Creation: Book 3: Strandbinder Complete!

Walker stepped out of the Cabin with Virgil following close behind. The first thing he noticed was that the smell had changed. It wasn't apparent in his cabin, because he was surrounded by wood of course, but the outside was different. Where the smell of grass had always pervaded Sonata, now a plenitude of new and different flavors struck his senses. He wasn't sure if he liked it.

As he looked around, he found that his moon had aggressively expanded. Not only in size, but in a large amount of well-built structures dotting the landscape. Everywhere he turned was a new building with a purpose he didn't yet know. Before he could start to gain a hold of everything he was seeing, Virgil asked him to touch the grass below him.

"Why?"

"It is a very important test, Walker." Virgil said in a suffering voice.

Walker shrugged and reached down, touching the grass. As he stood back up, which took longer than he was used to with his new height, Virgil dropped to his knees. The massive assistant comically moved close to the still-normal patch of grass with his eyes, while also attempting to keep his distance from touching the area. This resulted in him stretching his body as far as it could reach, making Walker laugh out loud. The giant black squirrel looked at it from every angle before nodding, "Okay, you are now safe to be around people."

"What the fuck?" Walker said.

"Like I said, Walker, you have missed quite a lot."

As Walker continued to look at him, a group of people wearing shirts that had numbers written on them ran around the corner of his cabin. The lead runner had a metal tube sticking out of her arm where a hand should be, confusing the hell out of him. Another one further back in line had a large scar running across the side of their face. When the group saw him, they stopped and stared with their mouths open.

"Uh oh." Walker said upon seeing that reaction.

"Keep moving!" A close-cropped bearded man yelled as he rounded the corner behind them. Walker recognized Ares as he was the only Primigenial to have a distinct lack of hair on his head, while still having some on his face. "Drive your feet! Together! You bunch of worthless....whoa" He said, coming to a complete stop with a shocked look on his face. In a heartbeat, his feet picked up and he quickly sprinted over to stand in front of him.

Walker didn't know what was about to happen, but it couldn't be good. He'd been intentionally dodging Ares in the past simply because he had an idea, based on Earth's mythology, of what kind of Primigenial he would turn out to be.

"Fight me!" The god of war said with a joyous look on his face, "It will be a legendary battle, Creator. Think of the tales that will spread. The Primigenial who defeated a Creator."

Walker slowly shook his head, "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Look at their faces!" Ares said, pointing at the people in the numbered shirts, "They want this, I want this, and I think deep in your awakened soul, you want this. Look at you! I can't take my eyes off the magnificence of your build! What do you do? Lift mountains because rocks are too light?" He started fondling Walker's biceps while speaking, making ooh and ahh sounds as he squeezed each part.

"Look, I'm sure it would be fun to fight you and all, but..."

"Excellent!" Ares backed up a step and then leaped into the air, aiming both feet at Walker's chest. Walker was so shocked he didn't even make a move, but that didn't seem to matter. Two dull thuds echoed out as Ares connected before dropping to the ground on his back.

"Huh....I didn't feel anything." Walker said as he looked down at his chest while Ares quickly got up off of the ground with an even more excited look on his face.

"I knew it! You're built for battle Creator. Come! Come! Let's go to the Arena and show these tykes what real warriors can do." He looked at one woman in particular, "Seven! You'll be the referee! First blood ends the match. I wouldn't want our Creator to lose any more precious time when he could be training or working out instead."

"Well." Walker said, making a conciliatory gesture with his hands, "I don't really work..."

"Exactly! It's not a workout, it's puurreee joy! Let's go!"

He grabbed Walker's hand and the ten-foot man allowed himself to be pulled along.

They approached a large circular building made of exactingly measured wood seamlessly put together. As they moved by it, Walker's sharp eyes couldn't find a single nail or screw in the entire thing. It was beautiful.

Walker took his hand away from Ares, who seemed to suffer from the malady of sweaty palms, wiped them on his torn pants then touched the side of the arena. He clicked on the Territory system rather than the Item system as he had done in the past. The Arena wasn't something he needed to restrict from Symphony's citizens.

Would you like to add this to the Territory system registry?

