The Secrets' Crusade

[Snowfire]

"So that's it, then." Mir said. The younger Potential's face was drawn with strain, yet his voice was steady as he stared back at you. You were aboard one of the Adamant's two heavy transport shuttles en route to the Consolat homeworld, taking advantage of the larger parasite craft's observatory.

"Iris broke their passive stealth last night," you affirmed, nodding at the projection hovering before the two of you. It had seemed better to sit next to Mir this time, and the pale-haired man seemed to appreciate it. "Though to call it passive is apparently a bit of a misnomer."

"What do you mean?" he asked. His tone was absent, but you couldn't judge that with any harshness. The fresh imagery of the star system, the real imagery one might say, was a lot to take in.

"Best we can tell?" You reached up, tapping on the thousands of dull red dots that were now scattered across the starfield. A schematic expanded from the dot, an abstract married to a steadily shifting sensor pattern.

"Oh stars," Mir breathed. Flicking your eyes towards him, you found his own widened. The look of shock below them was a little comforting in its familiarity. "It's adaptive, isn't it. That's how they hid from our sensors, even when we were looking right at them."

You nodded shortly, feeling Mir reach out through his Unison, linking to the data integrated into the imagery, and composed yourself to silence for the moment. The Adamant's Intelligence section had done a sterling job with the data Iris had uncovered after several long days of adapting the ship's sensors until she finally isolated the subtle, subtle shifts to the stealth coating hiding the literal millions of defence platforms from your sensors.

They were arrayed in concentric rings around the core system, with a denser set of satellites protecting what had once been the Consolat's homeworld. It was a sobering view, really. You'd seen the plans that Lina had drawn up to defend Sol long before they started to become real, and the enormous system-shell that she'd envisioned paled in comparison to this.

And those platforms were only one part of the star system's defences. One part.

"Makes you feel rather small, all's said and done," Mir said wryly. Your gaze snapped back to him, only to find him still staring up at the projection, a gentle smile on his lips. That…wasn't the reaction you'd been worried about.

"You're taking this rather better than I'd expected," you said slowly, and Mir chuckled. There was an edge to the laughter, something pained deep down, but it wasn't raw.

"You've read the reports from me and Elil, Mandy. You know what we felt," he paused, before correcting himself. "What I felt, mostly. Elil was invaluable in teasing out truth, but, you know."

"I do," you said, nodding again. "You said that you felt like it was something created to enforce peace. I was rather worried, given how badly you felt in the aftermath."

"It's deeply appreciated," he told you, smiling a bit more genuinely now. "But you're hardly the only person I know who can help someone find a lost harmony, Amanda." There was something rather chiding in how he said that.

"A point well struck," you admitted, bowing your head in recognition of its truth. You did have a trend to try and do everything yourself, and he…wasn't wrong to point you to that. Particularly the dangers of how it could become a serious distraction. And with that said, it wasn't hard to guess who had helped him.

"Vega, then?"

"She spent a few evenings helping me put it all into perspective," he agreed, expression sobering. "But honestly…this is about what I expected."

He waved a hand at the enormous defensive array, and the swarms of automated craft hidden beneath the uninhabited worlds to support them. "We'd already guessed what was beneath the worlds. And the only thing that could cause the sensor disruptions we encountered whilst remaining hidden was never going to be anything but fortifications on this scale.

"Once that was clear, well," he shrugged. "I can't say I like it, Mandy. But I can live with it. And it tells us a lot about how important the Consolat considered defence."

"Not everything is as obvious, though," you said, grimacing. Mir cocked his head, expectantly curious, and you sighed. "The other thing it let us isolate were the network links in the system. The old ones that the Consolat platforms are using. And that, that led us to confirm the hypothesis that Mary made shortly after we entered the system."

"Which one?" Mir didn't mean it as a joke, but you couldn't restrain the smile that bubbled up at the question. It didn't last long, but you could appreciate it nonetheless.

Lethal Ghosts: 99 + 33 (Iris Learning) + 20 (Lagless Computing Core) + 25 (Optimised Filters) - 60 (Adaptive Stealth Matrix) = 117 vs 60/100. Success.

"The one about Consolat Artificial Intelligence," you replied, feeling the smile drift from your lips. "Particularly in what she thought the Consolat would have created without the Secrets."

"I confess," Mir hedged, "that AI theory isn't a major field of mine."

"Wasn't mine until a decade or so ago." Hard to imagine it had really been that long, sometimes. Or that little. "But to put it simply, the Consolat had to know how to do everything they put into the Secrets. Which means they were able to create what Mary and Iris have called true AGI, and they left at least one behind."

