„I am certain you understand my desire, Breaker. What I require of you will allow me to … hopefully … eventually reconnect to my peers. And that without one of their Overseers taking the long route over to me. If my memories are not failing me in that regard as well, that particular building should yield answers to my desires.”
Breaker travelled next to Shifting Gales, his trusty mount Crusher crawling next to him across the dusty city streets. Gales noticed the sheer thickness of the dust as the colour of the pavement behind Crusher’s sliding path appeared noticeably darker and crisper. She sighed internally, reminded painfully of the true silence of the Silent Monastery.
The only citizen of my city in the past three hundred major cycles … me. Empty streets, the dust slowly but surely covering my legacy. Was it a good legacy? … I am not that sure anymore since Suns and I started investigating in my purpose.
The only things I do remember of my citizens are outright positive memories. Not even neutral opinions can be found in my riddled-with-holes past. Just what … truly happened here? Was there something I couldn’t know? … I should ask Breaker if he could scavenge some pearls for me, to read and understand.
Breaker looked up to his floating goddess and tilted his head, having noticed her mental absence. He let out a low whistle, imitating a few clanking sounds of her, sounds that translate to ‘Over here’ to her audio receptors. So he picked up some words from her as well: Imitated her metallic accent with his raspy vocal cords.
Gales reacted immediately and provided Breaker with all the attention she was able to provide in her constant battle of endurance with the acid-induced warning messages flooding her mind. To repay his efforts, she answered in his language, her vocal box having recovered enough to word out a few supportive grunts.
‘Attention to Breaker. Gales is listening, observing hands.’
‘Gales miss purple and green Machine Gods? Gales lonely? Building help Gales feel not lonely?’
‘Decent chance of success. Building used for talk. With others across the ocean. Letters. S-‘
Gales stopped, her vocal box protested in her throat, her cables hot of misuse.
“A-apologies … The House of Letters was known for a special way of communication. I hope to find remains of that technology. … I am very lonely, not now, however, with you two providing me company. And Seven Red Suns, when they have time to chat.
I hope to find answers in that technology. To remain in contact with my friends, even with my communication systems being broken.”
Breaker nodded at that reason and reached out his right hand. At first, Gales was under the impression that he wanted payment for his help, but oddly enough his palm was not facing up but to the left. Was he offering his help, free of charge?
Gales eventually lowered herself down to him, grabbed his elongated hand and felt the claw-like fingers wrapping themselves around her palm. A firm pressing of palms against each other, followed by a shared nod. He wanted to help her. Her desire for the karmic sin of company convinced him to aid her.
“Thank you, Breaker. That means much to me. When we are there, you can take anything you deem valuable out of that house. I will never be able to enter it. The owners have long since left the cycle. Only one thing. Allow me to read the pearls before you pierce them.”
‘Goddess can … read shiny orbs? Shiny orbs more than pretty? Valuable?’
“They act as storage devices. Did you notice the filigree cracks in the coloured pearls? Inscribers carefully and purposefully add a lattice of complex forms, cracks and hollow sections. If I imbue them with energy, my translation program scans the inside of the pearl and turns it into text, poems, and sometimes even music.
My creators used them, and my peers adapted that technology to use it to send physical, sometimes even sensitive, data from one Iterator to the other. Or to keep interesting qualia, music, or memories close to their puppet.”
Gales watched the red eyes behind the grey mask glow up even brighter. She did strike a nerve, a desire to accumulate knowledge, to expand his view of their world. A desire that somehow outweighed the characteristic greed of his kind. What a curious prospect, she thought to herself. Would he be interested in her other issue as well? Helping her to figure out her past? Aiding her to fill in the gaps of her tampered-with mind?
‘Pearls contain knowledge. Knowledge is power. Power Breaker cannot access alone. Proposal.’
Gales felt a grin widening behind Breaker's Vulture Mask. He had ulterior motives, of course, he would.
‘Gales met Rain and Shore … ordered lizards to teach them dying lesson. Scavengers sent by Commanding Ocean Tides. Ocean current Chieftain. Ocean unfit. Breaker fitting, champion of Machine Goddess. Spread word, gain support. Support helps Gales, helps Breaker. Knowledge equals might. Pearls bring influence.’
