Last Command of the Witheld Arc 1: Rebirth

Griffin Tucker Vasilias, Great House Scion, Reborn Lvl 2

Mount Discovery, Province of Aragonia

There were a few more videos that Griffin had yet to watch, so he selected the next one in the lineup and, once again, was immersed in a full 3-D illusion of the old lab he’d been exploring. The same bunch of people were there, arranged in slightly different positions at the workstations, all around the large chunk of obsidian. No wires were coming out of it this time, but there was a swarm of small drones that hovered around it, pausing in spots and emitting a bright pulse of light, then moving on. A closer look revealed the drones were shaped like tiny jellyfish made of liquid metal like mercury and every time they paused, their tentacles touched the surface of the obsidian and left behind a tiny rune.

Ichuta Vasilias was there, as tall and dour as before. It was startling to see him alive again after just seeing his heart get ripped out of his chest with magic by the Emperor in front of a crowd of people. Griffin wondered if the obsidian thing they were all working on was one of the weapons that would eventually doom him. Ichuta seemed to be heavily invested in it, whatever it was.

The woman, Rikael Vasilias, with the fiery orange eyes was there too. They weren’t fighting this time, but they weren’t near each other either. Rikael was across the room, speaking with another person—a reptilian-looking race that Griffin couldn’t remember if they were called hissk or draakan—and they seemed to be involved with something they could both see but Griffin couldn’t. Then the video ended.

“What the hell?” Griffin said. “Why’d it cut out?”

“You only recovered fragmentary files,” Kismet reminded him. “This is just some of the most complete content that I was able to recover. There are various text files, fragmentary enchantment databases, some config files, a few images that look more like icons, some spellthemes, and rune constructions but nothing complete.”

Griffin blinked, “Oh, is that all?” He chuckled at Kismet’s indignant face. “Sorry, I knew it was fragmentary, I just wasn’t prepared for how fragmentary it really was.”

He selected the next few videos but they were all shorter than the last one. Each one showed the lab in a slightly different configuration. People popped in and out of existence as the last few videos played in rapid succession, just momentary glimpses into the lab. Even though Griffin couldn’t hear anything or get any detail, he saw what amounted to a stuttery timelapse recording of the lab that showed steady progress on the obsidian chunk until it was in the condition it was in now. There was still no indication of what the people—scientists or researchers had been studying. If it was one of the weapons that Ichuta had developed, the videos did not indicate what it was meant to do.

He flicked to the next video and the scene changed radically. The lab was wrecked, in the same condition Griffin had found it in when he’d been exploring. The lights were out and everything was dusty. A movement from the back corner of the lab caught Griffin’s attention. Behind several desks, a mound of debris pushed up from the ground. A few seconds later, a huge insectile head poked up from the debris, a bizarre mishmash of brutal-looking cybernetic implants sticking out of it.

The huge plasma cybercentipede surged up out of the hole it made and crawled out between the desks. Dozens of hard yellow legs undulated as the creature moved stealithly through the lab, its natural antennae as well as its cybernetic sensor assembly scanning the area constantly. It started crawling around the room and the video froze.

“That’s gotta be from fairly recent,” Griffin said. “Is that the Mother that laid the eggs in the obsidian thing? I wonder where she went.”

Kismet said nothing, just waiting for him to continue. Griffin’s eyebrows raised as he glanced over at her and then went on to the next video. The lab appeared once more as it had when he’d explored it.

The huge Mother was wrapped around the obsidian device, her breathing slow and steady as she slept. Suddenly, almost directly above the sleeping Mother, a cluster of brightly glowing yellow-white eyes blasted into the monster burning a deep furrow into her. The light from the lance of plasma revealed that the attack came from another, even bigger plasma cybercentipede Mother clinging to the ceiling. Griffin wondered how bad must it smell as yellow-brown fluid splashed up from the wound, steaming and smoking. The plasma abruptly stopped burning into the other one.

A piercing shriek drilled into his ears a moment later, the sleeping Mother awake now but writhing and thrashing in pain. The plasma lenses of the bigger one glowed brightly again and another beam of light burned into the monster on the ground. The injured mother screeched again but couldn’t overcome the damage from the two brutal surprise attacks and it shuddered once before it fell still.

