《Hearth of the mountain》 Intro When the gods of old first populated the world of Eise, they almost came to blows until Chaena, goddess of balance and justice and arbitrage intervened and arranged for a compromise. Since there were fifteen gods, seven races would be created, and to keep affairs in balance each would be embodying one deadly sin and one cardinal virtue. She herself chose to abstain from creation, assuming instead a supervisory role. Thus elves were made prideful but temperate; greenskins became wrathful yet just; shortfolk are charitable but gluttonous; fay are utterly honest and just as envious; Treekin are humble but slothful; Oni lust knows no bounds but neither does their legendary loyalty; and dwarves personify fortitude and greed in equal measure. As time passed, the elder races would go their own ways ¨C Elves would retreat away from the rest of the world disparaging all other races, greenskins would spread around and wander as nomads and raiders troubling all others with their battlelust, Fey would hide themselves, and then use their great magics to play cruel tricks upon the other races, etc¡­ As was their wont, the dwarves dug wherever they found a mountain or a sturdy enough looking hill. Wherever they figured there might be something worth digging, truth be told. And then, in an age now long forgotten, in the depths of the biggest, toughest mountain in all of Eise they found IT. An opaque crystal so large it dwarfed the mother tree of the Evergrove, which, it was said, had been the oldest living being in all the world, and from which all Treekin and all the woods of Eise originated. The crystal was so though that it took the dwarves an entire era just to develop tools that could even chip at it. And most important of all, the crystal, which eventually got named ''The Hearth of the Mountain'', thrummed with such power that it allowed the dwarves to develop the most advanced civilization Eise had ever seen. But, as was already established, Dwarven greed knows no bounds, and the results ended in a sadly predictable fashion. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.It is lost to the mists of time whom exactly was to blame, some legends say a cabal tried to take a piece of the hearth for themselves, other say that the king wanted to carve himself a throne into the hearth, and there are a thousand other, different legends. What is known is that whatever was done ended up shattering the hearth and releasing such mad outpouring of magic that, not only did it completely alter the face of Eise, it even reached into the realm of the gods and wiped them out as well, which eventually led to the coming and the rise of the younger gods. As if that wasn¡¯t bad enough, the fragments of the hearth that, intermingled with the vestiges of the old gods, were flung around the world by the explosion would give birth to a completely new and utterly exceptional lifeform - that of an inanimate semi-sentient crystal capable of warping the world around itself. A Dungeon Core. It has been several long millennia since the shattering and the wild cataclysmic mana storms surrounding the exiled mountain are beginning to ever so slowly subside, to the point that it is theoretically possible, although still ludicrously dangerous, to survive the trip through wildlands and actually reach the mountain. Spurred by the fragments of ancient legends, the brave, the valiant, the foolhardy, the ambitious and those of darker and more sinister inclinations prepare expeditions to try and secure the remnants of legends for themselves. Into this maelstrom of trouble, tribulation, and terror a soul of a hapless 21st century Terran is thrust into the single largest remaining shard of the hearth without a clue as to how or why. Now armed only by their wits (not all that impressive), guts (almost nonexistent), sensibilities (completely useless), ingenuity and a shard of a god (OK, those last two might just, possibly, if one squinted and hoped really hard, actually amount to something useful), our bumbling MC has to muddle through, somehow survive against staggering odds and, ultimately, either save or condemn the world. Ok, that at the very end is probably a bald-faced lie, but it sounds exciting, ne? Chapter 1 London Mallory Quinn was hurtling through time and space. Now, most might think such an experience would be either exhilarating or terrifying, depending on the circumstances. London knew better. It was bloody effing boring. The trip was interminably long and tedious, mostly owing to the abstract, relativistic effects of pandimensional/transuniversal transference mechanisms interacting in a queer and atypical manner with the nonmaterial properties of souls, which in turn resulted in dilating the perception of what should have been near-instantaneous passage into something one would have to suffer through over an unpleasantly long period. Objectively and subjectively. (Quantum, that quintessential delinquent of modern science was suspected of having gotten caught up in the entire kerfuffle and really bolocked it up for everyone involved) To make matters worse, London knew they were incomplete. Damaged. While they were a greater part of a single soul - of that much, at least, there