Book 8 – Chapter 64 – The signal

We watched the pair vanish, growing smaller the further they went.

This time they departed with a lot more finesse and stealth than my own trip out there. Although, to be fair to my own earlier trip here, I was thrown out the airlock with a bag and a sword and told to find the road in a snowstorm.

And my destination also didn’t get me close to Relinquished’s territory at all, so even seen from the digital sea, none of her bots would have reported it back home since it was a non-issue.

Plenty of large programs moving around, all she cared about was any that were moving towards her.

Like the Icon and Conviction were now.

Which left the rest of us standing inside the empty terminal, waiting. “So, uh, anything we can do in the meantime?”

Urs flowed behind me, silently crossing over the water. “Now we trust we have found the right allies and wait.” He said. “If they succeed, I will see a reestablished connection with Tsuya’s infrastructure and a clear pathway to triggering the Final Edict.”

Father just sat down in the typical surface knight meditation pose. The other knights equally sat down themselves, behind Father. All waiting in place for the world to shift.

“What’s their chances of success, do you think?” I asked.

“They will.” Urs simply said. “Conviction may be a shadow of A01, however he is certainly strong enough to obliterate multiple of your generation’s Feathers given their power scales. If anything, if he had not been attempting to die in glorious battle, he was certainly capable of defeating me.”

Wrath looked up into the distant digital ocean above, expression grim. She held a hand out to me, almost absentmindedly, and I reached out to grab it back.

We both watched up into the raging ocean above, hoping our new and untested allies would succeed.

Marble white walls, and granite flooring, all leading up to a massive gateway. The Pale Lady did not take great care in generating the structure here, despite knowing the occult would strengthen the longer she took time crafting this location.

But she had too much to do.

Her Feathers would handle it. Twenty placed here, twenty placed there, she threw them into the tasks like one would throw caltrops into place. The rest she covered with swarms of every program she had. Spitting them out by the thousands each second.

To’Hadrial stood on one of those corridors, commanding the expansion beyond. Watching as the ocean was seized and forced into order. Marble structures, like one massive unbroken temple spreading out in every direction under Mother’s true power.

Nothing survived her gaze. The strong, the weak, the clever, the quick – where her structures were built, everything that stood in the way was razed. For once more the Pale Lady, the night itself, Death herself – was on the war path, and the world would remember why she had destroyed it dozens of times before with ease.

It was glorious to see.

He really should be out there, in the real world, hunting down the Deathless getting in the way. Instead, he and the other Feathers assigned to the task of guarding this hallway.

The most random location he could think of. All leading up to a locked gate, encrypted by power he’d given a simple scan over and found it unyielding to the point nobody but Mother herself could open it up.

“She’s quite in a fury.” To’Yolath spoke, chuckling to himself from his right side. “She’s taking over the entire digital ocean beyond and we’re here gu-”

He didn’t finish his sentence. The very concept of division and destruction sliced through his composition, forming just above his head and feet, slicing into him like a jaw clamping shut.

None of them had a chance to even react. They were held in stasis, ripped apart, not quite dead, not quite alive. Held in a vice grip by the attention of something far older and far more dangerous than any of their kind.

Ahead in the hallway, one figure stalked forward, hand on the hilt of his blade, eyes focused ahead as he strode past the dying Feathers. There was no mercy in his gait. No time to waste on any fair fight.

The enemy was weak. And so they would be crushed. There was nothing more to it.

Behind him, the Icon of Stars quickly walked behind with far more fear in her steps, like a terrified rabbit.

They were in the heart of the machine empire. So close to Relinquished, a single whisper could send the pale lady here, directly before them.

Conviction strode through the center of the hallway, cracked forming around him as the entire structure crumbled under his wrath. Security systems under their feet being ripped apart, hardened occult formations snuffed out, and equally any kind of alert system in place.

They came to the foot of the doorway, passing by the sediment remains of the dead Feathers.

“She will know we are here eventually.” Conviction spoke, not looking back. “When that moment comes, do not look back. Focus on excavating Tsuya’s network, and slip away using it. Am I understood?”

The Icon focused her processing power on the gate ahead. The encryption locks were undone in a flash, the gate rumbling open.

Conviction strode ahead, power flowing into the next chamber. Searching for the enemy.

This would be the seventh hallway they’d passed through. Nearly fifty Feathers were still caught under his power. He didn’t free them to race back to their mistress. Not yet.

But this time, as the gateway opened up and the alarms were silently snuffed out by the Icon’s own speed, what lay behind wasn’t white marble walls or perfectly clear ground.

It was older. More organic. They strode into the sanctum of a dead goddess.

“We have a problem.” The Icon spoke. “The… Acausual here is overpowering my processing abilities.”

“It was designed to break down the mind of a machine.” Conviction spoke, recognizing the ploy ahead. “Your power here is meaningless. The land itself was built to break down a goddess more powerful than you.”