The victor stretched down from the ceiling and crouched over its prize, grinding and chewing noises coming from it mouthparts as it shoved its prey into its mouth. The video ended and another began showing the same room with the chewed-on corpse of the Mother sprawled out around the obsidian device.

A second later, another Mother came into the room from the hole the first one had dug and seized the corpse in its jaws, dragging it back into the hole. He noticed something odd about the corpse of the Mother as it was dragged: there was something shiny sticking out of its carapace that wasn’t cybernetics.

“Hey, can you pause this?” He asked Kismet.

The video froze. “I can pause it,” Kismet said, “but you can too. Use mental commands—this is an extension of your HUD after all.”

Griffin’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “How convenient!” He said as he walked over to where the hologram or illusion of the Mother’s corpse was being dragged into the hole, searching for that little glint of light he saw earlier. “Holy shit, Kismet look at this!” He pointed at the frozen image in the video.

He couldn’t believe he spotted it, but right there, sticking out of the carapace of the Mother’s corpse was another of August Vasilias’ ethershards. He’d seen the glint of light on the little golden charm on the blunt end of the shard. “When was this video recorded?” He asked, a cold feeling settling into his spine.

Kismet was silent a moment, then said, “This video was recorded a day ago. It’s the most recent file that could be recovered.”

“How could an ancient Systablo thing be recording something that happened a day ago?” Griffin asked, perplexed. “I had to charge it with tensa just to get it to turn on.”

“The recording was not stored locally on the device,” Kismet replied. “You grabbed it out of a security library—the same place you got the other video files—but it was the most recent one. The monitoring enchantments and spells must still be active. Surprising given the relative decay of the rest of the facility.”

Griffin gnawed on his lower lip, considering. That corpse looked way too big for even the other Mother to get through in a single day. The Sensor Suite he’d gotten from the Data ethershard was simply incredible. And the Speed Attribute he’d unlocked…he hadn’t even gotten a chance to feel that out but he already felt like he had rocket fuel for blood now.

“What if…” he said slowly, “I find where that big dead bug is and get that ethershard from it?” He looked over at Kismet, gauging her reaction. “I wouldn’t even have to fight anything since it’s already dead! As long as the shard hasn’t been eaten yet, of course.”

She nodded, “Good idea! Many things could go wrong of course, but you’re right to want to find and claim that ethershard. Your Imperial High Lord benefactor may have destroyed your homeworld, but he also gifted you some truly incredible ethershards that only a fool would pass up. It’s only a shame that you did not retain them when you first arrived.”

“Fuckin’ tell me about it,” Griffin muttered. He wished he’d have been more clear-headed when he first arrived, but he’d panicked and did the first thing that came to mind. Not his finest moment, he knew. “If the Mothers are more concerned about sticking them in their eggs and rolling around in them for whatever reason—I’m not kink-shaming—then maybe there’s another couple lying around for me to find. It’s worth adding it to the list.”

Kismet rolled her eyes and asked, “And what else is on your list?”

“Oh y’know, finding a way out of this facility. Getting a cheeseburger and some fries from one of the restaurants in that town down there. What was it called again?” He held up a hand scrunching his eyes shut and said, “No wait! Don’t tell me…Heldon!” He opened his eyes and Kismet nodded, confirming his guess. He grinned and said, “So we grab a cheeseburger, french fries, and a nice big chocolate milkshake with a ton of whipped cream and like three or four cherries on top. And then…” He waved his hand vaguely. “We’ll see. Search for Sarah and find her. Maybe I’ll find some non-descript job sorting magical paperwork that makes enough for me to buy a nice place on a lake somewhere with Sarah where we live out the rest of our days in a Folger’s commercial.” He sighed, chuckling a little bitterly.

“What’s a Folger’s commercial?” Kismet asked.

“Just a bunch of nonsense,” he sighed. “I think I must still be trying to get over that video of Ichuta getting his heart ripped out. It really did a number on me.” He shuddered, the image of the blood spraying out all over the Emperor’s robes playing out in his memory again.