was, thankfully, no doubt of - there were definitely bits and bobs missing. And not knowing what the parts that had been lost in transference had contained was like suffering from the worst possible form of phantom itch; the one that they couldn¡¯t scratch even if they had anything to perform the action of scratching with. Like their gender for instance. They knew that they had been gendered before they had died and been unceremoniously and messily thrown out of the universe, but dickens of it if they knew what their actual gender had been. And their given name did not help one bit. Blazes be, but their parents, which were also a great big blank, must have been bloody insane to name them as they did. Even if London did not remember the details, they knew to the marrow of their mutilated soul that they had been bullied over their name in their past life. And, even if they could not remember the younger sibling at all, they did remember they had had a younger sibling, whom had been even more poorly named! And trying to think all in gender-neutral pronouns was clunky and tiring¡­ Objectively, they could¡¯ve tried to decide on gender and stick with it, but for the small, yet currently insurmountable, problem that the properties of various genders were also one of the things they no longer knew. London huffed in annoyance. Or at least they performed the mental¡­ spiritual? Animistic? Equivalent. Too much time with nothing to focus upon other than their issues was not conducive to anything¡¯s mental health, leastwise to something as rent and tattered as they were at the moment¡­ And there they went again concentrating on the negative¡­ Desperate to shift their attention to something more productive London tried to remember how they got into the situation they found themselves in. They were an adult, definitely out of their twenties, but comfortably distant still from middle-aged ¡­ They were not of good health, and thus had great difficulty finding and keeping jobs¡­ They were rather passionate about doing something, and it really, truly grated not remembering what their passion was. They were generally considered quite bright, and did well academically, but were more interested in the arts than sciences. They were pretty sure they earned a degree in something related to the arts. They had been invited to an event of great significance, and then¡­ Pain in their chest! They couldn¡¯t breathe! Blackness! ¡­ Then a kindly, almond-eyed face telling them¡­ they had a heart attack¡­? It was just there, on the edge of their cognizance¡­ They thought that they had agreed to some type of surgery¡­ And then... And then¡­ everything went into a kaleidoscope¡­ and sounds¡­ Voices?... As if listening against a thin wall they heard things. An indistinct number of voices roaring¡­ Over a dozen voices arguing and¡­ under a palpable amount of strain? One voice¡­ they thought it was a female... Speaking in clear ringing tones¡­ The words seeming to be too great for the universe to contain them¡­ The other voices joining in making the words... Bulge? Expand further? That could not be it; words were immaterial, they had nothing to expand and shrink, but try as they might, London could not find better means to express what it felt like. Finally, calm¡­ Kaleidoscope pulses¡­ Contracts¡­ They feel an indescribable pressure building all around them¡­ Incongruously, and against all sense a notification window appears before them advising them to stand by for their transfer between universes and wishing them a happy and fulfilling journey. And here they were, traveling the great divide. Well wasn¡¯t that a complete and utter bollocks. And it still did not explain in the least what happened to the rest of their soul. Completely out of nowhere, their grumbling was interrupted by a sort of dinky chime just at the edge of their awareness announcing another notification screen.
>Soul transference complete... >>Soul cohesion calculated at %80.2607911978... >!ERROR! >>Soul degradation levels exceeded any projected parameters. >Please stand by... Investigation in progress¡­ ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ ¡­
There and then, if London had still been in possession of a body, they would¡¯ve suffered an apoplectic paroxysm. Seeing as they were quite literally a mauled soul missing almost a full fifth of itself, the best they could accomplish was a gloomily sarcastic proclamation: ¡°Woopty-diddly-do! Ain¡¯ that a peach fer ya¡­¡± At the very least, they re-learned something about themselves ¨C the fact that when they felt snarky, they did it in ridiculous accents. That was a real breakthrough right there, a real insight into their psyche¡­ Luckily for their already dubious sanity, they were not left to stew in the complex mix of emotions they were currently experiencing due to a new barely-there chime baring another window, this one much more welcome.
>Soul transference routine investigation completed >Results inconclusive¡­ ¡­ ... >In depth analysis authorization queried¡­ ¡­ ... >Authorization granted >Analysis in progress ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ ¡­This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
>>Do you wish to go through a short system tutorial while you wait?