Mir grimaced. "Can you put that in round terms? I don't mean to be ignorant, but…"

"It's not exactly a well-documented field right now," you said agreeably. "But do you remember how Iris suborned the Shiplord security AI at the Fifth Sorrow? How we helped her do so essentially effortlessly."

You tried not to think about how much that had hurt your daughter. You mostly failed.

Mir, meanwhile, nodded slowly. "I do. It was…you helped her hold herself together whilst allowing her to…Mary used the term fork, I believe?"

"Yes," you agreed, taking up the thread of conversation again. "It's essentially the most optimal form of parallel processing, creating partitions of yourself to handle more tasks. Iris has always struggled with it, but we're pretty sure that's a factor of age, and that she was born with a soul. An AGI, like what we now know the Consolat left behind to run their system defences? It wouldn't have those limits."

"Oh."

"My daughter described the discovery as one akin to finding oneself abruptly next to a sleeping bear." Iris had actually had rather more profane descriptions, but that didn't need to be said. "And it's also a reason to thank you."

"Why?" Mir shifted on the couch you'd been sharing, turning his focus fully to you.

"Because I'd be lying if I said the fierceness of your warnings hadn't contributed to us moving on from that control point on the Origin Four-Fifteen," you replied simply. "And if we'd kept going, and made a mistake?"

You shrugged. "Iris said that, if she had Mary and I helping her like we did back at the Fifth Sorrow she might be able to fight it to a draw. If she was lucky. And whilst she was doing that, it would be bringing the entire defence net online and blasting us apart."

"Oh." It was, you reflected, a rather fair response. Even if it was repetition. "You're…welcome?"

Full details of the Consolat SDS confirmed. Action unlocked to investigate specific components. Risk factor of aggressive action within the Consolat infospace now confirmed as extreme. This does not include Shiplord assets within the system.

After the surprise anti-climax of talking with Mir, and really you should have known that he would have sought aid somewhere, the rest of your trip to the Consolat homeworld passed without a hitch. The planet itself was a wild garden world, speckled with the remains of cities more ancient than humanity itself. The fact that large portions of them remained intact, albeit largely overgrown with plant life, was a testament to the Consolat's mastery of material science. And, as you drew closer, an equal tribute to the efficacy and robustness of urban maintenance systems.

It was something that only became fully clear as you entered the atmosphere, hidden completely by the veil of Vega and Elil's Foci. Harmony and Insight again guided your actions, setting down a little further out of the city from your planned landing zone. Given the confirmed presence of a Consolat artificial intelligence slumbering in the infospace, getting too close to any of the homeworld systems with something like a Seed seemed a risk best avoided.

That decision was only one among dozens as you descended through the atmosphere, the steady presence of something both less and more than Practice radiating out through the world's very essence. You felt it in the air around the shuttle and the sprawling cities swelling into reality below, drawing your eyes to the shuttle's virtual windows.

The scenery was a wild tapestry of otherworldly and yet strangely familiar beauty. Verdant foliage blanketed the landscape in a haze of colours, a vast canopy of deep greens broken here and there by the iridescent caps of giant mushrooms. Avian and simian analogues flitted between the branches, many of the fliers clustering around blooms of violet and azure flowers, their delicate petals shredding the sunlight into scattering rainbows.

Mary was glued to the shuttle's sensor suite, fingers flying as she tried to examine everything, all at once. Iris stood beside her, your daughter inhumanly still as she worked with her other mother to help her do exactly what she was trying to do. Kalilah, meanwhile, stood next to you at one of the virtual windows on the shuttle's small flight deck.

You were passing over the city now, creeping vines and similar plants clinging to the walls of buildings. Trees anchored the steady march of foliage towards the centre of the city that held one of your long-term targets. And lime green ferns and wildgrass stretched deeper along the empty streets, figurative outriders to the steady advance of nature. Here and there, you could see automated systems pruning back the encroaching flora, pursuing a defence that had long ago become futile. Yet it continued, and looking at what was still left after millions of years…you had to wonder. How long would it take for the world's nature to reclaim the cities in their entirety?

"Does it matter?" Kalilah asked. You blinked, realising you must have said that last question out loud. Her question wasn't unkind, and lacked the edge that would have been present if this had been a Shiplord city.

And yet.

"I suppose it doesn't," you admitted. You brushed a hand against the fake pane of reconfigured nanomass that let you see the outside world. "Not for our purposes at least. But I still wonder. They've been here for millions of years, and have endured more time than anything I could imagine."

