Neophyte World Builder

EMBER

Awkward silence could exist even amongst those who build worlds, it turned out.

Trent had shuffled to the side once Duck had revealed her unusual abilities. Ember was pretty sure she would have found that amusing, were she still human. The giant tentacle monster glorping off to the side as if wary of the tiny blue elf savaging him… it was a strange sight.

She couldn’t blame him. Ember found Duck a little disquieting as well. She’d never made a Terminal herself, and part of the reason she still hadn’t tried was due to seeing how Crown’s Terminal behaved. Watching a splinter of him act so independent and argumentative had made her wary, even if Orpheus had assured her that Duck was unusual.

Well, now Ember knew that unusual didn’t even begin to cover it.

Duck was perceptive enough to notice, and just let out a big sigh. “We’ve been hanging out here for how long now? And you think I’m suddenly going to go evil overlord on you? Relax, I’m just an anomaly. So is Donut, he’s just less self-aware about it even when it’s smacking him in the face.”

No point in glowering endlessly, Ember thought to herself. If Duck was hostile, she’d probably already done what she wanted. Opening this door had been a surprise, but the tiny creature had yet to do anything bad, aside from some snarky insults while they’d been waiting.

“How long have you known you had different abilities than a normal Terminal?” Ember asked the question with just a note of uncertainty, but the moment she asked she felt better about it. With how off-balance everyone had been, doing anything to address the matter was better than nothing.

Duck’s ears twitched, but Ember wasn’t familiar enough with Crown’s elves to understand it. She remembered that sort of thing had been translated before, but with the interface down those features were more limited.

“A long time,” Duck admitted. “I was pretty sure from the start that my access to the World System—that’s what the interface is called, by the way—was unusual. Not just that I could see it, but it kept uh… you’re from Earth so me saying it glitched out a few times should make sense. I could tell some things about my world even before Donut figured them out.”

Ember glanced at Trent, but without the translation in full effect, the tentacle-bearing creature’s expression was inscrutable.

Duck wasn’t finished, anyway. “I didn’t really know things were different until he took an Incarnate Avatar and was gone for twenty years. That’s when I realized I could change things if I wanted, but I was too scared to do it. I knew what he knew, but I also know his tendency to overlook things sometimes turns around and he just gets too involved. If he did that, he’d catch me right away… and I was worried about messing something up.”

“Still better than me,” Ember grumbled. “I was too scared to start time up even after I’d set up my world. I’m pretty sure I wasted eons or… I’m not actually sure how time passes for us before we start up our own world. Maybe nothing happened.”

Shaking her head, Duck leaned on the massive gate next to her. “No, if you haven’t started your world up, you’re lined up with the standard time. For Donut, that was a lot faster than what his world ended up running. He probably went through decades back on Earth while he was figuring stuff out. That might be why you’re running so far behind us.”

Trent finally burbled a contribution to the conversation. “A few of those recruited are still designing their worlds. Orpheus considered these failures, as they were unable to make a decision. Perhaps in time they will prove profitable, unlike those who managed to run out of energy before intelligent life was made.”

Ember felt her face screw up in a grimace. “How? It’s not that hard! What are they doing that they go through all of that… you know what, I don’t want to know. This wasn’t that hard, you must have just gotten a lot of very stupid people.”

“See, now you’re thinking about this the right way,” Duck said cheerily. “I’m not sure why, but it looks like even with the interface most administrators fumble their way through things without actually thinking about it. Diamon seems all right, but the rest don’t know any more than you, Ember.”

Duck glanced at Trent. “No offense. I don’t know you at all, just making an observation.”

Trent’s tentacles—or arms, if he really was like an octopus—made a twisting gesture. “We do the best that we can. Every world is different, so general rules are hard to create. Diamon is one of the few who can explain how to do something in a manner that can be understood. That is why he often teaches.”

Ember thought back to the “lessons” she had with a sigh that let out a plume of smoke. Many of the instructions had been so vague as to be almost useless, but the warnings about what not to do were informative. Slowly, she’d built up her own understanding of how things worked, and that had been useful. She understood she had Crown to thank for that, at least indirectly… but that thought put her questions back on track.

“When did you realize you could do things outside of your world?” Ember was curious about the answers to other questions, but if Duck was really to be trusted, maybe she could explain more about how she did what she did.

“That was recent,” Duck sighed, her tail swaying. “And complicated. I sort of felt the tickle while we were having the incursions… it turned out that they’d been trying to get through to me the entire time, but Crown’s an Anchor Being. They ended up just opening up my potential. Since I was already connected to the World System, all I needed was an opening.”