“You still have files to look through,” Kismet reminded him, interrupting his grim thoughts. “Are you still interested in them, or has that whim passed?”

Griffin glanced pointedly at her and turned his attention back to the menus on his HUD. “Yeah, yeah. I’m getting to it.” There were only a few left and he started with the oldest text file that was also one of the biggest and most complete.

Staff Memslslsklklsls9d92C>>C>slOFhvksAP

03030001/03993

OPAAOAOAOam,

It is with a profound sense of injustice adefghojb0[93y-x-@@0-splspp_____9jl;jsdjjlk;-0pwpw./,c,]alle,eapa;d../ao-sss3-sc.lowaajbn halt comes as a direct order from the Emperor, mandating the surrender of all research to Imperial auditors.

A;la;a;a;alslslllsss0000c,c,[atyycoa[wpoicjkswzpalkwn oihfwoiha a a a902@ALF IiIo?FGGL ghjg by this capricious decision. The magnitude of our work's impact, evidently, is too vast for the narrow vision of those at the helm of our empire.

In defiance of this overreach, I am tasasfa222cdv0vitalfiles have been securely duplicated and stored in the datacenter within the depths AAAAAOHHJHck4_++++dlkis a fortress of knj3-0-9dls—dsglkmb jg039reach of our short-sighted rulers.

During this interim, I expect nothing less than absolute w6265c22cchhhhshjALKSc,,,cL:->#*-__9&member of our esteemed team. Let me be clear: any deviation from this expectation will be met with immediso000s0kcmkckmck22mc9568kkvklsrunity in this time of adversity is paramount.

I am 0-2LLKKJgk,cK*DM,fdriksQalwcpojbA than a mere project; it is a testament to our brilliance, a beacon of potential that shang-902lmbmmbmbwss;s+_SPSOmeddling.

A;jlksdf-s98ui:FKLMJKL@098dujkws be restored—continue preparations for Test Run 27. Test subjects 4571-4591 should be 2klss

lkds

sklslslslsl:L@L@L@dk

Let this challenge be a testament to our unyielding spirit and unbreakable will.

UUUUUUUSOALCKC

High Lord of House VaAKAKAKAcjn++-__-@kkdkdkalResearcjaskla0-03ty

He read the message over a few times, trying to piece what he could together from it. “So there was some project or other that the Emperor didn’t like and forced them to stop. But the person in charge here—I can’t tell if it’s Ichuta, the signature’s all corrupted—seems to have been pissed off about it.” He pointed at a line, “Look here, they call the Emperor short-sighted and then they talk about doing tests later. How old was this text file?”

“Three hundred and ninety years,” Kismet said. “More than a hundred years before Ichuta was executed and House Vasilias was broken to a Minor House. He was the High Lord of House Vasilias at the time.”

Griffin chuckled, “Sounds like he had it coming then. Even with a ton of this message corrupted, you can just feel the disdain and arrogance dripping from it. I bet the Emperor was tired of Ichuta’s bullshit way before he ripped out his heart.”

“You are likely correct,” Kismet agreed. “Though there is very limited information publicly available. Imperial nobility are not generally forthcoming regarding the details of their sordid pasts.”

“Yeah, the rich and powerful people back on Earth didn’t like it when the skeletons in their closets started getting aired out,” Griffin said. He looked through the other files that he had recovered but found nothing else as interesting or complete as the corrupted memo or the videos.

He started planning for his next excursion to the lab where he would try to find the burrow the Mother had used to drag the corpse away and then, hopefully, find his next ethershard. Maybe I’ll find the power I need to get the hell out of here, Griffin thought, feeling the slight edge of desperation. I need to get out sooner rather than later. These goddamn cybercentipedes are shit for conversation.

The enchanted door to his saferoom shuddered in the wall as one of the Mothers attacked it. Dust filtered down from the ceilings and the tensa lights in the room flickered. Griffin didn’t even flinch this time. The Mothers kept probing the room’s defenses, attacking the door regularly. Judging by the way the lights were flickering, he didn’t have much time left before they broke through.