You're shaking all over.

You sink to the ground, trying to remember how to breathe again. Two Clouds, Three Gentle Breezes. You remember that name. Of the few citizens you had the displeasure of dealing with, this one was one of the most vocal about hating life in your city.

Slowly, leaning on the memory box for support, you get to your feet, using the blunt end of your lance as a cane. None of this comes as a surprise. You've heard this all before. But experiencing it this directly was still unpleasant. Despite that, you did get some of what you came here for. She... Even throughout the process of trying to save her from collapsing, she was kindly and patient as ever. You can't say you could ever do the same.

You lock the access port and move on, glancing around at the other memory boxes. Larger ones store more memories, generally, since there's more space for them, so maybe you should tap into one of those. Many of the memory boxes you can see in the immediate area are considerably large, so any one of these would be a good candidate.

You're not even sure how much you want to know. The last one had more about you than Day, and the odds are that many of the rest of these will be the same way. But it's not nothing. You can't pass up that opportunity.

You stop in front of one of the largest memory boxes, one that's wider than it is tall. Unlocking the access port is fast, gears whirring and bolts clicking to reveal the access point within a matter of seconds. But you still have to wait, however briefly. Did it ever feel like they were losing time when they did this?

It doesn't matter anymore. You brush your fingers against the cells.

Schematics, old ones that feature plans foreign-but-not-quite to you. Old systems, old pipe layouts, old modules, old wiring. All of it for keeping Day running properly. A deep tenderness, deep familiarity for her systems, the essence of what made her, her. Plans on how to navigate through her, how best to serve her, how to work with her. She's eons old, but so is this line of work, passed down from generation to generation.

Until it stopped. Failure. Utter failure, the inability to save her despite so many efforts, despite time spent toiling and weeping and doing anything possible to keep her running, even as she began falling to pieces. All this knowledge, gone to waste, titles stripped and roles replaced. No more need for these ancient skills now, when you are fresh and young and new. When you were designed to uphold your own perpetuity.

Knowing her so closely made losing her hurt worse. Her collapse took part of her memory crypts with her, forcing these memories to be here. Even beyond life, these memories cannot lay with her.

This is your fault.

You pull your hand back and lock the access port, leaning against the wall with a sigh. Seventeen Rings, Resounding Song, one of Day's former engineers... None of their knowledge on Day's maintenance could be transferred to your own maintenance, since the two of you are from the first and last generation respectively. When everyone was forced to migrate to your city, this knowledge became obsolete. Seventeen Rings, Resounding Song never stopped being resentful about it. You were glad when they finally ascended.

They talked so much with Day. Working on her systems meant knowing her thoughts and feelings on everything, and she was... so, so incredibly content with this work. Even as the visits got more often, and even as her condition worsened.

She loved them. They loved her.

Where do you even fit into this all?

You sit, leaning against the wall of the memory box, and sigh again. All the better that all of them are gone now, because you could never live up to what Day was anyway. You're just a disappointment.

>They shouldn't blame you something you couldn't control, you know.

"Well, they did," you mutter, shaking out your hands. "None of this changes the fact that she's gone."

That's all your citizens ever did, really. Beyond the small cluster that directly oversaw your construction and programming, they were all migrants from Day's city, many of which were not particularly happy about having to move. These two were some of the loudest about their displeasure, but there were many other examples.

One way or another, it wouldn't have mattered, since global ascension was already in progress when you were commissioned. They just needed a place to live out the rest of their lives before they went down to the Void Sea, and that place happened to be your city. They would have complained the same way if they had been sent to any other city. You're sure Five Pebbles would welcome even the ones that whined constantly.

You get to your feet, dusting yourself off. The distant clanking of the footfalls of the Miros vulture obscure the noise from your own footsteps as you move on, taking a winding path through the memory boxes as you listlessly glance between them. From the outside, they all look the same. You have no way of telling what sort of data—memories—these contain.

... if you're being honest, though? You're not sure you want to know anymore.

A soft scuffling sound draws your attention, one that cuts off abruptly. You stop, trying to pinpoint the source. You're close to the end of your memory crypts now, so whatever this is, it must have wandered in from outside.

>OwO? Hewwo? Is anybody thewe??? Investigate de noises owo i wanna see who’s thewe!

You hold your lance close as you creep towards where you heard the noise. You don't hear anything else, so it should still be nearby. It couldn't have run away without making additional sound.

You turn the corner around a memory box, emerging into soft sunlight, and find yourself facing a scavenger. It yelps at the sight of you and throws a rock at your face. You yelp yourself as the rock connects, your face smarting where it hit you. Wincing, you rub at your face as you watch the scavenger run away. It's all spindly arms and legs, brown frills flapping as it runs, and its short tail is tucked between its legs.

On its back, staring at you, is a scavenger kit. Its blue eyes are stretched wide as its parent—presumably, at least—scampers towards the not too distant growing towers. It already has the beginnings of eartlers growing in, so its blue eyes must be genetic and not a result of infancy.

Blue eyes are rare. Relatively, anyhow. Most scavengers tend to have amber or brown eyes. Of the twenty-eight associated genes for eye color, at least three quarters of them must be a few specific alleles for the eye color to show up as blue. These scavengers would be great additions to your catalogue of scavenger genetics.

... not that you could do that, at this point. Or that there would be any point in doing it. Silver's dead.

