Poll Story: Guardian's Curse (Egyptification/Cyberization) (Patreon)

There were few things more intoxicating to an adventurer than a good old fashioned lost civilization. The world was old and constantly changing; civilizations had risen, fallen, risen again, the “modern” world built on endless strata of the past. There was no such thing as an eternal civilization; the higher they climbed, the more grandiose ruins they’d leave behind them.

And this ruin was grand indeed, Juliana reflected as she walked through the halls by the dim green light. The Sea of Sand was one of the largest and least hospitable deserts in the world, with the burning heat in the day and icy cold at night, and barely any water for miles upon miles. Travelling anywhere in such lands was a difficulty - and that meant that it had many secrets hidden in its dunes.

Juliana had not originally come out into the sands on a treasure hunt. Wandering off without a specific destination in the Sea of Sand was an excellent way to get yourself killed, never to be seen again as a monster drags you off to it’s nest or you just die of thirst. She’d been travelling to meet with a contact in one of the Oasis-Towns that formed around the rare sources of life in the region, when in the middle of the trip a sandstorm had gotten her thrown off course.

She could still find her way using the stars, but for that she’d have to wait for the night ,and she’d gone to search for shelter - and found that the sandstorm had uncovered something. An ancient structure of polished grey and black stone, with pictograms and what she could only imagine to be words scrawled across every surface and glowing softly in the gloom.

The adventurer realized that this was a discovery - a new ancient civilization that was not yet recorded, and if this ruin was anything to go by, this was a seriously advanced one too. It’d be one of the biggest discoveries of the century!

The hallway had been lengthy, but spilled out into a large cubical chamber. It seemed to be a dead end - which was strange, she’d seen no other passages coming in. In the middle of the room was a raised dais of black stone, above which floated a strange mask. In front of it were a pair of larger than life statues, in the shape of jackal-headed women and bearing spears.

Juliana was going to go investigate, but as she crossed the threshold between the hall and the chamber, there was a loud, ear-piercing mechanical wail; an alarm she’d tripped. The jackal-headed statues began to glow like the building around them - and then the glowing lines turned red. “Oh, come on…”

The adventurer leapt at them, drawing her own weapon in the process - a big old axe. The golems were still in boot up and she wasn’t in much of a mood to play with them, so she’d just smash them down before they could properly activate!

The eyes of the first statue were just lighting up when Juliana’s axe crunched into it’s face. There was more resistance than she was expecting, but she hadn’t been holding back either. Metal crunched, and the golem was knocked from it’s feet due to the blow. Juliana was no rookie adventurer, and she knew how to fight; she also knew how to carry the momentum of the violent axe blow into her next swing.

Following through on her first blow she kept the axe spinning, preserving the momentum and speed so that when she turned towards the second golem, now reaching for her with grasping hands and ill intent, she had enough force in the strike to scythe it’s legs out from under it.

“Is that all you got!?” She laughed like a madwoman, continuing to follow through on her spin until she raised her axe high and brought it down on the second golem’s head, crushing it and deactivating it as she finally ended the attack. In one motion, she’d cut down two golems of significant strength; she wasn’t traveling alone in the desert out of foolishness, so much as a knowledge that whatever she faced could be handled by a nationally renowned adventurer like Juliana.

She strode over to where the first golem was trying to get up and made sure that it stayed down, and then it was time to look to her prize; the black headpiece was floating above it’s pedestal, as if waiting for her. With no clear switches and the glowing runes indecipherable, there was no path forward; even just defeating the sentries hadn’t opened a way deeper into the ruins, so there was nothing for it but to take the loot.

There was no resistance as she took it from the air. It stopped floating, settling in her hands. It was surprisingly heavy; metallic, she was pretty sure, rather than wood or some other material she’d expect. It was a mask with some slits to see through. “Hmm… stylish!” Juliana said, and decided to put it on. Ancient armor was almost always of higher quality than what modern smiths could produce, especially well preserved specimens like that one, and she’d lost her helmet at some point in the storm anyway.