"Even the Shiplords?" Kalilah asked. The edge was back in her voice with that question.

You smiled sadly. "Even them, Kalilah," you sighed. "The Shiplords that existed when this city was new died a long time ago."

You shook your head as the shuttle left the city behind, descending towards a grassy plain a few miles out from the edge of the fading urban sprawl. Holofields blossomed above you to cloak any hint of the shuttle's presence from any sensors above, Sixth Secret nanotech flooding into the air to support the visual effort.

"And here we are now," you said, turning to watch the flight crew bring the shuttle into land. "Picking the bones of that past, in hopes of finding a better future."

"You were told that this would lead to one," Kalilah muttered, perhaps a touch darkly. "Unless they lied too."

"I was told it could lead to one," you corrected gently. She rolled her eyes, but something in your eyes stopped her halfway. "And by a being," or beings, it was hard to be sure with the Uninvolved, "that was only passing on a message from those who came before. I don't agree with almost anything of what we've seen the Shiplords do in their later failures, but if this can give us victory without burning the galaxy?" You shrugged. "What would you do?"

Kalilah frowned, her dark brown eyes shadowed. "You really think something here can do what Tahkel promised?"

"I don't believe that the beings who had them tell us about the Shiplord Sorrows would have made sure they were remembered, even in passing, unless it was important," you said at length. "And I don't think the Teel'sanha Peoples would have sacrificed their existence to create the archive that led us here. To be honest, I think that's where it started."

A thrum ran through the ship as it touched down and communications raced between the flight crew as they secured the shuttle. Once that was done, it would be time to see how well the Trailblazer Seeds truly worked.

Kalilah hummed consideringly, processing your words for a moment. "Wait," she said slowly. "You think it was the Teel'sanha Uninvolved who left the message pointing to the Sorrows behind? That the entire point of it was to get someone who actually could defy the Shiplords to the Fourth Sorrow, and then here?"

"I'm not certain," you temporised, "but it would make sense. They knew something was here, maybe many somethings, but they couldn't put it together. Maybe they hoped that the next race to be able to stand against their old mentors, they might be able to put the pieces together where they'd failed."

"That's…" Kalilah considered her words, then gave you a smiling sigh. "Very you, Mandy."

"I know," you said, smiling back. "And maybe I'm wrong. But that's what we're here to find out, in the end." And, you didn't add, your instincts had been rather good so far.

"We're secured, ma'am," the head of the flight crew said diffidently, taking the opportunity of a moment of silence between two significant superiors.

"Thank you, Lieutenant." You looked back at the imagery, then to Mary and Iris. Your daughter nodded once, confirming that the stealth coverage was working as advertised. Time, then. "Please begin deployment of the Magi Seed. We've got a lot of work to do."

 

[Snowfire]

Spoiler: "Rolls"

Insight: 78 + 27 (Elil Practice) + 10 (Steel Eyes) = 115.
Access: 88 + 33 (Iris Learning) + 20 (AI Network Bonus) + 10 (Echo of Nabu Network Bonus) = 151.
Peace: 77 + 25 (Mir Practice) + 15 (Amity) = 117.

"They really built these things to last, didn't they." It was, you reflected, quite unfair that half of the group with you could tell that it was a rhetorical question. But you were a little bored, even surrounded by so many new and alien things. You'd had an entire day to categorise all of that at this point, and you couldn't really afford to lower your thinking speed whilst you were down on the planet. There be all the time you'd ever wish for to be amazed by all the differences and similarities that life on the Consolat homeworld had to that on Earth. Later.

And making sure that you'd get to have that later was why all of you were here in Shiplord territory in the first place. And why you, Elil and Mir were carefully scouting the outer bunkers of the Consolat Archive for access points. You'd found several of them so far, but all of them had been determined unsafe by one or both of the Potentials with you.

"They did," Elil agreed. The Insight-Focused paused in his steps to examine another featureless section of the dark, featureless ceramic that seemed to make up the entire complex. "I imagine Mary will be fascinated by the materials the Consolat used, though she'll have to make do with scanner readings instead of samples."

"Yeah," you sighed, tracing the fingers of one hand along the smooth surface. "Mom's gonna be sad about that. But nothing for it, what with how lousy with nanotech the whole thing seems to be." You shot a glance at Mir, trying not to look sullen. Really.

"You know the limits of what we can do, Iris," he replied, not for the first time. "And I know you understand why we can't risk the possibility of discovery."