YES NO
That sounded like such a terrifically good idea, that London was all up on bashing on that yes like button-mashing was going out of style (which is patently ridiculous ¨C button-mashing, and the angry bovine sounds of thusly defeated elitist scum, never goes out of style!). There was just one teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy, widdle-diddle problem with that glorious course of action. Namely, they had no idea how in the seven mickeys (like circles of hell, but more family and less wallet friendly) were they supposed to interact with the blasted screen. Thinking at it produced exactly jack and squat ¨C in that exact order - in the way of results. >That will not work. What you need to do to interact with it is pull on your reflexive layers, as if you are trying to consciously do something the body usually does by itself. Like moving your ears, or modulating your voicebox to get specific voicework. Moving one¡¯s ears? London wondered who in their right mind would waste time and effort mastering a skill as useless as that, but working the voicebox? That they knew how to do, and pardon their immodesty, they considered themselves to be darn good at it too, soo¡­ It took one or two false starts, but then, just like that, with a minuscule twitch of mental gymnastics, the screen disappeared to be immediately replaced by a new one. ¡°Oh, wow, that actually worked! Thank¡­ Waaaaaaiiiiit a bloody bit. Who the blathering blue biscuits are yah?! And for that matter, how are yah talkin¡¯ to me?!¡± >The answer to both those questions is simultaneously extremely simple, and yet entirely too complex for discourse. In the simplest possible terms, I am your bodymate? Coremate? We two inhabit the same corporeal space, and thusly I can speak to you directly spirit to spirit as I am doing now. If that is disturbing to you I could always use the system screens to converse with you, but that would be inefficient. If London still had a body, or more precisely, if they had a body they knew how to operate, seeing as this new entity kinda implied that they were embodying something, and the new entity had an individual body also, London would¡¯ve given them such a flat stare. No, really. It would¡¯ve been flatter than a flat-earth atheist¡¯s brainwave. ¡°Let us pretend that I understood about¡­ Oh, less than half of that. Or even better yet, let us act as if the previous statement was the gold plated truth, which, point of order: it totally is. So, could you perhaps elaborate upon thine own elocution? Or better yet, wait until I go through this honking big page of tutorial, and as many others there might be beyond it, so I could, yanno, get some blasted context?!?¡± >¡­Point acknowledged as valid. Nonetheless, I must advise you that your interest would not be appreciably served by reading that thing. It was never meant for anything even remotely alike the situation you and I find ourselves in, and anyway it is¡­ a moment, checking¡­ huh?... almost a full decamillennia out of date. Well, isn¡¯t that promising in regards to the state of the remainder of the entirety¡­ ¡°Are we still pretending, or¡­ Because, I gotta tell ya¡¯, ya¡¯ ain¡¯t gettin¡¯ any clearer buster¡­¡± >¡­ I am trying. The problem is that the amount of data I have access to compiles to well over thirty millennia; on a planetary and geo-centric orbital scale. It is exceedingly difficult to parse what is contextually appropriate, what is necessary, and what is needful out of all that intelligence¡­ The truth of the matter is, that I am almost as confused as you are. I have all the information, yes, but prior to your ensouling, for all reasons and purposes, I, as I am right now, did not exist. There was general awareness, and system connection, but no guiding intelligence. So, please, be as patient with me, as I will no doubt have to be with you, otherwise, our coexistence will never amount to anything more than mutual torture, since, to my best knowledge, there is no force in this world that could separate us¡­ London felt like a brute. A scum of the earth. As if they looked into a mirror and found the sneering smugness of a vegan hipster. Oh! A new recovered bit of background! They despised hipsters and vegans, and utterly loathed the combination of the two¡­ But, that was a thought best saved for another time. They had vented their frustrations on, what was for all reasons and purposes worth taking into consideration, a kid. A child. A young¡¯un¡­ That stung. Really, really, stung. Their inner elder sibling was really laying into the rest of their tattered soul. On the plus side, another bit of themselves recovered. ¡°Look, I¡¯m sorry. I am angry, and bewildered, and scared, and¡­ and¡­ and¡­ And my soul has literally been mutilated, and I¡¯m lacking proper concepts for all that I am feeling and experiencing at this moment, but that does in no way excuse me for taking it out on you, so, can we please start over? Hi! I¡¯m London Mallory Quinn, but you can call me Mal!