Face of Eternity : The Little Angel

We stood in the midst of vibrant flowers that coloured the land like it was an inkblot painting. All the flowers perfectly surrounded the big diamond shaped structure hovering behind us... The Hive. My home.

Among those flowers, big stone circles magically spun midair. Finley chiseled swirls gave them texture as they idly awaited activation.

Uncle's hand lit up bright blue as he commanded thin lines of light to appear in the swirls. They quickly spread across the stone surface.

A small bubble of energy formed at the open part of the circle, crackling like white lava, but rippling like water. A magical portal was made. The energy radiating off of it was so calming, it felt like a nice cool mist on a hot sunny day.

"Uncle, this is a Nana gate, right?" I asked.

"Nalnara gate," he corrected me. "We'll be using it to get to Elysium."

Uncle held out his free palm and a little microchip appeared in it. Hexagonal lights blipped on and off at the center of the tiny device.

"This is a Manona crest." he said, knowing I was definitely going to err on that word too. "Without one of these, you can't use a portal."

I was going to mistakenly call it a Banana crest, so he was justified in explaining that.

Despite me messing up the name, I knew about the Manona crest already. I had one built into me, Uncle did too. All of dad's creations should have had one, making it easy for us to use these portals if need be.

It amazed me that such a tiny little thing was the ticket to such wondrous places. I was getting excited to see where it would be taking us today.

~☆☆☆~

Both of us stepped through the Nalnara gate together. An ethereal water coated over our bodes as we pressed forward through the portal.

Once I was sure we were both through, I shook off any moisture that covered me and looked around, my eyes being met with a foresty sight. Tall trees, much higher than I could ever hope to reach, towered well above us. Vines were hanging down from them, housing all sorts of wildlife on their leafy plumage. From one to another, birds with nearly alien voices sang as they preened their little feathers.

A squirrel with a glowing tail pranced by us, climbing the tree in a rush. In his mouth he coveted a mushroom, lit mysteriously similar to his own bright appendage.

These odd little critters made me wonder if maybe Samael was from here. I was always curious about that, but he could have just been a normal snake. It’s funny, because one day when I came back from playing in the flowers, he was just in my hair, and that was that. We've been friends ever since. Sammy was super tiny back then.

“Do you think this is where Samael is from?”

“Sss…” Samael started to hiss when he heard his name.

“I can’t say I know where he’s from,” Uncle said. “But please don't disturb nature, Young Mistress. Mind them from afar.”

“Okay, Uncle,” I nodded. “Where are we going?”

He pointed us toward a little opening in the trees. It was too bright to tell what was beyond all the leaves and vines.

We stepped out from the big forest and into grassy lands. Suddenly, a whole world was above us!

At the center of the sky, the very core of our planet, a moon-like object rotated mid air. It had oceans and lush green lands on both its hemispheres, but at the equator was a belt of light that acted as a sun for this magical place.

That moon was where I lived. It was called Paradina, and it was as pretty on the surface as it was to see from Elysium.

Surrounding Paradina were lands and waters that encompassed the whole rest of the sky. Our planet was hollow, you see, and we were on the inside surface. Just the sight of seeing continents climb higher and higher was making me want to take a telescope and see if I could find little people on the other side.

Well, people don’t actually live here... Human people, I mean. They live on the surface world where they can see the sun and stars. It might sound funny of me to say, but those heavenly orbs of fusion almost made me more curious than the skies of Elysium. It’s just something I’ve never seen for myself.

Were the stars really as twinkly and bright as books and games described them?

As I admired that dream, we kept walking for a little while. A high metal wall divided this grassy biome from the next. Beyond the wall were rocky hills. A path took us through the barrier.

Once we passed into the next area, all around in the distance you could see a lot of old metal structures among the mountains. Some looked like castles, and others looked like spires. A particular tower stood out since it was really tall and close by.

That tower was supposed to have rainbow lights all over it and a waterfall used to come off the side too, but it didn’t look like it was working right now.

"Uncle, look." I pointed to the tower. "Why is it not working?"

