Chapter: 162 - Alternate Interface (Patreon)

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Tala had finished her tale, and Holly was simply sitting, contemplating.

“Is everything alright?”

Holly grunted, standing. “Quite, yes.” She hesitated, then pulled a seemingly raw steak out of thin air and tossed it towards Terry.

It vanished before reaching the halfway point between them, just a hint of dimensional power giving knowledge of where it had gone.

“What was that for?”

The older woman paused for another moment, then smiled. “Courtesy never hurt anyone.” Without another word, she went and grabbed a small box from the side of the room. “This is the Archive connection we will be utilizing. I need it bound to you, before we inscribe you.”

Tala nodded. “About that. Is it really worth such a bond? I only get eight, if I remember correctly. I have my weapon, my clothing, and I will have my storage. Is this really worthy of the fourth slot?”

“Unequivocally. Yes. Every Archon that reaches a high enough level that their mind and magic density can make it work gets something like this. Speaking of which…” She pulled a book out of thin air, handing it over to Tala. “Read the marked section and ask any questions now. I won’t give you an inscription you don’t fully understand. Everything else is based on what you know, and so you can expand your understanding afterwards.”

Tala shrugged. “Sure.” She took the book, flipped it open to the marked page and read. Tala really did take her increased reading and comprehension speed for granted. She read through the ten pages in half as many minutes, closed the book and looked up to Holly, questions prepared. “So, I understand what this will do, and how. What I don’t understand is why you trust the Archive so completely. How can we know it’s secure?”

“Because its security is keyed to a combination of your soul and your will. The access and input functions for each bit of information are literally impenetrable. Trust me. There are a host of locked notes and information that Archivists have spent centuries trying to get access to, to no avail. In a few instances, the fount of the owner of those files was tracked down. They tried to manipulate it to help grant access, but it didn’t work.”

Tala still felt skeptical, and her look must have conveyed the same.

Holly sighed. “The information doesn’t exist in any physical place, so that cannot be breached. It exists in a dimension of Magic. Within the magical matrix, there is a random distribution of information segments and redundancy. The right, authorized soul-combination will gain access easily, nothing else can. Even if someone were able to find the exact right magical coordinates for a given bit of information, any unauthorized mind in the information space immediately corrupts and eliminates the data.” Holly shook her head. “Even this is an oversimplification. It cannot be breached.”

Tala grimaced. She was about to comment when Holly’s eyes lit up.

“Oh! This is perfect. About a thousand years ago, an Archivist earned the favor of one of the arcane Sovereigns. She was granted one boon. Being an Archivist, she asked for access to the ‘lost’ information within the Archive.”

Tala leaned forward, curious as to the result of the request, though she suspected that she knew, given the context in which she was being told the story.

“The sovereign tried. They tried for a hundred years. Finally, they stated that the Archive was unbreachable and granted the Archivist two boons in recompense for their failure.”

Tala huffed. “They probably got access and just lied.”

Holly let out a long-suffering breath. “No, Mistress Tala. A boon is a magical contract that will rip apart the soul of someone who fails the obligation. The fact that the boon was requested, not fulfilled, and the sovereign lives is the true testament to the impossibility of the task.”

“What do you mean?”

“A claim on a boon cannot be impossible, else a Sovereign could be slain by a cleverly impossible request.”

Tala grunted. “How reliable is this story?”

“The Archivist is my aunt.”

Oh. “Well, you heard it firsthand, then. That’s pretty reliable.”

Holly sniffed. “You can go ask her, yourself, if you wish.”

Tala shrugged. “I might. But I think I am satisfied, for now.”

“I’d hope so.”

“Shall we, then?” Tala glanced at the item in Holly’s hands. “Bonding first, right?”

“That’s right.” Holly opened the little box and held out an oddly adjustable ring. It looked like a perforated band with a small screw gear, which could be used to shrink or expand the size.

“So, this is usually put on a pencil, pen, or some such thing?”

“That’s right. I’ve sized it close to one of your fingers. I think you should put it on before you bond it.”

Tala shrugged. “Sure.” She slipped it over her right ring finger and manually used the mechanism to tighten it until it was a comfortable size. Next, she opened Kit and pulled out her inside-out Archon bloodstar.

“Alright. The bonding process should be the same as with a standard Archon star.”

Tala shrugged, focusing her mage-sight on the odd, magically-empowered, circular clamp on her finger. When she found the tell-tale gap in the spell-form, she moved the drop of blood into that space pushing it more in a magical direction than a physical one.

There was a resonant click within the ring and within herself.

Tala felt the bond take hold and gasped at the outrush of power and strength. Her soul felt stretched, as made sense. It had been forcibly expanded to include something else.

She took a few deep, almost panting breaths. When she recovered her focus, she looked down at the ring.

More accurately, she looked at her finger and the ring of red, magical symbols that were now set into her flesh.

As she looked, they pulsed once with a bloody light and faded.

“Um… Mistress Holly?”

Holly was looking as well. “Fascinating. It appears to have simply incorporated with your flesh.”

Tala glared. “Why? What does this even mean?”