"I do." You grinned. "But it's something to do until you find me an access point I can actually use." A pause, and Mir opened his mouth to point out that- "That I can use to get us inside," you corrected. Elil had found more than one data access that both the Potentials with you had judged to be safe, but none of them had been connected to physical access points that held up to the same scrutiny.

"Well," Elil murmured, stepping back from the section he'd been checking. "Mir, take a look at this? Might be onto a winner."

"Oh?" The younger of the two Potentials advanced past you with Unison-guided agility until he could reach out and touch the bunker's surface. The silver of his protective Masque left no imprints on the unmarred surface, but that wasn't what the connection was for. Though it was still strange to you how much information those like him, like one of your own mothers, could draw from such a simple action.

And yet, discounting the still troublesomely veiled mechanics of their abilities, was that ability so strange? You were already searching with low power wireless and extremely restrained active sensors to isolate the access point for this section. Reaching out with senses that to you were as natural as taste or smell had become since the creation of your avatar. And getting results, just as Elil had to find this place. And as Mir did, but a few moments later.

"I think," he murmured, swaying in place for a moment. "This feels right. Iris?"

"I can breach this one?" Maybe you were a little too excited about finally being able to do what you'd been sent along with the two guys to do. But maybe not.

Mir smiled, very slightly. "I believe so." There was a pause, like he was considering something else to say, but it passed. That was nice. It gave you a few seconds to isolate the data access, reconfigure your transceiver to mate with its I/O feeds… And connect.

Trying to describe how you actually interacted with cyberspace to someone who'd spent their entire life restricted to meatspace was an exercise in tortured metaphor at best. The people who you'd found to understand it best had all been Potentials, with the exception of Vision. And it made sense, if you thought about it. Potentials had their own unique connection to sensations and interaction points quite beyond the physical.

Every system had its own affectations, a way of evoking a sense of a place that never showed up in a data structure. This one, more than anything, felt old. Not the old of a ruin, though. It reminded you of old libraries, thick with the scent of old books and dry, dry dust. It made you want to be careful in how you moved, lest you disturb anything, and you didn't mean security protocols. Just the dust.

So instead of walking, you swam. Air was still air, but you weren't merely matter in this example. You let that air lift your data-self and flowed down the paths it opened, fluttering between the walls and shelves. Each one was a priceless trove, tempting beyond description, but trying to access them from here might draw attention. If not from the bars and lights that stood ready, even now, then from the dust.

It didn't properly describe the steady work of breaking through security protocols, the cold, steady logic of unravelling and cracking your way through the code structures to open the door that Elil had found. But that was your perception. And in this, as so many things, those were all that mattered.

It took you almost an entire minute, but you were taking your time, making sure that everything was done right. Given what you knew about the Midnight Dreaming's passengers, taking chances wasn't on the agenda unless absolutely necessary. A section of the bunker wall simply melted away in front of the three of you, and you contented yourself with a smug smile instead of stepping inside. There were a few more checks that the others had to do before you could get inside.

Five more minutes passed before you could set foot inside the bunker. Your trio exited the passage you'd created onto a walkway above a cavernous chamber, stretching down and filled with softly humming towers of black material. The air was surprisingly cool given the thermal emissions of those towers, no doubt the result of a highly capable atmospheric control system. Looking left and right, you saw that the walkway you were on didn't actually continue very far, extruded from the internal walls in response to your presence.

You considered that for a moment. How did they move down, then? You could feel the leashed power cycling through what you could only assume were one part of the Archive's vast databanks. It was intimidating to look at. The capacity of even humanity's modern data infrastructure would make a single room like this capable of holding an impossibly vast amount of information. How much had the Consolat tried to leave behind?

"Only one way for us to find out," you murmured, taking another step forward. The responsive extension was seamless, and looking closer, you could see the subtle influence of energy supporting the matter beneath your feet. It was not a thick layer. What else could it do?

Which had the same answer as before, really. Try to find out.

"You alright, Iris?" Elil asked. That dark-skinned man had kept pace with you, and his sharp eyes were flicking between the server towers.

"A little frustrated," you replied, brushing a hand through the space where a railing would've been on a human walkway. It all brought up so many questions. "But nothing important. I don't think we actually need to go any further. There are physical access points on the towers, but we're here to scout, not take a full snapshot."

"And a good thing too," Mir noted. You both looked at the Peace Focused, and you saw Elil stiffen as he saw the tension in the younger Potential. He shook his head. "Nothing critical, Elil, not yet. But there's a limit on how long we can stay here. Couldn't tell you exactly why, but it's there. Iris? How much time do you need?"