“Curious. It is as I suspected. You attempt to get influence through me. That scavenger, Ocean, does not like the competition … he sent assassins to … dispose of me. I-“
Gales felt a wave of anger washing over her, followed by the extinguishing touch of her taboos.
“Patience … It is indeed in my interest to help you to replace him. I have only so much leftover material to keep my dress intact, after all. I will aid you as long as you keep helping me. It pains me to rely on yet another, given my peers already do everything to save me from my fate, but … I can help you.
Bring me what you can find in the house of the House of Letters, and I will spare one of my very few remaining Overseers to accompany you. Please, protect it, I can’t afford to lose my last remaining eyes.
As you seek knowledge, you should know why I seek the very same. My memories … are not complete. I hope to figure out what I originally was supposed to be while my creators still filled these streets with life. My purpose is … unclear.”
‘Conditions acceptable. Breaker will protect Eye of Goddess with life. Breaker curious about history of island, history of Shift-ing Gales. Breaker wants to help.’
The trio soon arrived at their destination, the high tower of the House of Letters, a building structured loosely like an antenna, without it being one. Gales recollected, after an, for her, excruciating time of thinking, the prideful purpose of that strangely-looking building. The House of Letters was quite prideful of their discoveries, Two Twigs on a Bountiful Vine even boasted about the technology to her, a memory that felt strangely untampered in comparison, only hard to reach due to the acidic fog looming over her entire memories.
What was it again? … Oh right! She said something about how their architect found the idea charming to create a building that mocks those antennas everyone relies on. That their quantum technology doesn’t require those ‘ridiculously oversized antennas’.
…
I sincerely hope that that was no business talk, Twigs. Your strange pride could be my ticket to my friends, to the world.
Gales once again instructed Breaker of the item she was looking for and as she watched him leave and enter the building without issues, Gales felt more of these repressed and suppressed by taboos' emotions bellowing up. Was that envy? Her anger regarding the Ancients was still successfully neutered, all she was able to feel was an uneasy neutrality regarding her view of them. But that envy consumed her, envy directed at Breaker’s ability to do what she couldn’t.
Why? I am the last citizen of this [Redacted] city and still. Unable to even enter a single house. What if a solution to all my problems would just lay on a random counter inside one of the protected buildings? Or a clue to my legacy? Anything. But due to their … I don’t know … mistrust? Due to that, I am the proud owner of a city of streets, with monoliths dividing them. They could all be massive, and I would not sense a difference.
…
Please, Breaker. Find at least a lead in addition to the communicator. The more I think about me, the less I want to. I desire answers, for as long as I still can calculate their implications.
To pass the time of Gales waiting for Breaker’s return, the Iterator instead took one of her Overseers in the lower levels of her body aside and started looking for the assassins her lovely lizards disposed of. If they had finished their duty, she could witness the curse of mortal immortality as live as possible to her.
Gales had a good estimate of where the two Scavengers could reappear, given her Overseer led them to specific places to take a nap on their ascent. According to her research on the topic, they should be found near the last shelter they ended a cycle in.
And indeed, she did find them on her feed only a few rooms away from the estimated shelter. They appeared fairly disorientated and were a bit overwhelmed with the hostile vibes from the two Cyans at the time of her Overseer’s arrival, who for some reason decided to return to them, no matter what they did to their caretaker. Especially 098 appeared flabbergasted and looked over to his brother again and again, unsure why their riders were still alive after all they assumingly did to them for them to end back in the cycle.
Gales was glad, that she already took a few lessons of the Scavenger language, as its mostly silent nature allowed her to follow Rain and Shore’s conversation from afar. It quickly became apparent that these two specimen were suffering from the phantom memories of their death the cycle prior. They discussed the hostility of their mounts, the absence of … the rival? … as well as their Chieftain’s plan to stop the burning rain.
Breaker did not lie. They only attacked me because they, or more so their boss, assumed that I was consciously responsible for their suffering. I … honestly can’t blame them, especially after that strange storm my near-disconnection caused to the island. And they do act against Breaker’s plans, which reassures me of his loyalty. That is good.