“It means that you’ll never have to worry about it breaking or being stolen or corrupted. One moment.” Holly put her hands on either side of Tala’s, not touching her skin but with her palms oriented inward. Scriptings blossomed with power across the woman’s flesh, and suddenly, Tala could see spell-forms in the air around her own hand and arm.

They weren’t the same shape as her metal inscriptions, but she could see that they had the same purpose. “Are those my ingrained magics?”

“Very good.” Holly smiled. “Yes, this working displays the ingrained magics of the target, though it isn’t perfectly accurate, by the nature of representing a thing that is magically dimensional in physical dimensions.”

“I don’t really understand the difference.”

“Not surprising. The human mind doesn’t really assimilate extra dimensions very well.”

Tala grunted, looking closer. Sure enough, around her right ring-finger, she could see spell-lines for the connection to the Archive.

Holly was looking as well. “Truly fascinating. Your subconscious took over during the bond, as expected for a subconscious soul-bond. It, well you, felt that you only needed the connection to the Archive, and so it shed everything else, even the natural physical form of the item. I imagine that our medium being fluid as well as a part of you to begin with allowed that. You can likely force a physical form in the future, when you get conscious control, but for now, this will be incredibly efficient.” She was practically glowing with glee. “I wish I could have accomplished something like this for myself.”

Tala smiled hesitantly. “I’m glad?”

“You should be, dear. I’d had a small concern that having an active, constant connection to the Archive would be a power drain that would add difficulty for you until you elevated yourself to Refined, but my concerns were unfounded.”

Tala’s eye twitched, but she held her tongue. Those concerns would have been nice to know about, beforehand.

Holly grinned, going to a cabinet off to one side and bringing out the auto-inscriber. It was much bigger than Tala remembered it. Apparently, Holly had been pleased with the results to the point of making a full body version. “Alright. Remember, you must be conscious to prevent power from flowing into the scripts, since your gate doesn’t close with unconsciousness.”

Tala shook her head. “Rust that. Enact that privacy spell you used before. It closed off my gate well enough.”

Holly opened her mouth, thought for a moment, then closed it in thought before nodding. “You know, that would probably work. Good idea, Mistress.”

Tala’s eye twitched again. She didn’t put any thought into a solution, at all. “Thank you.”

She was about to lift up her arms to have the device slipped over her head when Holly sighed. “You will need to deactivate the armor, dear. I don’t want to break these needles on it.”

“Oh! Right.” Tala dove into the garment with her mage-sight, found the proper path and sent power down it to deactivate the defensive magics.

“Thank you.”

Tala worked with Holly to wriggled into what now seemed like a one-piece, oversized outfit that included an inverted hood.

“Here you go, dear. Sleep well.”

She felt the cool, hard stone press against the base of her neck. As her consciousness fled, Tala sensed the auto-inscriber tightening to fit her perfectly, completely encapsulating her within its needle-armed embrace.

*      *      *

-Ding-

-Conscious disabled for reinscribing. -

-Reinscribing complete. Consciousness restored. -

Tala groaned, stirring and blinking her eyes open.

Below her was a surprisingly comfortable chair. Over her head was a simple, well-built ceiling.

Where am I? She blinked a few more times, and it came back to her. Right!

She heard some movement from the far side of the room.

“Mistress Holly?”

“Yes, dear?” The woman came over to her.

“Are we done?”

“Yes. I just put away the auto-inscriber. Do you notice anything different?”

Tala stretched, looking around. “Not immediately.” Then she frowned. “No. You know what? I feel like I heard something right after I woke up…or maybe as I was waking up?”

Holly was nodding. “That is in line with what I expected. How do you think you should interact with it?”

Tala thought for a long moment. “Hey, please…detect lost or repressed memories.”

-Ding-

-Instruction received. All other functions will be unavailable until deep neural scan is complete. Thank you for your patience. -

Just as with the consciousness restoration inscription, the voice Tala heard in her mind was her own, but somehow not her. It was more distinct this time, almost…emotionless? What happened to the snark?

“Mistress Tala?”

“Hmm?”

“Am I to intuit that you found something?”

“Oh! Yes. It accepted the command, but it seems…lifeless?”

Holly shrugged. “I overlayed and interconnected it with a deeply complex set of inscriptions. The consciousness maintaining script is a miniscule subset of this new spell-form. It will develop as it is used. It might start showing some ‘life’ next time you interact, or in five years, but I’d wager that the first is vastly more likely than the second.” She paused for a moment of thought, then nodded. “That was a very good first command, by the way. It will give it the impetus to map your mind for later comparisons.”

“So, everything else is refreshed?”

“It is.” Holly held out a slate with the total bill.

Tala sighed but confirmed the transaction, placing her Caravan token on the slate afterwards to allow Holly to bill them for the inscriptions of a Mage protector.

Forty gold, just like she said. It didn’t help that Tala felt like she was still being given a discount, even if not as great as before. The cost is going to scale with my earnings for years… I just know it.

Everything felt as it should, except around her stomach. She looked within with her mage-sight and found the inscriptions at issue.

She sighed. “Anti-vomit scripts are settling back in.”