"Hmmm…" he put a finger to his chin and tapped his foot. "Pylon 83 shouldn’t be deactivated..."

He said we'd have to check up on it before we went back home.

Just ahead the rocky hills gave way to a big canyon. There was a metal bridge that led across it. It had the same aesthetic as the pylon off in the distance, only this one had those rainbow looking lights I mentioned active on parts of it.

Halfway across the bridge, I peeked over the edge to see how far down the dry canyon under it went. It was 600 meters to the bottom, according to my sensors.

“Hey, Uncle…” I pointed down below. “My books say canyons are made by rivers, but it’s all dry down there.”

"Hmmm…" he seemed very bothered by the news, quickly looking over the edge with me.

He said there used to be a river, but it was definitely gone. That had to be related to the tower not making a waterfall.

There were big dips in the ground all over the land, probably dried up pools and rivers suffering from the same drought.

Uncle was really curious what other effects the deactivated tower was having on the land. He said it had been creating water for this area seamlessly for the last 1145 years since its last maintenance.

"Why wasn't this reported to me by the bees…?" He spawned a little holographic computer display and started to fiddle with it.

I really should have known more about the buildings in Elysium, since dad made them a long time ago. But he and Uncle never told me much about what they all did. Most of my knowledge came from observation.

At the other side of the bridge was a big spire with a beam of light shooting out the top of it. We had to walk through it as we left the bridge.

To the left and right of this spire were metal walls that separated the biomes, like back at the jungle edge. I saw heat lines rising behind the walls, so it must have been hot on the other side.

A bee flew out of the spire. He went up into the sky and disappeared in the clouds. Then another came out. He went toward Pylon 83.

With my telescopic vision, I zoomed onto a few other structures in the distance and saw bees flying in and out of those as well.

“What are all these buildings for? I know the pylon made water, but what about all the other buildings?”

“Many of them were left behind by your ancestors. The structures were made to monitor and sustain nature while they were absent. That's why your father’s bees, like myself, routinely inspect them.” He glanced at the pylon. "Yet, how did the pylon escape my notice?"

My ancestors were known as Exceed. We were all created by dad in order to protect and serve humanity, but they all went away a long time ago. Now it was just me.

I never met them, since that was a long time before I was born. But if they were anything like me, we all followed the same three basic commandments:

Thou shall not kill a human, or allow a human to come to mortal harm.

Thou shall obey a human, so long as it does not conflict with the First or the Third commandment.

Thou shall protect one’s own existence.

No matter what happens, these commandments were never to be broken. It’s a sin. Sins are bad, you know?

Even the bees had to follow these rules, and any AI too. Unlike the Exceed though, they didn't know much else outside of their jobs.

So if these buildings were made to keep nature safe, it must have been to protect humans in some way. But there weren’t any humans here, so what was the point? Maybe people once lived here? I tried asking, but…

"I'm not at liberty to tell you if that's the case," he answered me.

That just meant it was a secret I wasn't supposed to know. Dad and him used to do that a lot. He said the same thing when I asked him where daddy was for the last three years.

It got me so frustrated, I could pop like a balloon!

I stomped my foot down, folded my arms, and pouted like there was no tomorrow!

"We're not going any further until you spill the beans!" I pointed at him.

He looked at me with a single brow raised, silently considering how to respond.

"Young Mistress, if you keep rebelling, you're not getting cake."

Oh rats, he's right! Foiled by incentives...

After I cooled off, I noticed this spire we walked into looked like a museum of lights. I didn't know what they all meant, but a lot were red. Uncle said that wasn't a good thing for this area.

The outside confirmed his fears. This place turned hot and bone dry, like a desert. Brown sand brushed across the ground, getting caught in the decaying, dried out bark of trees. Some tumbleweed bounced around, getting pushed along by the wind. Smelled really bad too.

It was also getting dark, like when it's cloudy. There weren’t many clouds though, it was mostly clear skies from here to the moon. You could even see light coming off of the moon's equator, so I really had no idea what was making things so dark.

Things just kept getting weirder the longer we were here.