…
Still I [Redacted] their guts. I … no, I won’t forgive them! Stop screwing with my emotions, taboos! I want to [Redacted], they deserve it! … fine … resentment? Oh, that works?
If we encounter them again, I will have to teach them a lasting lesson that goes beyond bad dreams. I know what you are up to, I can understand you, I can even roughly speak your language. Yes, I do have a plan. Solve it with intimidation instead of [Redacted].
Shifting Gales' attention derived from the unsuccessful assassins not soon after, and she attempted to contact Suns instead. They sadly were busy, as her message request went by unread for the better quarter of the cycle, leaving her alone with the acidic sensation in her veins. As Suns finally responded, apologizing for their unavailability, Breaker was already on his way back to the entry hall of the building. Gales sent her friend a short and sweet message updating Suns briefly that they had much to talk about once her visitors had left, allowing them to return to what was occupying them.
Breaker returned with a decent haul full of bits and pieces he cobbled up from the tower when it already had gone dark. Most pieces, Gales realized, were valuable but ultimately useless trinkets that appeared pretty. It was strange to see the unnecessary riches the permanent citizens of her city possessed. Much unlike the teachings of Suns’ religion, the House of Letters seemingly embraced the fourth vice of gluttony and hoarded items without any use.
Besides that, Breaker did in fact find a decent haul of pearls, some even inscribed by the looks of it. But most importantly he held the item of her desire, having found an orb, which looked similar to her chat 1.0 device. Its mere existence rendered Gales to forget the questions-raising items and her puppet twitched in excitement as she asked for the orb in Breaker’s language. He handed the orb to her and then spread his haul out on the floor, laying the pearls of knowledge aside and instead focusing on the strange trinkets.
Gales inspected the orb and immediately recognized the parallels to her chat device. It was in fact an evolution of it, with more intricate technology powering it. It, however, didn’t activate when she channelled her energy into the device and only retorted with an error message depicting specific coordinates in the house above them.
“I … see. So that device works only in a specific location? I should have expected that, given it is after all based on the praxis of quantum entanglement. I can work with that, now that I have the baselines of the model in my hands. Thank you, Breaker.
…
These items you found. I am quite frankly astounded that you even could find that many materialistic possessions. Small statues, tokens, and badges. I would not be surprised to find such items in any other city, but the Silent Monastery is … was supposed to be a place of reclaiming karmic balance. Why … why are so many objects of the fourth vice there?
I … need to think about that. But the pearls. I see that a few have gotten inscribed. Can you please hand them over so that I can read them out?”
Breaker obeyed without any questions asked, his curious eyes glimmering behind the mask. Holding the first new pieces of history of her citizens in her hands in such a long time felt immeasurable. Reading out the pearls, however, resulted in disappointment. She let out a deep groan of dissatisfaction as she handed all three coloured pearls back to Breaker without explaining to him anything about their content, much to his disappointment.
‘No history? Gales remains silent. Is something? Concerning? Machine Goddess does not want to talk about?’
“No … I feel hurt. I can’t read any of the pearls. All the data has been encrypted for the sole purpose of not being read by me. I don’t understand. What is the purpose of that? And why is the error message so … specific?
‘Iterator Shifting Gales 1 lacks clearance to access the transcribed data. Access denied.’
Why 1? I am me. There is no other me besides me. I am whole. … Am I? I just want answers, is that too much to ask of you, citizens? Why are my memories incomplete and all ways to fill in the blanks outside of my clearance levels? … I don’t understand.
…
We are done here, Breaker. I have what I require. Your company has reappeared in my Can, we should intercept them.”
Rain that Crackles was nervous. He woke up to a gruesome nightmare earlier in the cycle. The rival of his master Unrelenting Wave Breaker was nowhere to be found. And his partner Flooded Coast scared the hell out of him. Why … did they share their nightmares? Mauled against the wall of the monolith and eaten alive by their cyan mounts.
Rain grabbed the rope that kept his lizard close to him tighter. His hand was shaking, his stubby legs trembled. He didn’t dare try to get on his lizard’s back, not after that dream tonight. Looking back, he faced the confirming hostility from his mount, reassuring his doubts.