Walker selected yes, and the large arena that could hold several hundred people at once disappeared, startling everyone around him. A few of the numbered people cried out, but Walker said, "Just a second please" before he disappeared from their eyes.

He spoke quickly with John, who informed him in a smug tone of voice that he had indeed changed, before hopping out as the new arena was already back in place. Of course, everything it had contained before was crushed by the stone and wood resettling on top of it. Walker removed them with the World Editor before apologizing again.

"I just needed to grab that right away, sorry." He said to the crowd, but he wasn't sorry at all. John said that the Arena, while small for its purpose, was assuredly a tier-three item, even with its slightly cruddy materials. The craftsmanship in building it was pristine, and John said he admired the work put into it. Walker inspected it once everyone calmed down.

Structure: Improved Medium Arena

Item Tier: 3

Crafted by: Hephaeustus and Ten

Description: An item crafted with care by Primigenial Hephaeustus and Founder Ten. The structural integrity has been greatly increased through the use of interlocking joints.

Walker smiled at seeing the Identify ability working with his items correctly. Having an Advanced AI was extremely helpful, although Walker had ideas for that as well. Putting those thoughts on the back burner, he walked in and met Ares by a weapons stand that Rimi had just placed with a telling look.

"You're back, and right away, you're already messing up our hard work." The blue squirrel said in an angry tone of voice.

"I thought you'd be relieved?" Walker asked in a hurt voice.

The blue squirrel looked down and shook his head, "You're right, and I am Walker, but please stop acting on instinct all of the time. It would have only taken a moment for us to move things so they didn't become crushed by the arena reappearing."

Walker put his hands up, "I see what you're saying Rimi. I just got excited when I found such a well-made arena. I apologize."

"You shouldn't." Virgil said as he got closer, "Your instincts, although often destructive, are the reason you are doing so well in the alpha protocol right now. Do what you need to," He glanced at Rimi, "and we will adjust." He paused for a moment, "Although a little warning is helpful."

"Okay, so-"

Something metal banged against his back and then clattered to the ground. When he turned around he spotted a well-made shield just starting to settle. Walker picked it up in confusion and saw Ares already standing ten feet away, a shield and spear in his hands. "Let's go, I literally can't get older."

"That's not how the quote goes," Walker said, already putting the shield back on the rack beside him. He looked at the weapons in the rack, each at least of standard value and smiled. Shrugging his shoulders, he turned around and began to walk towards Ares, unarmed and at a sedate pace. The god of war grinned.

"A pugilist! Exciting!" He looked over at the girl wearing number seven, "First blood!", then began running at Walker, who still seemed quite nonchalant about entering a fight with a well-trained and legendary warrior from his homeworld's history.

The god of war got close and swung his spear, shifting his hands so that the flat end struck Walker on the shin, rather than the metal tip. Walker didn't budge. Ares took on a look of concentration, eyes squinted and feet wide, then began to shift and move, dodging left and right for any incoming attacks the large man might throw at him. But again, Walker just stood straight and looked at him, waiting for the next attack.

"What're you doing?' Ares couldn't help but ask.

"Waiting for you to do something that actually hurts me. Go ahead, let's see what you've got." Walker said with a smile.

"You've asked for it!" Ares began a storm of movements, each step precise and preplanned. He moved through a series of strikes, shifting and sliding, always combining his next move with his previous one, so it was a fluid dance of damage on Walker's body. His clothes went through a beating, the shredded clothing already becoming more and more a forgotten cloth barely wrapped around the large man.

Walker could hear the numbers in the crowd remark about how skilled the god of war was, as well as others exclaiming in disbelief that his skin had yet to be marked. Eventually, Ares grew tired of the movements. When he finally stopped, his breathing heavy and staring in disbelief at the lack of damage he'd implanted on the Creator's body, he threw down his shield and spear.

"Pfahh, this is bullshit." He looked out at the once small, now large crowd watching. "I cannot get through the giant man's skin. Heph, you got something better?" He asked, pointing at the standard spear he'd been using.

"Hrmmm." The god of blacksmiths said, sitting in the stands next to his wife who was currently making eyes at one of the numbers. Although his pondering was quiet, the arena was designed to carry sound from the stands to the center, allowing those who fought to hear as they were cheered or booed. "I do have one thing you can use, hold on a second." Saying so, he got up and ran out of the arena.

