The Armorer 135. The Infinite City (Patreon)

It took me over two weeks to completely clear the blasted dracolich-inflicted curse out of Grogtilda. My initial strike had only severed the hex, but not eliminated it completely.

I stepped into Probabilitymancy hall with a weary, tired look on my blue-tinted face. Grogtilda’s skin was no longer swollen and the blue streaks had lessened. My persistent, exhausting effort had paid off, I had completely vaporized, burned the dragolich hex and most of the topaz infection out of my human body.

“Novitiate Misem?” Cinder La Veer, the silver-haired Probabilitymancer Instructor raised an eyebrow when he spotted me. “You finally decide to show yourself to class? Where were you?”

“I was dead,” I replied as I marched into class, wearing my full set of spell-immune armor made from Eurekan metal. My face was dark grey as I had painted it with a layer of metal dust ground into powder and applied with latex spider-glue.

“You were… dead?” The Instructor blinked.

“Yes. I was grievously injured for a while. Instructor Rozaline set an immortal dracolich corpse upon my person as a test of my prowess,” I snapped. “Guess what? The Historymancy classroom doesn’t have a dracolich hanging in it anymore. Do you have any further questions, Instructor Veer?”

The students around me made noises as I sat down on the leather chair with an irate look. My connection to my other selves across the infinite divide flickered, not letting me pull energy fully from my Archmage self. I suspected that Rozaline was cutting me off somehow, screwing with me. I felt exhausted, fed up with everything and everyone, feeling pressed upon by the metaphorical weight of an entire superstructure planetoid working against me.

"Novitiate Misem," The Probabilitymancer opened his mouth, potentially to reprimand me.

“Do not,” I hissed. “You can see the future, can you not? See where you’re going to end up if you keep irritating me."

Instructor Veer paled and his mouth snapped shut. He retreated back to his lectern. I wasn’t sure what he saw in his future, but I was ready to physically assault anyone and anything that would get in my way at this point, rules and points and everything else be damned. My armor made me immune to magic, but somewhere out there other high-cendai were hiding, waiting to unleash their Eurekan tools against my person. Somewhere in the depths of the Astral Ocean Eunice was plotting against me and I had no way to stop her machinations, no way to find her minions that would most likely strike me or my friends when I least expected.

Several notices had been delivered to my room demanding that I come to talk with the Dean, but I had ignored all of them. The Dean was a tool of Baroness Georgia and while the pranks organized by me and Nemmy were irritating her, she did not quit. If anything, irritating her with magical maladies only seemed to make her more focused on trying to banish me from Nemendias. Thankfully, I was under the protection of the Sanctuary of the Ward so all of her effort amounted to naught.

I yawned and tried to focus on the lecture, pushing my unsolvable problems to the back of my mind where my ghostly assistants could deal with it or something.

“Anyone can see a very vague future utilizing a variety of artifacts that comb through the Astral Ocean,” Instructor Veer said. “But, only those who specialize as Seers and Precogs can see specific futures.”

“How far ahead can you see the future of our Empire, professor?” I asked, my voice resonating across the classroom.

“Urm,” the professor paused.

“Do you see the war with Novazem necromagi? Do you see yourself dying as a flesh eating plague devours your body and blooms into black flowers?” I pressed. “Do you see the mountains of dead bodies piled in the street?”

“I, errr…” The Probabilitymancer took a step back.

“Well?” I barked, slamming my metal fist on the table. “Do you? I demand the absolute truth authenticated by the Ward of Nemendias!”

Massive green hexagrams ignited around the professor. His hands started to tremble.

“Go on!” I ordered. “Tell everyone, do we all die?”

“Yes, such a future does exist,” the silver-haired man nodded wearily after a deep pause as the eyes of the students focused on him.

“Why do you bother, professor?” I asked. “What’s the point of teaching us how to see the future if there is no future?”

“Because the future isn’t set in stone,” he said. “That’s just one possible, potential outcome from many others. The Archmagi in the Imperial court are aware of what’s coming. Illatius will fall only if we lose the war.”