"There's general wireless access," you reported. "It's secured, but it seems more focused on keeping the data intact rather than keeping anyone out. If I tried to delete or change anything, it would lock me out. I'm not sure how it would react to copying, but I also," you trailed off, taking in the room again with another searching glance.

"My own storage is barely a fraction of what this place must be able to hold, and we can't risk a wireless link to the Magi." You glanced down, unhappy with the admission's implications. "If we want what's in here, it's going to need more time than we have, and far more computing capacity than your Unisons and I have at our disposal."

The two men looked between each other, before Elil sighed. "You're talking about a hard link, aren't you."

You nodded. "It's the only thing that will work, assuming these towers are even close to capacity. And even that might be a strain. We still don't know the limits of Consolat technology. This site will be capable of analysis using its own processing capacity, but anything major will be something that other users can detect."

Or more than other users, given the dataspace titan that you'd found slumbering in the star system's infospace. And then there was whatever infospace assets the Shiplord Central Intelligence component aboard the Dreaming had brought along with them. You'd dedicate some time to that, once this trip was over.

"So what can we do?" Elil asked. "It sounds like we're pretty limited here."

"We are," you agreed. "But that's a limitation on our ability to do proper data analysis, not access the data itself. I can still get into the Archive's data structure."

"Then start there, I guess," Mir suggested. Halfway through, the smile you'd been meaning to toss his way aborted to a pained hiss.

"It's okay," you said, very quickly. "I'm alright. Nothing saw me. I just…I was already starting whilst we were talking. And I found a…problem. It was pretty obvious once I had time to look at the data structure."

"What sort of problem?" Elil asked carefully. Practice rippled around the Insight-Focused, focused power (heh) ready to be unleashed. "Is it something we need to worry about right now?"

"Not right now," you hedged, feeling out the edges of what you'd found. "But it's going to make a hardlink even more critical to get anything meaningful out of this place. And I think…I think it explains why the Teel'sanha gave up."

You paused, focusing on the infospace that the Archive had given you access to, searching for the right words to explain it. Your companions let you, thankfully. You could multitask, but…

"It's going to be easier to just show you this," you sighed. There were a lot of words that could be applied, but none of them fit. And you didn't have to be so limited. "May I?

Links opened, a sign of agreement without any words required, and you reached out through them. What you offered wasn't a real image of the data structure of the vast archive, but it came close enough. Elil gasped in shocked recognition before Mir, but then his Focus was better suited for this. And it wasn't as if the other Potential was far behind.

"This," Elil murmured, his tone aghast and yet…something else was there in his tone. You put it out of your mind for now. If he'd seen something, he'd tell you.

"There's a lot to unpack even on a basic sweep," you explained, pointers of thought touching places in the shared gestalt. "But the high level summary is simple enough: this is exactly what the Dreaming's database suggested. A place designed to be a record of the Consolat. There's more of their history in these files than we could properly analyse if we spent decades here, linked to scientific and cultural databases describing things in more detail.

"The problem is that it's not the full picture." The pointers shifted, tracing a pattern of fractures and corrupted records across the image you'd conjured. "The entire data structure has been deeply fragmented, with significant sections hopelessly corrupt. And this is after work was done to try and fix it. Old enough that I don't think it could have been anyone but the Shiplords, and what we have now seems to have been the best they could do."

"I think I know why," Elil spoke into your pause, very softly. His eyes were closed, and your own sensors easily found the energy rippling around the man's soul. Communion with his Unison allowed him to directly access the data you'd shared far more directly than a visual representation, but it never stopped being impressive to watch a Unisonbound work in virtual spaces.

"The data here," he continued, absently flicking his own pointers across the structure. "It reminds of what we got back from the early attempts of Project Insight, or the even earlier attempts by other focus groups to investigate the Secrets. Even later iterations of Project Insight struggled with fragmentation issues, but the corruption here is typical of any attempt to use Practice to reach into the nature of the Secrets.

"But the current theory is that the Consolat created them," Mir said, confusion radiating through his words. "How would that make sense?"

"Miss D'reve also suggested that the Secrets are incomplete," Elil pointed out in reply. "Iris, the historical data, it's relatively intact, correct?"

"It is," you confirmed.

"Then that tracks," he said. "This place, they tried to repurpose it as they died creating their legacy. But they didn't know about the limits on data transfer across soulspace boundaries – what Insight calls it. You have to have incredibly well designed, and purpose-built facilities to handle that sort of data transfer, and we've never dared touch anything related to the Secrets even with all of Project Insight's safeguards. But Phoebe had a theory, and this might just support it.