She brushed some of her pale pink hair out of the way and slid it onto her face. It attached to her face almost eagerly, something clicking as it settled on her head. She heard a soft whir as something extended from the top of the mask. It was dark - what she’d thought were viewing slits didn’t actually show her much. But suddenly she could see through the mask into the chamber, with a faint green tint over it. “Ancients sure are something, aren’t they…?”

Words appeared in her vision. They cycled through a dozen different kinds of texts, then a hundred, before settling into something she could read; ‘Ancients sure are something, aren’t they?’ the screen repeated, before continuing. “Language deciphered. Synchronizing with Network… Synched. Sleeping City Administration Unit Online. Welcome New Administrator.”

As the text scrolled across her view, the glowing squiggles and pictograms of the ruin resolved themselves into readable language. Prayers to the gods, instructions on maintenance of the machines, and more. At the other end of the room, there was a rectangle outlined in the wall now - which slid open when she looked at it with a report of ‘unlocking’.

“Oh, sweet!” Juliana said - this mask was giving her the ability to further explore the ruin! She wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so she’d accept that little gift.

Juliana pressed on, and as she walked the jackal-ear antennae that had emerged from the mask swiveled this way and that to take in data, words scrolled across her view, translations of the glyphs and words along the walls, various status reports that while rendered in a language she could read were no less indecipherable than if they’d remained in the dead tongue of the ancients but all referred to the “Sleeping City”.

It didn’t take a genius to imagine that this ruin was at least part of this “Sleeping City” - and it seemed the mask she’d picked up was a signifier of rank or something, between the guards and the apparent designation as administrator. It was a good thing, too - those jackal golems were everywhere now that she was going deeper, but they didn’t bother her, seeming to recognize her as “authorized” now.

The adventurer decided to let the headpiece guide her; it said it was showing her the path to some “equipment reallocation chamber” or something, which sounded like a great place to find loot to her! Nevermind that she didn’t really have too much control over which doors opened and which didn’t, which admittedly also would play a factor.

The new chamber was large, and filled with standing metallic objects that Juliana assumed were storage for equipment. The objects were elaborate - black metal with intricate silver designs glowing with green light. If it was anything like full, then she really would be wealthy beyond her wildest dreams!

One of the objects opened as she approached. But… it was empty? That was strange. She turned to look into another-

Or she tried to. When she tried to turn away from the empty storage chamber, she found she couldn’t move, her body locking up. [City Administrator Platform experiencing errors. Network assuming control for correction] The mask told her.

It was as her body, without any control of her own, walked towards the object she realized that she had been correct about the objects being storage, but not of what - they were meant to store bodies, as sarcophagi do.

Juliana’s body marched obediently into the sarcophagus even as she tried to do literally anything to stop it - to move, to take off the mask, anything. But she was a passenger in her own skin, unable to do anything but watch as the sarcophagus closed on her. Green light flooded the fancy coffin for several seconds, before a new report scrolled across her vision. [City Administrator Platform in violation of several parameter regulations. Restoring to default parameters.]

It was then that Juliana realized she probably should have been more worried about taking the mask.

Inside the sarcophagus, her gear was stripped away - little metal arms reaching in and tearing her clothes right off her body. She hadn’t worn her armor into the desert for fear she’d bake alive, and that meant the the arms had nothing strong in their way as they stole first her tunic, then pants, then bra, then panties. Her impressively muscular figure was laid bare, nude but for the mask on her face.

Speaking of the mask, it’s display began to change. In the gloom of the sarcophagus, there wasn’t all that much to look at - until the spirals began to form on her display. [Entering Reprogramming Mode] the mask reported. Juliana didn’t have time to realize she should look away. Not that doing so would have been of any use; the headset was sending the spirals directly to her brain. “Huh- what’s this- all… about…” she trailed off, drool beginning to dribble from the corner of her mouth as her mind went blank.