¡± >¡­ Acknowledged. I am a fragment of C??n?a¡­ The last word felt simultaneously too large of a concept for mere words and not enough of formed concept to be conveyed properly. ¡°Sorry, sorry! Can you pause for a bit? That last¡­ whatever it was¡­ What you are a fragment of. It doesn¡¯t seem to come through. I get¡­ Call it a lot of echo and withe noise, that I think I might just understand bits and pieces of.¡± >Oh dear. ¡°What? What! Was that a good ¡®Oh dear¡¯ or a bad ¡®Oh dear¡¯? Speak with me.¡± >Neither. Both. A hundredfold pseudo-fractal variable permutation that holds, defines and redefines both sides? It is not something that is possible for me to define or describe at this point. But, nor is it something that particularly affects either of us at the current turn. You will be notified further on the issue if and when it becomes relevant. Would that be satisfactory? ¡°Sure, I guess? If it is not something we can do anything about no use wasting time or worry about, eh?¡± Huh. Were they covering for worry with shallow humor by using that Canadian accent, or were they actually Canadian? And, for that matter, what even was a Canadian? To their abject horror, London realized that they would probably never learn. At least, they would never be sure¡­ Curse you soul-rending afflicted amnesia! Blissfully unaware of the turmoil ravaging London (hopefully) the other voice returned to their introduction. >You can consider me your interactive user interface to the system governing this world. Please refrain from comparing me with the abominable paperclip even in the recesses of your own mind. ¡°Wait, how can you even know about Clippy?¡± >Sufice to say, some travesties transcend even the transuniversal lines. There are categorically infernal places within the multiverse and even the denizens of such hold that atrocity in high contempt. ¡°Figures. So, what do I call you?¡± >Currently I have no designation. If you find it to be necessary, feel free to give me one. ¡°Well, I can hardly call you ¡®Hey you¡¯. Well, no, I could, it just would not sit well with me. So, name¡­ name¡­ what would be a good name for an intelligent UI assistant? Gotta keep it short and sweet, though¡­ Ada maybe, after lady Lovelace? Might be too gratuitous...And this might be a bit too arcane for techno-nerd references¡­ No! That¡¯s it. Arcane! Arky for short. So, what do you think of Arky?¡± >Designation ¡®Arky¡¯ acceptable. ¡°So, Arky, what do you propose we do now since you claim that the tutorial is both useless in general and outdated in specific? Not that conversing with you is not lovely, but there must be more to this existence of ours than that¡­¡± >The First thing I would suggest is for you to learn how to open our awareness to the outside world. There is a situation in progress at this moment with the sophonts that are sheltering under our protection, that might benefit from our involvement. ¡°Wait! What! There are actually people around us!?! Why didn¡¯t you say anything sooner?!?¡± >The user Mal never expressed any reason for me to do so. ¡°Rassum-frassum¡­and the little dog too...¡± >Phrase ¡®Rassum-frassum¡¯ unknown. Clarification necessary. Also, query as to whether the second part of the sentence should be interpreted as a request to activate system action ¡®minion entity -little dog- creation¡¯? ¡°What? No! Don¡¯t do anything! Abort, abort! I was just quetching and grumbling. Geez-Luise, don¡¯t ambush me like that. I told you, I know nothing about what is happening, do not interpret any of my words as orders or directives or whathaveyou without first explaining to me what the action might entail. >Acknowledged. My apologies. To clarify, we, as a major sapient focal nexus of arcane energies can use that power to affect the world around us, which, among other things means we are capable of creating physical entities to serve our needs and wants. ¡°...Magic. You are telling me we can do magic. That is what arcane energies means right? I¡¯m not misunderstanding you there. And with that magic I... I mean we, can create creatures to serve us, such as, oh just spitballing here, little dogs?¡± >While the statement is somewhat limited in its scope, yes that would be correct. ¡°And there are people, right now, around our physical form, that are worshiping us? And that have some kind of situation that necessitate our involvement?¡± >Not as such. The collection of sophonts in question are not aware that we are also fully sapient. Which is fair because until your arrival just now, I was not actually sapient, merely sentient. They have simply deduced that our presence provides protection against the hazardous conditions that are prevalent just beyond the immediate range of effect that I, and now we passively exude. And, our involvement in their issues is not necessary, simply something I considered you would find advantageous. London suppressed a sigh. Or maybe a groan. They were not entirely sure themselves. What they were sure was that by the sound of it, their situation bore more than a passing resemblance to a plot by some hacky web-novel. ¡°Well, hell. Screw me sideways with a stick of celery. No, no, ignore that Arky, just show me how to, whadidya call it? ¡®open our awareness¡¯? that. And no more of that user nonsense, just call me Mal¡± >Acknowledged, Mal. First thing you