"Large sections of this archive are just gone, corrupted by the final data transfer. I'd bet that the creation timestamps are all within a very small period, seconds at most, and even the best computers in the universe will still have mathematical limits. So when the Consolat tried to dump a…call it a manual, I guess, for the Secrets here?"

Your eyes widened. "It screwed up the database," you whispered. "Overfilled into the backup repositories because they probably yanked all the safeguards, trying to cram in as much information as they could. And all of it with them not knowing that it wouldn't work anyway. So you get this."

"Just so," Elil said heavily. His expression could've been carved from stone as he stared out at the towering server-spires, each one pulsing steadily with the flow of data. "I don't doubt that there's a huge amount of information here that we could use. A concealed hard link to let us dig into the data could be critical going forward, and I suspect that there's some things that Lea, Vega, Mandy and I can do to help fix some of the damage. Just…not any of the data corruption." He shook his head. "I wouldn't dare risk that."

"There's something else it points to as well," you said abruptly, the realisation hitting you in a flash. "Something we'll need to watch out for, in the other sites. That the Consolat might have tried to leave other things behind."

Mir grimaced. "Not to rain on any parades, but wouldn't the Shiplords have found those by now?"

"Not if finding them, or making sense of them, would require Practice," you said, hopping excitedly from foot to foot. Just like you knew mom was going to when you told her this. "We know that Consolat civilization was able to do something like what Potentials can do.

"Do you really think it's impossible that some of what they did relied on a greater understanding of the soul to understand?" You demanded. "Something that we know the Shiplords didn't share with them."

"And if that's possible," Elil said, tone shifting to reflect your own excitement. "Then that could be another reason why the Teel'sanha weren't able to find anything. For all that they were, they followed the pattern of their teachers. They got closer than the Shiplords, but not all the way."

"And we have Practice, which they never did." Mir's enthusiasm kindled more slowly, but it kindled all the same.

Until the implications of his statement registered, and the weight behind them, the weight of age that you'd felt in this place the first time you'd accessed it, smashed the mood around you flat. Because if you were right, the Shiplords had spent millions of years guiding races down entirely the wrong path to fix what the Consolat had left behind.

They'd surrendered to fear and xenophobia in the aftermath of misuse of the Secrets that a more complete understanding of them could have completely prevented. Slowly but slowly turning their civilization into a monster. All because nobody had been there with the knowledge to stop it.

What had made humanity so special?

Actions unlocked. Magi link for location unlocked and highly suggested for further investigation. Mir notes that maintaining operational security within the Archive could be a challenge, as the Shiplords there aren't looking for conflict.

Old questions.

 

[Snowfire]

Spoiler: Rolls

Dreaming Secrets: 78 + 33 (Iris Learning) + 20 (Lagless Computing Core) + 20 (AI Network Bonus) + 10 (Echo of Nabu Network Bonus) = 161 vs 70/90/120 = Success.
Refinement from Reverie: 80 + 27 (Vega Practice) + 18 (Half Amanda Practice) + 20 (Unity in Purpose) + 10 (Past Educator) = 145/120.
Underpinned: 47 + 36 (Mary Learning) + 20 (Lagless Computing Core) + 15 (Daughter of Secrets) + 11 (Banked Rollover): 129/???.

"So what actually was the outcome of your work with Vega?" Mary asked, sipping slowly from a mug of coffee held protectively in both hands. This was, in the end, unexpected given her usual morning routine. "You seemed happy last night, so I'm guessing something good."

She tapped a finger against the cup in her hands, artfully considerate. "Unless smiling has started to mean something else for you?"

"Oh hush," you groused. Your own hands were occupied with putting the finishing touches on the report you'd spent most of the previous night putting together, two slices of toast laying untouched on a plate by your elbow. Sidra had kept you from dipping the joint of your arm in butter this morning, but it had been a close run thing.

"Sooo?" Mary asked after a sip of her precious ambrosia. You glowered at her again, but it probably wouldn't have worked even if you'd been serious. Threat so repulsed, Mary set her mug down on the table and set to spreading a layer of jam over one of your slices of toast.

"It was very good news, actually," you said a few minutes later. The toast had been a much needed reprieve from the virtual display that still hung above the table. For now, though, it had been swung to one side. You'd make sure it was ready before the next major planning session this morning, but not right now.