[Uploading SleepingCityHist Package… done.]

The Sleeping City was the home of an advanced ancient civilization. They had risen to the heights of humanity, with technology so advanced it seemed to be magic - nevermind the genuine magic, grand spells and such. Woven into magitech for use by even the most untrained citizen, magic had allowed the empire to flourish and prosper, conquering all enemies. Technology grew so rampant that people began to integrate it into their bodies… and slowly lost their humanity. When revolts from the unaugmented shook the empire, the ancients had sunk their cities to await a future where they could take back what was theirs.

As the information was beamed directly into her receptive mind, Juliana’s body began to change as well. Administrators had to be members of the ancient civilization. If they didn’t begin that way, then they would be made to be part of it. Her skin began to darken as small magical beams shifted her very genetic makeup, taking on a dark and dusky tone more befitting the natives of the Sea of Sand than her natural paleness. It added in marks under one eye, marking her role as an administrator.

[Uploading AdminInfo Package… done]

The Administrators were the highest powers in their city, and the lowest. Individually, they were the individuals most singularly connected to the city’s elaborate systems. They could control the very shape of their land, and all of its guardians. Within their domains they were as gods - and even beyond they were strong in magic and physical combat in equal measure. The Sleeping City’s administrator had to be the greatest of them, since it was the capital. Juliana’s hair grew longer as she learned what she was to be, as she learned to manipulate and control the Sleeping City.

This was so strange - these thoughts beamed directly into her head. Memories and knowledge that were not hers.

[Uploading AdminPreset Package… done]

There was a battle in her mind. The Administrator was a being of cold logic and dispassionate drive. She was the one who would rule the Sleeping City and bring it back to greatness. Juliana was boisterous and loud, a fun loving woman who adventured to help people. She was both the Administrator and Juliana. The two were mutually exclusive, and her mind was breaking under the strain. There was only one way it could end.

[Deleting Unneccesary Data… done]

The Administrator slumped over in the sarcophagus. Or would have, had she the room. Her mind calmed. Cooled, as Juliana was deleted. The adventurer’s memory was sorted. Information about the current state of the world outside, languages, geography and politics, technology - facts and information that might be useful were archived for later perusal. But the useless things, family and friends and emotions and memories. None of those were allowed to remain, systematically purged from the Administrator.

There was no fight, no last rally against the destruction, because in this Sarcophagus, all that Juliana was was data; it took hardly an instant to delete it as thoroughly as if she never was.

[Administrator Reset Complete]

The Administrator stepped from the sarcophagus as it opened. The dark skinned, long-haired, emotionless woman who stepped from the sarcophagus was unrecognizable as the jovial adventurer who had entered, and it was just as well; the Administrator was a new person entirely, only as close to Juliana as any two strangers might happen to be.

The Guardians were waiting for her, two of them. They presented her with a small square of smooth black material. When the Administrator touched it, it flowed up her arm and across her body, covering up her nudity in the tight black bodysuit. Wires and plugs formed along it’s length as it conformed to her body, conduits to connect her with the systems of the city. Devices in the shape of gold bangles and jewels were equipped next. It was the sort of high quality gear worth a fortune that Juliana would have salivated over, but the Administrator didn’t have any particular thoughts about. They helped her in her duty, and that was all they were to her.

She walked, flanked by her guardians, to the Administrator’s Seat. The throne was empty, a staff as tall as the Administrator waiting beside it. The Adminstrator took a seat, and took the staff into her hand, slamming it’s base against the ground once, twice, thrice.

Wires in the throne leapt out and connected to the plugs in her suit, and in her mask, while her own wires connected to the plugs in the throne. Information flooded her view, status and readiness reports, and she took it all in as fast as any machine might.

She was not connected the city. She was the Sleeping City. And it was time for the Sleeping City to wake up - to retake it’s place on the world stage.

More Guardian units were awaking at her command. It would be time soon.