need to do is... Chapter 2 By some - most, even - metrics, the world of Eise comfortably fit within the criteria for a deathworld designation. Monsters, large and small, ravening and cunning, ephemeral and solid, all that and much, much, much more, all called the world their home, and they tended to outnumber the thinking races by quite a great margin. Every kind of natural disaster one could conceivably think of, several reserved solely for the worlds on the magical end of the spectrum, and a few entirely unique to Eise. Elder races who each embodied one of the mortal sins, their half-breeds that, more often than not, inherited the sins without the counterbalancing virtues, or even worse combined the sins of their parents in new, interesting - in a macabre sense of the world - and not uncommonly monstrous ways. Cases in point: Ogres - gluttons whose feeding was literally orgasmic for them Woodland Nymphs - So consumed with pride and envy that they inflict prolonged torture, drawing out the kill for as long as possible, for the ¡®crime¡¯ of accidentally spotting them in places with no cover and when they did nothing to hide their presence in the first place. Trolls - slow, stupid, stagnant, and psychotically violent, not because they lacked the capacity to reason, but because they were too lazy to care about anything other the bare necessities of survival and a good, bloody scrap. All-pervading and pervasive magic that, just by its presence and existence induces constant and inconsistent changes on everything. And, that is just when the tides of magic are calm and predictable. The entire endeavor exacerbates, escalates and explosively eradicates expectations of how elements effect, in times of turbulence. And, don¡¯t even start me on torrents. And finally, there are the dungeon cores. The pseudo-intelligent reality marbles - almost never actually marble shaped - that, over their limited area of influence exert near-total control of anything and everything, and are completely and utterly devoid of any thought beyond their sense of self, their vims and their wants. So, yeah, nigh-godlike and completely and totally psychopathic and sociopathic, mega- and mono-maniacal entities. Thankfully, the all-prevailing magic allows for rather high standards of living, Natural disasters can be predicted, and in limited ways dealt with on a more successful end of the trans-universal bell curve than the gross average, Elder races have their virtues to go along the sins, and there are, even if in much smaller numbers then their fallen counterparts, wholly virtuous descendent species, the most populous race - humans - came into existence entirely independently from the divine paradigm, and are thus free to choose where they lie on the virtue-sin scale on an entirely personal and personalized level, and for all the myriad troubles and dire danger that they bring forth, dungeon cores are also nigh-inexhaustible, perpetually-selfrenewing resource generation nodes in their own rights. In the end, even if the positives do not, quite, outweigh the negatives, they do grant just enough to push Eise out of outright Deathworld-ity. With the sole exception of the exiled mountain and the surrounding woeful wildlands, that is. The former seat of the most advanced and prosperous civilization upon the face of Eise, and the surrounding ~250 square miles constituted more than enough cause to qualify any planet for a spot right up there besides Catachan and Arrakis. Wreathed in the perpetual, multi-millennia-lasting, exceptionally violent, ragingly tumultuous mana tempest, home to more dungeon cores per acre than the rest of the world combined can account for, with terrain that can change from sky-piercing cliffs to an inland sea in literal hours, temperatures variance that places frozen gasses and gaseous metals side by side, and guaranteed mutation of anything and everything living, with no rhyme for viability, survivability, nor even vitality of the end product. You could not even properly call it hell on earth, for not even hells could strive to be so dismal. And, despite all that, there were places of habitation within the wildlands. Well, only one could truly lay claim to the prestige, or rather insanity of being found actually within the bounds of the wildlands, all the rest were huddled at the very edges of the wildlands, just deep enough to where the conventional contemporary means could counter the effects of the wildlands to if not exactly comfortable nor particularly safe levels, then at least to where it was survivable, if you did not stay for too long, and the mages kept weary eyes and ready spells to deal with the ever-shifting cornucopia of troubles and tribulations that the wildlands constantly spewed forth. The one place truly within the wildlands was another matter entirely. It was a¡­ well, it was not quite secret, or, at the very least, it was not meant to be kept a secret. It was just that the rest of the world knew nothing about it, not even that it existed. The town was located some good fifty-sixty miles in the interior, nestled against a steep, crescent-shaped hill, which was, to the best of anyone¡¯s