"We weren't sure it would go this smoothly, especially with all the unknowns from using Practice here." It had been a major concern, in fact. "But it also needed to be done if we're going to do that with any regularity, beyond what Mir and Elil used on their excursion. If we're going to understand what actually happened here, especially fast enough to matter, it's going to rely entirely on Practice."

"Oh," you added, as if you'd forgotten. "And you."

"I'm glad you remembered," Mary said, smiling dangerously. "I have my own news, too, and I'd hate for you to miss out. Details, please."

Was it strange, you wondered. For it to be so easy to slip back into those gentle, teasing patterns even here. Perhaps. Or maybe it would be strange to lose them, habits that had endured half a century, to a change of scenery.

"Then I suppose it's only fair," you agreed, putting the question aside for now. A final bite vanished the remains of your toast, and you flicked the report closed for now, clearing the space around you.

Mary raised an eyebrow. "You don't need it?" She asked, nodding to where the text had been hanging.

"Not particularly." You waved a hand dismissively. You'd written that report because you had to, because it would help others. You didn't need any words on a page to explain what you and Vega had done.

"I'm the only human so far who has experienced a Reverie." Better to start at the beginning. "Who has actually connected to…well I'm still not sure if it's a memory of a soul or the actual soul of one long gone. The implications of the second one," you shook your head. "There's just too much there for right now.

"But there's a similarity between that and what you, Kalilah and Lea did aboard the Adamant," Mary didn't, quite, ask. But you nodded all the same.

"Yes." One hand traced a line between you and the brunette across the table. "And with what you, Vega and I did, all those years ago on Earth. The challenge here was working out a way to use those experiences here, and for that the Reverie was our best option."

And if not for Sidra's existence, you admitted quietly, something that might well have been impossible. It had been their ability to perfectly access your memories that had allowed the four of you – Vega, you and both your Unisons – to succeed.

:You don't need to say thank you again,: Sidra preempted, their voice quietly amused. :Though I suppose you will anyway.:

:I'm sure of it,: you sent, with utter sincerity. All in a single moment between words.

"And yes." You ducked your head, nodding. "You were right about my smile meaning something good. With the Unison's ability to access those memories, to relive them and study them in ways I'm not sure I can properly explain, we were able to build a model of how we believe the connection works. It was surprisingly simple, actually."

"Really?" Mary raised her other eyebrow, green eyes bright beneath them. "You only did that once, Mandy. Even with perfect memory, it gave you that much of a blueprint?"

"It surprised us too," you admitted. The discovery had actually shocked all of you. "But what Lorelli and I did, during Second Contact, it wasn't a normal connection. Not the way that their species interact with it, at least. What we created was a way to bridge the gap between the souls of entirely different species, and I wrote more than one report on that subject after I came back."

"You did," she nodded slowly. "You always were curious about the potential of that connection, what it could mean if you had the chance to take it further."

"And I was always unable to do so," you sighed. That had been frustrating at the time, but it had been a little thing, tiny compared to the weight of responsibility on your shoulders as co-head of the Arcadia Institute. "But here and now, we need it. There was always a blueprint, or something like one, in the memory of the connection, but it wasn't until I investigated it properly – with someone else to watch – that we realised how complete it truly was.

"And with that." You shook your head. "It was easy. What the Consolat left behind isn't the same as another soul; what Kalilah and I found with Lea's help told us that. But it's still a construct in that space, if the term really applies. All we really had to do once we had the Marionette blueprint was tweak it a little."

"And you've tested it?" Mary asked. Of course that would be her first question.

"Well, no," you chuckled. "We're not quite that insane, Mary. Neither of us think that using this in earnest would be obvious, but what do we know? This place is uncharted territory, in more than one way. No, if we're going to use this, it'll be at one of the places that Mir found. And, preferably, with Vega there to stop it all exploding into a Miracle that nothing could hide."

"Well, I can't say I'm happy to hear you'll be relying on an untested technique," your friend sighed. "But I can see your reasoning. Just, do be careful when the time comes, alright?"

You caught her hand, interlacing fingers in a casual motion of closeness as your blue eyes met her green. "I'll be careful," you told her firmly. "I promise."

You weren't sure if you'd ever stop having to tell her that, but if that was a cost of your friendship, you'd accept it gladly. For now, you tried to steer the conversation away from the sudden grimness.

"What was your news?" The look Mary shot you in response to the question made it very clear that she knew what you were doing. But she didn't push back on it, either. Simply taking up the thread as speaker.