While Walker had the downtime, he looked at Ares, "So, how are you liking Symphony?"

The god of war looked at him with a perplexed expression, "That's what you want to talk about right now?"

Walker shrugged, "It fills the time. To be honest, I haven't had a lot of conversations lately and I'm feeling the need."

Ares laughed, "Almighty Walker was lonely?" He shoved his chin out, "Pfff, you need to grow up."

Walker's face darkened. One moment he was standing there, and the next he was right beside the six-foot man in armor. Ares blinked at where Walker had stood a moment ago, then looked up until he met the angry Creator's face, his own notably held a lack of expression as he met eyes that seemed to flash green and black.

In a quiet voice that Ares could feel vibrating in his chest, Walker asked, "What was that?"

Ares was saved from responding by Hephaestus running back, not winded in the slightest from jogging to his smithy and back. He threw a dark spear that was so reflective that the sun's beams of lit rotated down the shaft as it sailed through the air. Ares snatched it in one move then hopped back from the large man, looking him up and down as he did so.

"How'd you do that?" The armored man asked.

Walker smiled, "Speed. I've had a lot of practice."

"Hah, you should have practiced some self-reliance while you were gone. I may teach squad tactics, but a fighter who can't survive by themselves is worthless as a person." He hefted the spear easily, spinning it a few times to register its weight. A grin alighted on his face. "I'll bleed you this time, boy."

Walker's face darkened further, "Boy is it?"

"Oh yes," Ares said with another grin.

"Then bring it on god of war," Walker said and entered into a fighting stance for the first time since entering the arena. He'd boxed a little in high school, but it was his combatives training in the military that had prepared him to fight.

The god of war took a single step and then thrust his spear at a much faster rate than his previous attacks. While it was a simple move, Ares had likely practiced it thousands of times to gain the simplicity necessary to increase the speed of his movements so much. It was so fast that Walker could hear the air whistling as it approached its terminus location...his chest. He stepped to the side as it approached, then thrust out his palm just a little faster than a normal person could. The god of war's forward momentum carried him into the palm, and rather than just letting it stop there, Walker stepped forward with the movement and shoved Ares back.

The god of war flew twenty feet back, armor and all, landing on his back and sliding another five. Gasps rang out from around the stadium at seeing the consummate warrior being tossed back so easily. He stood up to his feet, no worse for wear, and snarled. Ares took two steps forward at a slight trot before breaking into a full sprint at his Creator. When he got close, Walker began to move his feet back and forth, shifting his body with them fast enough that Ares was having a difficult time tracking exactly where he'd be. Walker paused for a moment to give the warrior a grin, knowing he couldn't track his movements when he was pushing for speed.

Nonplussed and seizing his chance, Ares performed an upward sweep of his spear in an attempt to hit as much of Walker's surface area as possible. A small scratch appeared on Walker's face, but neither he nor Ares noticed. Ares thrust his spear at him again and managed to press the tip into the side of one of Walker's forearms, but it rebounded as if hitting a wall.

Ares stomped the butt of the spear on the ground, "Come on! Even this thing won't....wait." He looked closer at Walker's face. There was a slight gash next to his chin, but he didn't see any blood leaking out. Ares pointed at it, "How is that fair!"

Walker smiled at him, "Lots of practice." Then he angled an open palm slap into the god of war's face so hard that he involuntarily dove facefirst into the ground. His head bounced off of the stone once, and then a fountain of blood shot out of his nose.

Seven raised both hands in the air, shouting to the crowd, "Winner! Walker the Creator!"

Walker smiled at her and received a hesitant smile in return.

Virgil was the first to approach him, looking closely at his face as the wound closed up on its own within seconds.

"Curious" Was all he said.

"Yeah, I don't know. While I was in my....hypertime....I tried stabbing myself with a few things just because I was wondering about how tough my body had gotten. Only my head seems to be unaffected."

"Your soul." Echidna said as she approached, listening in on the conversation. A few numbers moved around her to help Ares up, and then a man holding a walking stick began to inspect his face. Walker looked at her as she continued speaking, "Your soul has not covered your head as of yet, has it, Walker?"