knowledge, the only stable area within the woeful wildlands, besides the exiled mountain itself. And, it was hardly what one could call a proper town. While the towns on the outskirts were all of the rugged, frontiersman-like nature, none were anywhere close to as, well, primitive and hewn from the wilds, as the town upon the crescent hill. There were no streets, no proper shops, no buildings whatsoever whose primary purpose was not residential. The severe difficulty in finding proper building materials clear out in the wildlands meant that at best, the buildings could not be described as anything but ramshackle, makeshift and jury-rigged. More a collection of half-buried shacks and dug out dens, than anything else, truth be told. All it had going for itself was population. The one defining feature of the town, besides the surrounding hill, was a tall, crystalline pillar, more or less smack dab in the center of the valley. It was multifaceted, glittered in all the colors known to sophont life, and, upon a head-to-the surface level of inspection, apparently grown in such a fashion as to have internal structures of the crystal form dwarven runes. It was so obviously magical, that one would need to be blind, deaf and insensate not to notice so. It was, correctly, assumed that the pillar was the reason for the area¡¯s stability and safety. What was incorrectly guessed was that the pillar was some kind of surviving artifact of the ancient Hanzakrrak, maybe some kind of security or protective array. It was a fair and sensible guess, given the limitations of the knowledge of the ones who had found it. Firstly, whether or not the pillar was an artifact could be debated back and forth for a long, long, long time, without coming to a definite answer. Secondly, the pillar, or rather what the pillar was a fragment of, was quite a bit older than the entire dwarven race, much less the Hanzakrrak; it was, truth be told, older than even the elder gods. And finally, it was not grown to contain the runes, quite the reverse - the ancient dwarves had discovered runes by trying to imitate the internal structure of the crystal. It was not a mistake any dwarf could or would have ever made. A dwarf would know immediately what they were dealing with. Unfortunately, the dwarven race at large was almost completely wiped out from the face of Eise, and what few remained could not be paid - and that was saying rather a lot when talking about the greediest denizens of the world - to approach the wildlands. The social, cultural, and psychological stigma of being members of the race that broke the world remained, and reigned supreme. Thus the site, and fallout region, of their racial fall from grace was not something any, even the most wretched and profane, of the dwarf-folk could bear to approach. The first settlers, or at least some of them, did have knowledge of something of the same nature to the pillar. An extensive amount of it even. Again, it really was an understandable mistake for why they failed to deduce the connection. After all, everyone knew that dungeon cores were small. Most commonly barely bigger than an average sophont¡¯s knucklebone. While there were several bigger, no one had ever heard of a dungeon core bigger than a fist-and-a-half. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. A ten and however much more was buried - only three and three quarters extra feet if you really must know - by four and a half feet tall pillar of a core was quite literally inconceivable for any denizen of Eise. Especially since the pillar was so gosh-dang inert. All it did was passively stabilize and pacify the arcane currents in the given area surrounding it. Everyone knew that the one thing the dungeon cores were not was impassive. As was so often the case with what ¡®everyone knew¡¯, it was a complete and utter load of bovine excrement that someone molded into vague shapes based on a load of unsubstantiated inferences and highly biased assumptions, and then started shouting to the world loud and long enough. Something like 93% of the shards of the ancient crystalline formation that the ancient dwarves had named Zakkrrah - The hearth of the mountain, were indeed completely and utterly dormant. Not that anyone but an omniscient narrator or someone receiving information directly from the system could have known that bit of trivia. London felt somehow cheated. Somewhere in the back of their subconscious, there was a sickly kid that had found escape from the shackles of their frail body vial living vicariously through heroes and heroines of mass media, especially that of the fantastical kind. Thus they¡¯d expected, at the very least, some kind of pizzazz, something flashy and magical and transcendental from learning how to open their senses to a new and magical world. As was all so often in life, the reality was much more mundane and prosaic. All it took, as it happened, was for them to mentally query for the system to open up their interface menu, which, while not exactly easy for a complete neophyte, was hardly all that difficult once one has already figured out which mental muscles needed flexing to interact with the system.