Something went wrong. Rain can’t remember. Shore same dream. Did warriors mess up? Where Breaker is?
Rain looked over to his green-scaled friend, worries washing over his mind. The monolith was already scaring him, walking through the dim corridors of it with these doubts on his mind stressed him out. And Shore as well.
A cyan light! Something approached them from the corridor above. Rain signalled his ally to ready his spears and stay put. Their mounts, however, acted strangely. Their hostility washed away, and they appeared … strangely happy. If that was how a happy lizard looked like, Rain thought to himself.
He glimpsed to the light. Three figures appeared in the dark, two were undoubtedly Breaker and his mount. The third one was hovering above the ground … no, bound to the wall by some sort of arm. And they got closer. Rain pressed himself in the crevice under the deactivated light bridge at the side of the corridor and signalled Shore to do the same. They would attempt to ambush their target. Commanding Ocean Waves was very clear about that, that Shift-ing Gales faux goddess would be likely with Breaker.
That small figure was the culprit, the bringer of the burning rain. The devilish spawn that cursed the island to change forever. The owner of the doom-bringing monolith. A soon-to-be crucified heathen of Ocean’s grace.
The small figure halted. It couldn’t see them in the darkness, but Rain felt the blue glowing eyes in its empty face burning in his with scales-covered furred skin. It couldn’t have figured out their presence, but something was strange. It was as if … that sound!? He looked up, having recognized the sound of attention from their language. The floating figure was now moving its arms, having illuminated its figure with a strange orange-glowing orb. Rain gulped as he watched the words form.
‘Rain that Crackles. Flooded Coast. Shift-ing Gales knows you are here. The goddess of this island knows about plan of assassins. Warriors want to slay Machine Goddess to stop rain.
Gales gives warriors singular chance. Leave forever and do not return. Nightmares are real. Nightmares taste of true suffering. Support Gales’ champion Breaker. Breaker brings solution to burning rain.’
The floating figure began to cough, smoke rising from its throat region. Rain’s eyes widened in fear, and he stumbled back with Coast doing the same. The goddess knew about their intentions. The goddess was real, all-knowing. Too powerful. The duo jumped on their mounts and leapt away as fast as possible.
They would wait at the base of the leg for Breaker, but they didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary in the building of the goddess, who could speak their tongue. They were convinced of Gales’ might and Breaker speaking the truth.
Ocean would be very disappointed with them, but he would also be especially wary of the champion of the goddess of the monolith from that point on. Breaker evolved in these cycles from a rival to a genuine religious threat. A threat that could risk Ocean’s reign.
Direct Message – Chat System 1.0 – 1694.723
Seven Red Suns, Shifting Gales
SG: Alone at last.
SG: What a pleasant, yet unpleasant series of cycles.
SRS: What happened, Gales?
SRS: I am afraid I have to keep it short; Approaching Sky requires my full attention in less than a cycle.
SG: Nothing drastic. I felt like a goddess for the first time in a felt eternity.
SG: I taught these non-believers a lesson they immediately forgot.
SRS: So cryptic. Issues with the Scavengers? With Breaker?
SG: I have no issues with my champion, no. Breaker did help me with my personal project.
SG: His company, however … Promise me to not tell Far Whisper even a syllable of what follows.
SRS: Personal project? Your desire to upgrade this chat system? And yes, I have not spoken to Far Whisper yet and I won’t share the secrets of my friends either.
SG: These two maniacs tried to assassinate a divine Iterator. They didn’t succeed.
SG: I have never cared about the Scavengers of my island. But this is the final straw. I will aid my champion in taking over the tribe. The last thing I need is to get put under siege by maniacs with an unspecific amount of explosives.
SG: I won’t accept, that all your efforts will be thwarted by these truly fascinating beings.
SG: You all are working so hard. Please send Sky my regards. And take good care of the little acid menace.
SRS: They … what!? Stay vigilant, Gales. I know from Peb … Pebbles …
SRS: I know from him that you can’t trust these beings. Metropolis was overrun by the followers of the Scavenger Pebbles provided with a mark. Keep them out of your city.
SRS: Can you promise me that, Gales?
SG: Why would they want to take over a collapsing city? The days of the Monastery are counted.