“Oh?” I laughed. “So you see a positive outcome? A specific path that you can take to survive? A magical solution that the Basq Empire can utilize to win the war?”

“I… errr,” the professor tried to speak, but the green hexagrams of Nemendias and the eyes of the students were pressed against him from all sides. The magic of the ward at full power pushed against him, focused on his person, compelling him to speak.

“I… am… it’s my job to teach the students of Nemendias how to unlock their precognitive skills to see the future,” he said finally. “It’s not my job to peer across infinity of possibilities to find an outcome that wins us the war.”

“One path,” I growled. “One solution. One way for us to survive. One out of an infinity of paths. That’s all I ask for. Do you see it?”

“I… do not,” he said, finally. “But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. I don’t claim to be the greatest precog in our Empire. I can’t even see you in our future. You, Miss Misem, are a blind spot that concerns me greatly, doesn’t let me sleep at night. Your future cannot be scried, which should be impossible by all accounts.”

“What does that mean exactly?” I asked.

“It means out of all of the possible precognitive visions of Illatius, I only see a finite curve of the future… one without you in it,” the professor sighed. “You don’t register at all on everything I’ve tried. You, Novitiate Misem, are untraceable… unscannable.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, the professor’s last words tickling something in the back of my head.

“I don’t know what sort of an artifact can do that,” Cinder spread his hands. “But it must be something far above my level. Perhaps, the future where we win the war is the one with you in it.”

“Way to pile responsibility on me,” I barked a dry laugh.

“Even the smallest pebble can cause an avalanche,” the professor said. “The future is full of twists and turns. The job of a precognition-mage isn’t simply to straight up see the future, it’s to derive probability of events, to innately feel and to understand how an individual can create a shift in their life by doing something different, by going outside of their observable, most likely path. By making better choices each one of us can improve ourselves.”

“What if there is no choice forward?” I asked.

“There’s always a choice,” Cinder shook his silver beard. “In assessing the future, there is always a path which we do not see, do not even consider even when it is right in front of us.”

I leaned back on my chair and crossed my arms.

The professor smiled at me and returned to his lecture as the truth-judging hexagrams around him faded away.

I still had infinite mirrors to burn.

I was tired and limited here, but somewhere out there… there was a chance.

Somewhere out there was the foundation of Eureka, the anchor of it all, a beehive of machine life that manufactured worlds into existence for the entertainment of the users. Somewhere out there, had to be another me, the real me… a citizen of Eureka, not a copy of a copy, not a duplicate soul born on a manufactured world.

I didn’t really have a ton of trust in Infi’s words. I wanted to see it for myself, see the beginning of the city without an end and find out how much I could learn from it.

The Probabilitymancy lecture ended. I went to the heart room of Nemendias, laid Grogtilda’s body on the small mattress and closed my eyes.

I pulled at an infinite mirror, seeking the foundation, seeking the city of machine life, seeking… myself.

. . .

I awoke on a cold bench, small wet mist and raindrops splattering against my face. Shivering I sat up. A black and white jacket tinted with blue reflections sat snugly on my body. There was a letter G on my lapel. I blinked, brushing black hair away from my face. The bench faced a riverfront. Beyond the river I saw a city and it was the most incredible and unnerving view at the same time.

Megastructure-like buildings stretched beyond what was possible, extending into the sky and piercing the clouds.

I stood up and rubbed my hands to stay warm. It was early morning.

Holographic adverts flickered around the gargantuan metropolis. Flying cars crossed the sky above, carving through the gray-blue clouds.

I departed from the bench and walked across the empty street to the nearest glass shop window and examined myself. Brilliant violet eyes stared at me beneath dark hair.

“No,” I whispered. “Come on… this can’t be real… I’m not her… I’m…”

Infi’s face stared back at me.

I examined my memories. There was nothing there. The body of a girl with black hair and violet eyes I currently inhabited was completely devoid of all memory, an empty shell.

I pinched myself and growled. My body felt real enough. If this was a construct, it felt exceptionally human.

Leviathan-sized machines loomed in the distance. It looked like they were printing skyscrapers into existence.

Eureka was waking up.