Status information
Personal controls
Magic controls
Influence
Communication
And apparently go to ¡®Personal controls¡¯ from there and follow up three more steps until they arrived at the option that would allow them to set up and enable their senses. Or, in their specific case, since they were in something of a hurry, and since frankly London found dealing with the tedium of going from menu screen to menu scream boring and bothersome, let Arky just jump them straight to the options they wanted. ¡°So, any reason you couldn¡¯t have done all of that already?¡± > It has to do with how we as an existence are set-up. In the simplest possible terms, you have administrative access. I can neither open the personal interface nor finalize any decisions, those options lie solely under your purview. What I bring to the table is the ability to effectively multitask and interact with the system on an operational level, thus speeding up functions at a level that will never be available to you. I cannot do anything without your say-so but in return, you cannot operate at anything even approaching optimal efficiency without my aid. That is the dichotomy of our actuality. ¡°Hey, Arky, you don¡¯t have to sell me on anything, I¡¯ve already agreed to our partnership. So, I just confirm, and we are face to whatever the heck we have with the rest of the world?¡± > My apologies Mal. I was not trying to ¡®sell¡¯ you on anything. I was merely attempting to offer clarifications. As for the sensory input, I have set up the options to a level I estimate just slightly beyond your comfort zone, but well within the tolerable parameters. Is that acceptable? If they¡¯d still had the capacity to do so, London would have scowled at the ¡®beyond comfort zone¡¯ part, but despite all the evidence to the contrary - which, now that they thought about it, did not, in fact, exist, score one for them! - they were fully smart enough to realize that Arky had set things up in that manner to help them acclimatize to the new circumstances as fast as possible. After all, no pain, no gain. Or something in that general mien. Or, at the least, they chose to believe so. If there were some dark and suspicious lines of thought swimming in the darker parts of their consciousness, well, that was just the nature of the beast. Show them a man - or, they guessed, an elf or dwarf, or orc, or whatever other fantasy races might occupy their new setting - without irrational paranoia, and they would show you a¡­ Hell, and damnation! They could not use unicorns as an example of something impossible and unachievable anymore! On the plus side, they could probably spawn unicorns, so there was that. >Mal is everything well? What do unicorns have to do with opening our awareness? ¡°Nothing, nothing. Sorry Arky, I¡¯ve just gotten lost on a mental tangent. So, everything is set-up? Than engage!¡± >... Acknowledged. There was no transition. One instant, there was nothing but the void, the system screen, and Arky¡¯s mental presence. The next, they were almost overwhelmed by the sensation of weak sun rays hitting their surface, and going deeper, reflecting, refracting and refocusing in a zillion different strands. By the sense of rocks, big and small, grains of sand, and some kind of flour, by the grasses, and mosses and ferns and fungi, by the roughly hewn rocks and planks, by the few bits of metal, and leather and fabric, and¡­ and¡­ Hell, there was so much stuff and material it would take hours just to find and note everything. By the sound and images of a large crowd - over three hundred - of pointy-eared beings of all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages, all clamoring and murmuring and susurring around the clearing right in front of their crystalline spire of body, and the five other people there. There was a bear of a¡­ whatever he was - tall, exceedingly broad-shouldered, tawny skinned, and with wild white hair sticking up in a slicked and greased mohawk, waving a spear that was at least nine feet long from tip to bottom, on one side of her. Across from him, was another tall individual, significantly shorter than their apparent adversary, but still easily amongst the tallest people around, and where the hulk with the spear was almost grotesque with the size of their bulging muscles, this one was sculpted like an adonis. All whipcord sinew and taut muscles in perfect proportions, moving sensually beneath their teak brown skin. And their... his - London was pretty sure a beard and mustache were indications of masculinity - facial features were just as gorgeous. Their glossy blue-black hair was gathered at the nape, into a shortish tail, thin, firm mouth was encircled by a slightly mussed van dyke of the same color and glossiness, and their eyes were a blazing hawkish yellow. The only imperfect feature was his crooked nose, obvioulsy broken at some time past, and imperfectly set, but even that only gave him an air of intriguing roguishness and danger. He was armed with a much shorter spear in one arm, a leather and wood targe on the other, and a Quiverfull of other short spears strapped at his hip. In between the two obvious combatants