Holly nodded. “You really shouldn’t use any of your inscriptions completely.”

“Yeah, I know.” Her stomach gurgled. “Oh…wow…I am hungry.” Now that she’d noticed it, she couldn’t really ignore it. She felt positively ravenous.

“That’ll be the next step of your physiology inscriptions.” Her look and tone turned stern. “Don’t drink so much coffee. It’s not good for you physically or financially.”

Tala grimaced. “Fine.”

“Good. Now: How do you like the rings?”

She hadn’t actually looked. Lifting her hands, Tala examined the new design of golden rings that now decorated the back of each hand. “Lovely. Thank you. It’s as much art as inscription.”

Holly smiled brightly, clearly pleased with the compliment.

“Well, anything else we need to do?”

“No, I think we’re all good here.” She held out the book that Tala had read a portion of for her new mental scriptings. “These are the updates to your inscriptions. The only one we haven’t discussed is the improved heat dissipation. I put that one at the beginning, so you could brush up quickly.”

Tala stood, took the book, and gave Holly a bow. “Thank you, Mistress Holly.”

Holly gave her an odd look but bowed in return. “I am happy to assist.”

Terry flickered to Tala’s shoulder and squawked.

Holly hesitated, shook her head, and snorted a laugh. With a smooth motion, she tossed out another seemingly fresh, bloody chuck of meat, pulling it from thin air.

It vanished in a similar fashion.

“Now, go. I have other work to be about.”

Without another word, Tala left.

*      *      *

Tala had an almost insatiable hunger, and so she went and got herself two cheesy little caravans.

Oh, rust. I’ve missed these. She sat in a nearby park, utterly demolishing the food, which could have fed a grown man after an entire day of hard work.

As she ate, she read through the book provided by Holly. Ahh, that makes sense, an increase both to heat capacity and conductivity. Her body could now hold more heat safely and dissipate it more rapidly, though a good portion of the first was an artifact of her increasing mass.

She could feel her magics working within her, adding density and structure to her bones, enhancing her musculature and reaction rates, and consuming her reserves, both magical and mundane, to do so.

So…hungry… Tala had a thought. Is this natural, or am I being magically influenced to be hungry? It was a silly question, but she thought it worth asking.

Please, is my hunger mundane or magical in nature?

-Ding-

-All functions are offline during deep neural scan.-

Tala sighed. She had expected as much, but she still found herself mildly disappointed as she took the next massive bite.

-Tala-

-Obviously, you are simply hungry, but you are hungry because of your new inscriptions, which are magical. Thus, your question was asinine. Please consider your questions before you query. Time is valuable, and you’ve wasted it for both of us. -

Tala startled at the second response, then snorted a laugh, taking another bite.

Fair enough. That was a pretty poorly worded question.

No further responses came as Tala continued to eat, not that she expected any.

It was odd, having even that short exchange with something inside her head. But it’s still me, just with a different interface. I interact with the physical world and she with the Archive. Tala perked up at that. Ohhh, I like that Alternate Interface. She’s my AI. After a short thought, Tala shrugged. I’ll ask her at some point, if that works. No need to force a name on this new aspect of myself. I can decide.

She hesitated, there. Wait. I don’t want to force a name on myself…I want to let myself decide. She groaned. This is ridiculous.

Again, the contemplations were becoming odd and convoluted. She sighed and tore into the second feast-in-a-package.

This. Is. Perfect. No need to contemplate the upcoming existential crisis of her soul operating what was, effectively, two consciousnesses. No reason to consider it at all.

She took another glorious bite and continued to study her new book.

*      *      *

Tala finished her meal too soon, and while she was still hungry, she suspected that she would be hungry a lot in the coming days. She’d delay at least a little while before getting more, else she’d be eating constantly, and that wouldn’t do.

I should drop through the archive and kick that hornet’s nest in regards to the Culinary Guild. As she considered, she realized that she’d been avoiding doing just that. I just want to train…this is going to get political.

If it got political, Lyn might be able to help…Yeah. I should go get Lyn and see if she wants to come.

With that decided, Tala set off towards her home.

The city, as always, was stunning. The sky overhead was clear, and the stars were bright to Tala’s enhanced vision. I so prefer exterior cities… It was an odd thought, really. She’d never really contemplated what it would mean to live in a city that was entirely contained in a single structure.

While could see the faint spell-lines of the city’s defenses tracing their way through the sky, they were dim to the point that she could easily tune them out, unlike in Alefast.

Now she knew what it was like to be in a fully contained city, and she preferred a more traditional approach.

As she neared home, she noticed the tavern again. Right. I wanted to try the food there. It seems popular enough to warrant investigation.

-Ding-

Tala stopped. What was this? Had she found something already?

-Please refrain from exposing us to mental manipulation, while I am mapping our brain. It greatly increases the difficulty of my task. -

Tala’s eyes widened. Exposing myself to mental manipulation? She stared at the tavern. Is that-

-Tala-

-Yes, that is obviously the source. Please leave or stop the influence in some way. Our mind is convoluted enough as it is, without adding external factors. -

Tala took another moment to simply stare at the building before her. Well… I guess I found Holly’s syphon.

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