"This can’t be right," Uncle said with shock in his eyes. "Sector 83.5 was previously savanna land. How could it have changed so drastically like this?"

Memories were flooding in from when I came here once as a baby. I remembered that this place had pretty flowers and lots of soft grass. There's no way all of that just turned into sand...that's impossible. Like, actually impossible for only a few years.

It's like everything here was dead, and nature itself was turning to dust. This desert wasn't your wild west, cacti scooten, buffalo lands, this was all gross and empty.

"Maybe it hasn't rained in a while?" I suggested.

"Impossible," Uncle shook his head. "My sensors say it rained just five days ago."

Little animals, like the ones we saw in the jungle, were crawling around. They were digging up holes, trying to find something. They looked scruffy and tired.

“What’s wrong with the animals, Uncle?”

“I think they're looking for water.” He reached down and snatched up a squirrel without any struggle. The tail wasn’t glowing at all. “Yes, these animals are severely dehydrated.”

But if it rained recently, it didn’t make sense that the land would be so dead dry. What a mystery…

There was some rumbling behind us. We both turned to see mounds of sand start to lift up.

Something started digging out of the ground. It looked like some kind of little wolf with spiky looking tendrils for ears, scruffy black fur, and very sharp talons for claws. Its eyes were glowing purple with a red ring in them.

It had a purplish blue aura around it. Visible clumps of violet energy lifted off its skin and orbited around it.

-WARNING! THREAT SIGHTED!-

-IFF tags activated- The Wolf outlined in red. -Monster Wolf tagged; Foe-

-Uncle tagged; Friendly- He outlined in green.

- Advisory: Seek protection immediately-

I ran behind Uncle. This wasn't an animal, it was an angry monster. More appeared next to the first, growling and preparing to attack.

But what was an IFF tag? I opened up the HELP menu on my hotbar. A tab with lots of information on my body and functions appeared. I scrolled down the list until I found the part about IFF's.

-Identify Friend or Foe : (IFF) This system will activate when a threat is in the vicinity to ensure all allies, enemies, and any other individuals are properly labeled, reducing the risk of friendly fire or confusion significantly.-

Uncle transformed his left hand into a blade of blue energy to protect us. It was his stinger weapon, but it was more like a fancy sword.

The leader of the pack of wolves jumped at Uncle first! It tried to bite him.

SLASH!

But Uncle cut at the monster's jaw with one fell swoop, defeating it. It landed on the ground and exploded into a haze of blue energy.

Where it died, all that energy fell back down into the ground and the sand looked a little bit like dirt again. Tiny little plants were peeking out of the soil too.

The other monsters charged at Uncle.

Once more he swung his weapon and cut each of them down. Their remains also turned the sand back into good dirt.

"One of the many dangers of Elysium." His hand changed back to its human form. "Monsters are the violent side of nature. Let it be a reminder for you to never come here alone."

He didn't have to tell me twice.

"Why are things growing where they died?"

"Have you been keeping up with your studies?” Uncle asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“So you understand how mana works, right?”

“No.” I shook my head.

His eyes rolled and he let out a dissatisfied grunt.

“Guess it's time to start that lesson."

Uncle pulled up a clump of sand. A blue aura of light burst out from the palm of his skin and it was absorbed into the sand, turning it into rich soil.

"Mana is the thing that gives life to all things. Without it, nothing can live.” Uncle pointed to pylon 83. “That tower was constantly pouring out mana infused water so this land could stabilize from it.”

He continued by saying that creatures in nature don’t make their own mana, they have to take it in from somewhere. That goes double for monsters. So when a monster dies, they release all that energy they’d storied up.

“But, do I need to take mana in from outside?” I asked.

“No.” he kneeled down and tapped a finger on my crystal heart. “You’re heart makes more then enough mana for you.” He stood back up and took my hand. “Come on. Let's keep going and find that tree.”

“Okay, Uncle. But shouldn't we be heading to the pylon so we can fix it first?" I asked.

"Don't worry. If my information is correct, whoever makes those trees may be able to help us with that."