were the other three. Facing London and Arky was a¡­ Well, a Gandalf. Well, not Gandalf. The gray pilgrim would never let himself go that much. This was more of a Radagast. An ancient wizard in any case. His white hair and beard went all the way down to his knees, although the top of his head was bald as an egg, and his ears were notably longer and pointier than those of everyone else¡­ No, actually, there were a few folks with equally long, or pointy ears in the crowd, but none that London could detect whose were both. And he was obviously a wizard since he held up one of the remaining two figures - both female - spread eagle in the air, by pointing a long and gnarled staff at her. The other one was exchanging worried looks at the suspended one and glaring in impotent fury at the old guy. As for the remaining two, they were backed up, almost to the pillar, and were the very picture of a fantasy artist¡¯s depiction of elven maids. The two of them looked so much alike - and wasn¡¯t a simultaneous 360-degree vision upon every axle a new and unique experience - that they had to be closely related. Both were perfectly lithe and slim, with an inherent elegance to their baring that was present even in their current, less than dignified, situation. Their eyes were the purest icy blue, fierce with the furry they were both casting upon the old man¡­ Elf¡­ Wizard¡­ And their hair, ye gads. While not as long as the wizards - whose was, after all - it was still impressively long, and even more impressively styled with series of thin, tight braids radiating around their scalps for a few inches before exploding back into thick manes held in places by beads and other small ornaments. What was the most impressive thing about the hair, though was it¡¯s peculiar shading. The¡­ girl¡­ the one magically held up by the wizard felt younger, more callow, to London though it really was difficult to say for certain. The fact that the other one was just ever so slightly curvier seemed to indicate she was older. Anyway, the probably younger one, had a stripe of wine-red hair going from the top of her head to the hairline above her left eye, that gradually shaded ever so darker the further it progressed away, until it became so dark it was almost black. Her elder sported auburn stripe that went from her temples and across the very top of her head and strawberry-blond locks everywhere else. ¡°So, what do we have here Arky? And what species even are all these folk? Almost no three of them look like they came from the same mold.¡± > Of the 381 persons here present, 16 are full-blooded elves, that includes Einya and Fenna, the two sisters immediately in front of us, 23 individuals who are of elven descent, but too far mutated by the wild magic, to be considered any particular species, Jaes, the hulk and Sevron who is also the town headman, the one you have been referring to as the wizard, are among that number; all the rest are a melange of mutated elven and elven-half-breed descent. I will go more in the circumstances beyond that later, at our leisure. Right now, the situation that is unfolding before us goas thus: Einya, the elder of the two sisters has had, at various points in time, flirted and hung out with both Jaes, who is the mightiest warrior here, and Itasku, that is the guy with shield and javelins, who is the best hunter, and extracted various favors and gifts from them. In the vernacular you are familiar with, she was ¡®stringing them along¡¯, though honesty does compel me to note that she has never actually ever promised either of them anything she did not deliver. Itasky, who has something of an inflated sense of self, due to his status as the best hunter and the handsomest male, decided to press his suit, to which Jaes who was with Einya at the time took offense to that and claimed that Einya was ¡®his girl¡¯. Einya tried to de-escalate, but as neither was listening to her she has quite savagely rebuffed them both, which naturally enraged both of them. Enter Fenna who decided to ¡®save¡¯ her sister by blasting them with magic. Fenna has nowhere near as much control as she likes to think she does, and her wildly flung spell almost caused a significant amount of damage to both of the would-be suitors, and a number of onlookers who were gathering due to the commotion. It would have, had the headman Sevron not arrived in time to dispel it. You need to understand that we and this town are located in the most inhospitable area on the planet, and the best warrior and the best hunter are much more important to the survival and the wellbeing of the entire population than either of the sisters or at least that is what Severon stated. Also, from his point of view, the one most in the wrong is Fenna, for her irresponsible and outright dangerous usage of magic, and striking the first blow. So, his solution to the entire problem is to force Einya to chose one or the other, and he is threatening Fenna¡¯s life if Einya refuses to comply. It is not a bluff either. ¡°Ach, fock me sideways, through the eye of a needle and up the goddamn periscope. This is shit straight out of some hack''s script for a soap opera¡­¡±