She gestured vaguely at the giant vault door. “When Orpheus vanished, suddenly I became the ‘Secondary fallback’ or something. I think the other clusters tried to use me as a weak point, but since my entire nature is to be contrary, that didn’t work out well for them. So I got access to the World System, but they got nothing. They had to slip in some other way.”

Trent burbled thoughtfully. “Do you know what happened to Orpheus? Their guidance would be useful now. Many of our worlds are starting to falter, although the incursions have eased of late.”

Duck’s ears flicked downward, and Ember remembered that was a no. “I don’t. I think maybe, with enough time, Crown can find her from in there… but we have to take care of our world, too. We can’t just abandon it, there are things there that are really important. It’s already been a few years unattended, if he’s here. That should be fine, but there’s a lot of stuff we need to look into now that he’s back.”

Ember flinched and took a step back at the same time Trent’s tentacles recoiled. The familiar paradigm let Ember catch on more quickly to what had happened.

“You can relax, I think that’s just how Crown sees the interface,” she reassured her fellow administrator. “It’s similar to something we had in our world. It makes sense… if I were more familiar with computers, I might have done the same. I don’t recall much about these systems, but I recognize the style a little.”

Duck gave Ember an odd look, but didn’t press the issue. “It looks like he’s managed to partially restore it. I have no idea what he’s doing in there, but at least he seems to be making progress.”

Ember nodded, her own interface materializing in her hands. She used a large book for hers, and the pages flipped rapidly to check on what she could do. Much of her world manipulation was unavailable, the pages blank, but some parts could be seen. One of the pages was glowing, and the book flipped to that one automatically.

It looks like I have the communications system up and running again. — Regalia

Excellent. Is that you, Crown? New name? — Diamon

It’s what the interface gave me just now. Maybe I can change it back… — Regalia

Probably better not to mess with it until you know what you’re doing. — Duck (Regalia Terminal)

Ember looked up in surprise as the words of the last message faded onto the page. Terminals could send messages like that? She hadn’t known that. A moment later, others confirmed her own thoughts.

Since when were Terminals allowed to speak like this? — Alax

Bite me, I’m special. — Duck (Regalia Terminal)

That expression is not translating, I think. You want us to eat you? — Trent

She’s telling you she doesn’t care about your opinion, she’ll do what she wants. — Ember

Scrawling that into her book didn’t actually take a pen, just an act of thought, but it looked like she’d written it. So far, her interface was working just as she’d remembered it, aside from letting Duck into it. Calling herself “contrary” certainly fit the attitude. She hadn’t been nearly so argumentative during their wait by the door.

Then again, she also hadn’t been talkative at all. Duck had been friendly but taciturn, in Ember’s experience. Only once Crown returned had she shown more liveliness.

I’m still trying to figure out how to get all this done. It may take some time before everything is back to normal, if ever. — Regalia

How did you fix it? Have you contacted Orpheus? Have you found a way into their sanctuary? — Diamon

Duck let me in, but Orpheus isn’t in here. I’ll try to track them down later, I want to get everything functional again first. I should be able to track them from inside here. Not that there’s much in this sanctuary. I expected something fancier. Maybe it isn’t even their sanctuary. — Regalia

See if you can get the defenses up again, at least a little bit. You can probably design something better than just wrapping us in armor, but it can’t hurt. — Akasha (System Derivative)

Good idea. — Regalia

I don’t recognize these names. — Crystal

At this point, I am not surprised. Just let Regalia do his work. — Diamon

Ember couldn’t tell if Diamon was annoyed, resigned, or proud. The weird mammoth-creature was sometimes hard to read. Actually… always hard to read, in Ember’s mind. She knew she was equally alien to everyone else, probably even Crown. She may have chosen a female gender and an aesthetically-pleasing appearance, but her own world’s beings didn’t actually have gender at all.

She hadn’t expected this decision to make it hard for her to remain thinking of herself as female. Ember knew clinging to this identity was holding her back, but she also knew it was a one way decision. Once it was gone, it would be hard to reclaim.

Her musings were interrupted by some actual activity.

I think I have the basics running again. More work needs to be done, but I also have work on my own world to do. Message me if there are problems. — Regalia

Now that I’m hooked in, I can probably tell ahead of time if something starts to break. I’ll send out a message about it if I see it. — Akasha (System Derivative)

That will not be necessary. I will be handling messaging. Thank you, Akasha. — Switchboard (Regalia Terminal)

Ember blinked at the implication there. Had Crown just made a Terminal on the fly, without the interface to help? Her own Terminal creation page was still grey and blank. Was it possible to do it without?

Her thoughts were interrupted as, at last, the door swung open once more.