Thinking back to the strand collider, he nodded, "You're right. The only place I haven't stretched my soul over is my head. I was so busy planning and building systems in my hypertime that I didn't even think about it."

Echidna took a step closer and looked at his face, "You did not have any wrinkles before that I know of Walker."

"Wrinkles?" Walker asked as he touched his face.

"Yes. This, as well as your hair, leads me to believe you were not as protected from the temporal shift as you'd like to think so. We will need to complete your second stage immediately if you want to work with...time...as much as you currently are."

"I see. Okay, thank you."

She gave him a smile and a nod, "That feeling around you hasn't lessened any either, Walker. I have considered what is different about you since you first left us. I believe your...aura...has increased because you have moved on to a higher stage of awakening."

"A higher stage?" He asked.

"Ye-yes." She stuttered, as the woman with the tube on her arm slightly pushed her out of the way to get into Walker's field of view.

Walker chose to ignore her rudeness because of the excited expression on her face. He didn't forget Echidna's words though, giving her a nod. She smiled then turned and walked away as Walker focused his attention on the woman with the strange arm. He looked at her, then a little closely at the tube on her arm. It had a circular opening near the tip, which confused him a little until he considered how prosthetics worked. Mentally nodding he said, "Hello."

"You're my creator?"

Walker tried not to sigh while answering honestly, "I suppose I am."

"Then...can you fix this?" She said, holding up the tube. "It isn't as bad as I thought it would be at first. But it still makes it harder for me to keep up with the other numbers."

Walker looked at the one on her chest, "I see. Have you asked Virgil?"

She nodded, "Elder Virgil said there wasn't anything he could do without first gaining your permission. So, I'm asking, can you help me."

Walker thought it over for a few minutes. He closed his eyes and considered everything he had done in his hyperspace. He knew that it was going to be an uphill battle for his sapient's first landing on Symphony. Sure, they were working with them to shore up their survival instincts. Training them in crafting, medicine, fighting, and basic philosophical thinking. But these were meant to be the leaders of their own territories. The founders of the first civilizations in Symphony's history. They could use an extra edge. Something that would carry them through the starting difficulties, regardless of training. They deserved something more for a chance at really surviving.

Walker went into his abilities and chose Avatar. Since he didn't choose to translocate anywhere, a secondary set of screens appeared offering him the option to use different abilities that came with it. He clicked on it, then looked her in the eyes.

"This is going to hurt." He said with a blank expression on his face. He pulled the tube off of her arm after asking her to undo the straps, then assigned his evolution self-regenerating cells to her and the other forty-nine. It didn't guarantee that they would survive the forthcoming trials, but it did give them a better shot.

The woman wearing the number One fell to her knees as her arm slowly grew back, the blueprint of her cells realized something was missing and replaced it fast enough for everyone to see the visual progress. The man with the scar on his face felt at it as it also faded away, although much faster than One's arm regrowth. Many of the numbered people exclaimed in shock as scratches, cuts, and unseen injuries began to repair themselves while they stood there.

As her fingers came into being, she wiggled her hand as her nerves started activating, the feeling of her missing appendage returning as if it'd never left her. The woman's eyes looked up and met Walker's, a fervent shine found within them as tears came streaming down her face. "Thank you, Creator. You do not know what this means to me. Forevermore, I will be there for you. I will be....your... champion....always."

Walker scratched the back of his head. As nice as it was to have someone say they'd always follow you, it was still uncomfortable to be worshipped. He was just a decent teacher and failed....no. NO.

He wasn't anymore, and that kind of thinking wouldn't work going forward. This thing he was doing....required something more. Someone more.

Walker decided at that moment to accept the adulation. Not for himself, but for the role he had been placed in those few months ago. People needed to believe in something bigger than themselves, something grander than they could understand. He could do that. It would be uncomfortable, and he'd have to keep an eye on a dangerous amount of ego growth, but he could do it.

He stopped scratching the back of his head and stood up to his full height. Walker looked far far down at the woman still on her knees, still looking up at him. "What is your name?"

Virgil coughed, "They do not have names right now, Walker. Only numbers. We waited until you arrived in case you wanted to name them yourself."

You motherfucker, Walker thought.