He would still have loved to see them. If he were here, he'd already be chattering about how the different genes of scavengers contribute to their incredibly varied coloration. He would have got a kick out of examining the tail on the adult, too.

You can't see the scavengers anymore. Being lost in your thoughts gave them enough time to escape, probably to the closest growing tower you can see. There's almost definitely more of them there, considering how scavengers live in non-familial communes of varying sizes. You won't know how many of them are in this area until you get there.

Directly in front of you is, as far as you can discern, an abandoned temple, one from before the age of iterators. The fact it's still mostly intact is a feat, since it wasn't built with your rains in mind. You don't know how structurally sound it still is, though.

>Explore the temple? Also make sure you have secured your pearl in a safe spot. Also, if you meet another scavenger, move slow, keep your weapon down, and don't make sudden moves or appear threatening. That one probably was agitated because it has a kit.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." You head towards the temple, surveying its exterior as you approach. The stone looks sturdy still, though some of the supports look a bit slanted. Even then, considering how long this structure has stayed intact, it's probably safe to enter and look around for a short while.

Opening the door sends the dust inside swirling, and you stop to cough and clear your lungs for a moment. You're definitely less achy this cycle, but the brief coughing spell still leaves you a little sore, and you intermittently cough as you walk in deeper. There's dust coating every surface you can see. You're probably the first person to walk in here in many, many years.

Not the first creature, though, judging from the pink lizard glaring at you from the other side of the room. You ignore it, scanning the rest of the room. The prayer cushions are torn and decayed, and the cloth tapestries on the walls are little more than shredded, rotten tatters, but there are murals at the end of the temple that are still mostly readable. It doesn't look like there's anything of particular use in here.

>Look at the murals, then? Is the temple only one room or are there other parts you can explore? A one-room temple would be really small, right?

Many of the prayer temples were single room, single storey buildings. You don't know how large they were on average, but this one has a ceiling several times your height. It's large enough to allow several hundred of your creators to pray at once, which was likely intended.

The floor at the end of the temple is slightly raised, each step you take on the small stair steps sending dust billowing. You can't tell what this platform was used for. Maybe they once stood up front to preach. You don't know, and you don't care.

The mural takes up the whole length of the wall, stretching up to the ceiling and down to the ground, where the colors spill over the floor in swirls of dirty white and grey. The white shifts into a deep black, which takes up most of the mural. Ribbons of gold are sprinkled here and there in the darkness, coming together into a rich, flickering golden mass that ripples as you turn your head. There are also speckles of bright white in the darkness, dotted around the arm and hand of one of your creators, which is reaching down towards the light.

There are also five smaller murals arranged in a half circle around the main mural, each of them blending into the darkness. On the left is a disembodied hand, clenched around what you presume is the handle of a hunting weapon made of solid gold. Next to it are two clasped hands, gold adornments trailing down and along their hands and wrists and dissolving into the darkness. Across from them on the right is another hand, one wrapped in layers of gold bracelets and holding a small yellow flower that was commonly used as an aphrodisiac. Above that is a pair of hands, holding a gold platter overflowing with food that you don't recognize. And between all of them, above the arm in the main mural, are two sets of hands, reaching up towards the gold threads at the ceiling.

You have to admit that this is an impressive mural of the Void Sea. The colors are etched into the walls, which is likely why they haven't faded in all the years this temple has been abandoned for. This sort of imagery is everywhere, and was in your access shaft as well. It would make sense for your creators to pray to an ideal of the Void Sea, you suppose.

This temple was probably built near the beginning of the Void Fluid revolution, back when it was still regarded as the ultimate solution to effortless ascension. You would not have been built if they hadn't lost faith in the Void Sea's ability to erase them from existence. Though, of course, they wound up being desperate enough to jump into it regardless. When you were turned on, global ascension was already halfway complete.

You brush a finger along the wall, idly flicking the dust off as you suppress a cough. Good riddance. They never did anything for you anyway.

>Anything good to loot?

Not particularly. Besides dust, cloth tatters, and the pink lizard still glaring at you from the other side of the room, there's very little left in here. The walls of the temple may be intact, but the remains of the temple's interior are a far cry from what it would have looked like in its prime. The circuitry in this building hints at a much grander presentation than what you see now, back when it was fully functional and in use.

You do, after some rummaging around, find a pearl, one that was possibly part of the various ornaments that used to adorn these walls. There's almost no data on it, only a brief note about when it was manufactured. You pocket it, because why not. By this point though, you're carrying too many things. You're going to need to put something down if you pick something else up.

You head back to the exit, pressing your hand against the door to open it. It slides open smoothly and allows a big gust of wind to tear through the room, kicking up the dust around you and shoving you back into the temple. Between coughs, you look up at the sky, which is nearly completely dark. The storm clouds are just about where you are, and it's dim enough outside that you can't see very far, not without expending more energy to brighten your field of view. The rain will be coming very soon.

>Find shelter quickly I guess.

You increase your focal length, straining to see the growing towers you know are nearby, but in the dim light and howling wind, it’d be a substantial trek. It’s better to head there after the rains have passed. The temple is dusty, but it seems sturdy enough to last you through at least one more rain cycle.

You let the door slide shut, sighing through another few coughs. You’re almost there. Almost to him. Just a little longer now.

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