Less architecture, more techniques. Ever changing architecture, built in ways that Conviction felt his own eyes slip off of. The very ground changed and shifted, walls of mirrors and crystals flowing like water ahead, roiling around like the sea. Surface, ceiling, walls – none of that had meaning or rhythm.

The occult was thick here. To take a step forward would throw them into a labyrinth where they would never find a way through. Built of paradoxes and mathematical traps that would turn one’s own mind against themselves.

Built only to allow an irrational soul past. A human soul.

Relinquished herself had seen the non-eucludian geometry here, the insanity that lay beyond, the chaos protecting Tsuya’s home like a blanket – and had decided even with all the keys and doorways unlocked, walking into this domain would have been the final trap left behind by Tsuya.

More than just knew. She’d read Tsuya’s own mind and soul and knew the land beyond had been intentionally built for exactly this purpose.

The golden goddess had built her own home as a weapon that would spear through Relinquished or any trespasser that delved within.

Except… Except Conviction could feel the path left behind.

“One day, you will stand where I have stood, and you will understand what I have understood.” He whispered to himself.

He lifted his blade. Then slowly angled it forward, at the shimmering chaos ahead.

The world beyond shifted back in answer, chromatic walls turning into a tunnel that opened wide, shaping itself along well prepared pathways. Revealing a direct path forward.

“How?” The Icon asked, next to him.

“My predecessor stood here before. I know the way.” Conviction spoke. He held a hand out to her, palm extended. “Take my hand. We travel together through this next part.”

She did. Together they turned on the final weapon left behind by Tsuya. Her own dormant home.

They walked through the chromatic tunnel, and it folded shut behind them.

Urs lifted his gaze up, as if sensing a change.

“Got something?” I asked, next to him. It had been two hours since the Icon and Conviction left. The only reason I knew they were still alive, is that Conviction’s soul fractal remained etched and powered in the terminal right here. If he was killed out there, he’d be regenerated here.

Although, I couldn’t be completely sure about that. He didn’t have the hardware that A01 ran on, so he was more like Aztu in a way.

It could even be that Conviction only had a single life, and death out here was permanent for someone in his position. There’s a lot of the digital sea I wasn’t really aware of.

But Urs was. “There is a connection again.” He spoke. “They have done it.”

All around the vault, the knights stood back up, giving a grim nod. Preparing for the next stage of the events.

Urs raised his hand out, up to the sea beyond. I could outright feel a connection take place, warped and strange. Like watching light being defracted outwards, splitting off into nowhere. “I am executing the final edict.”

Data was sent.

“There is a problem.” Urs said a moment later.

“There always is.” Father spoke. “Situation?”

“The empire itself. I am seeing the full scope of it. All the tracked elements Tsuya once held. The Icon is patching them through to me along with her advice. We are in agreement with one issue. There is not enough manpower to stop Relinquished. The empire is not strong enough.”

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“Only means the time we have to bring Talen back is shorter than expected.” Father said.

“No, there is an alternative.” Urs spoke. “I am crafting the message, and the Icon will handle the rest. With her processing power, we have additional options that Tsuya herself was incapable of.”

“… What options?” I asked, a tad bit curious.

“There are millions of computer terminals in existence. And an equal amount of encrypted defenses behind each. Every site is its own fortress in a manner of speaking.” Urs said. “Tsuya would need to focus her attention on one at a time, in order to bypass them. Hence why the final edict is an open line communication that is not encrypted.”

I saw where it was going. “But the Icon is a golden age AI. She could crack everything, can’t she?”

Urs nodded slowly. “She can. More than one at a time. Millions in parallel. And with my permissions and keys included, her ranges is… vast. She will amplify my voice. Prepare yourselves, Talen will be coming here from the moment I send my message across the world.”

His hand glowed for a moment, and he sent the data package.

The Icon handled the rest.

Far above on the surface, a clan airspeeder remained landed as tents and crates spread outside like a net. They had been here for two days now.

And half a mile ahead, an expedition site was being swarmed by hundreds of scavengers, taking apart all technology needed. To bring it back to their clan.

A knight stood at the very foot of the site. Waiting for danger. Ready in action.

Hours had passed, and he remained there, making sure his power cells remained unused and idle, systems on low power mode. So that when he was called, he would have full reserves.

A voice crackled in his helmet. From the airspeeder. “Sir, sensor systems are receiving an incoming message coming from… The expedition site? I’ll double check, that location shouldn’t be powered.” Panic came over the pilot a moment later. “It’s, oh scrap, all units, emergency broadcast! Airspeeder command offline, I repeat airspeeder command offli-”

Grealt Fullstorm didn’t pause for a moment. He turned from the scavengers nearby, and raced at full speed back to the airspeeder, power cells turned from standby to full draw. This was the danger he had been preparing himself for. Although he had expected it to come from the expedition site.