Walker nodded and did some quick thinking. These were the first humans and his first intentionally created Sapients. The Guardians obtained Sapience through the Monster system, but he had made these people for a specific reason. To colonize Symphony.

Looking at the woman in the shirt labeling her as One, he bent down and touched her shoulder, "I name you Lucy, the Creator's Champion."

The woman's eyes took on a different light as she looked up at him, whispering Lucy.

Walker looked out at the rest of the crowd, "I will give you names as I come to know you. Please do not be hesitant to ask me questions, although if I disappear for a time, do not...do not think I've abandoned you." He stumbled for a moment over the grand way of speaking, "There are still great works to be done here, and often I am needed to do them. Thank you."

Nodding his head he started to walk away when a commotion sprang up. A man and two women came marching forward. Unlike the rest of the people on Sonata, these three wree wearing what looked like fur clothing. The man glared at everyone around him, and Walker's awakened ears heard him mutter Perverted Greeks. He caught eyes on Walker, which wasn't hard with how tall he was now.

The man stomped forward, the two women approaching behind him quickly keeping pace.

"Hey!"

Walker tilted his head at him in a facsimile of a nod, "Hello. How can I help you?"

"Why is there nothing to fight here?"

"I'm sorry?" Walker asked in confusion.

One of the women touched his shoulder, then swung her golden braid to the other side of her head as she said, "He asked why the only things here are baby humans and weak Primigenials."

"What was that?" Ares said, waving off Asclepius who was still trying to get the blood loss in his nose to stop.

"You heard me, pretender!" The man said, pointing a meaty finger at the Greek god of war. "You sick bastards were the first released from that eternity in the tree, who fucking cares. It was RANDOM!" He yelled at the sky, "We should have been released. Perverted Greeks, egotistical Egyptians, crazy Chinese. The only Primigenials who deserve to enter this new world are the Nords." Walker noted he pointed a thumb at himself and ignored the two women beside him.

Zeus came rumbling forward out of the stands with Athena beside him. Walker knew there was trouble ahead as his face was already red.

"Didn't most of you die right before the Earth's Creator snatched you up?" He yelled in response to the furred man's provocation.

The man spit to the side as the same woman behind him spoke, "They were weak."

Athena laughed beside her father, "Odin? Weak?" She looked at her father with incredulous eyes, then laughed again, "Thor? Heimdall? They were weak as well? Who do you even claim as your prime anymore? It seems like most of the major gods in the Nordic branch are all dead."

The man pointed at himself again, "I, Magni, am the Prime."

Zeus laughed this time, still striding forward at an accelerated rate. Just before he got too close, he started to inch an arm back, but Walker was already there. A small shockwave of black with highlights of green erupted from him, knocking down those within his immediate area.

Walker looked over at Ares with a grin, "Practice," before turning to those on the ground, "My world, my rules. I don't even need the system to turn you into paste anymore." He said with a glare, his searching gaze finding a wilting Dionysus in the stands with a bucket of food in front of him. Walker looked back at the two women for any signs of confrontation but didn't find any, with the speaker tilting her head down a small amount. The woman who hadn't spoken the whole time took two steps forward and pulled something from the inside of her robe. Magni gasped at seeing a strange book with a large scratched-up drawing on the cover.

"You are the Creator, Walker?" She asked, looking up at him.

Walker nodded, "I am."

"Then this is for you." She calmly replied, reaching the book out towards him. Walker had a confused look on his face, but he still reached his hands forward to take it from her. As he touched the cover, a brief pulse of white reached out and struck him. It circled his body in a few rotations, doing no harm, before draining back into the book.

"Worthy." She said in a quiet voice while Magni looked on with bulging eyes from the ground. Athena smiled outside of Walker's vision.

Walker ran his fingers over the cover, feeling slight jolts of energy in the tips of his fingers as he did so. "What is it?" He asked the woman, but it was Athena behind him who answered.

She stepped into his line of sight looking at the book before looking up at Walker who calmly stared back.

"That is the Book of Odin, Walker. One of the few relics I knew was kept within the Tree of the Gods"

Walker looked at it again and nodded his head, "Okay, fantastic. What does it do?"

Athena looked at the book again before looking up at him, "It creates a new Prime."