"It's actually about our daughter's work this time," she said, with a bittersweet smile. "My own's still progressing, and I think I'm starting to run out of new data to slot in. Hopefully we can get some more in the coming days. There's only so many times I can want to try and make an incomplete picture fit."

"I'll see what we can do to help with that." You'd shared that frustration enough times to know how truly awful it could be to encounter. Your early work to understand your Void Crystal came to mind. "Is the concern here about the data Iris found, Mary? Or the implications?"

"More the second one," Mary grimaced, eyes darkening with concern. Your daughter hadn't been entirely herself since her excursion to the Consolat Archive, and once you'd had time to dig into the limited data found there it wasn't hard to work out why. The damage to the Archive's data, and underlying data structure, had been significant. And if that damage had been repeated across active systems, or even those connected to the repository, it painted a grim picture for any Consolat AI active at the time.

It could certainly explain why only the system guardian AI was still around, if all of the others had been corrupted by the enormous data-dump the Consolat had tried to execute in their last moments.

But it could also have been something else. There was no way to be sure, and the way it was driving your daughter to distraction wasn't healthy. Worse, she knew it, but pulling away from the worst scenario was proving a struggle. And for your daughter, truly burying herself in her work was a near-impossibility.

She'd certainly tried, of course. But the Magi seed had been designed to create a research base, and its data processing capacity was at least a match for the Lagless core of the Adamant. And that was why her report on the data she'd gathered from the Midnight Dreaming's data core had hit your datafeeds last night.

It had been a good report, impressing both of you. But it had also been a full day ahead of schedule, and that had implications that not even the Magi's increased processor capacity could answer. It meant that Iris was deliberately trying to avoid the possibility that was haunting her in one of the worst ways possible.

And maybe not just that fear, given the final section of the report, covering the few details of the team from Central Intelligence that had taken over a section of the Shiplord exploration vessel. There wasn't a great deal of direct information there, but it did make you glad that the decision had been made to look into this information before trying to breach the ship's more guarded infospace.

Central Intelligence had sent a team of its best, together with the highest level of Shiplord AI that anyone in your intel team had ever heard of. It was, Iris alleged, still possible to breach the Central Intelligence archives, but it would require significantly more preparation. And likely the same sort of support that you and Mary had given her when she'd suborned the system AI of the Fifth Sorrow.

You looked up from the table, over at the connecting door to the suite she'd taken next to the one you and Mary shared. You weren't entirely sure you wanted to do that to Iris, at least not right now. And you were…confident, at least, that this wasn't just your parental instincts talking.

"You know," you said slowly, still looking at the door. "I'm pretty sure she never locked us out. And we're still her family."

"Are you sure?" Mary wasn't asking the question an observer would think.

"She's an adult, I know." Yet your body was already moving, coming to your feet. Mary matched you, perhaps a second behind "But we all need help sometimes."

The hope had been that she'd have joined you today. That you could have talked about the pain haunting her footsteps and thoughts. There was a meeting in a few hours, and you'd have to present a report there, much like Mary. But somehow none of it really mattered, as you reached the door a half-step ahead of your dearest friend.

You glanced back at her, questioningly silently. Were you right to do this? Yet was it really a question. Someone you loved was hurting. You could help. And, above all, there was that single principle that you'd touched on, but never quite said.

"She'll never not be our daughter," you murmured, and palmed the door open.

Refinement proceeds smoothly, despite the potential dangers of doing so on the Origin itself. Vega and Amanda now know the technique, and will proliferate it to their Heartcircle for next turn. Your Harmonic Choir will learn the technique over the course of the next 1d4[1] (why do I bother) turns. Outcome complete.

Full detail of interest points accessed. Quarters actions altered. Underpinned remains in progress. More data required? Iris comforted.

 

[Snowfire]

The conference room at the top of the completed Magi was quiet. The reports had all been given, and now all those people who would have to choose what would follow sat around a shining table, faced with choice. The vista around them was beautiful and still too new to be ignored. A meadow stretching to a nearby treeline, full of flowers and those things that survived from their offerings. Achingly similar to Earth, to the home that you'd left behind months ago now. Yet also different, and all the more beautiful for that diversity.

The discussion hadn't taken long by the clock, though at least a minute had been spent recognising the change to the youngest person at the table. Iris, the first daughter of humanity, had come to the chamber with both her mothers in hand, and a small smile on her face. Time well spent, despite whatever detrimental effect it might have had on your report about the work you'd done with Vega on unravelling Reverie techniques. In the end, what mattered was that you'd succeeded.

The true point of interest was certain parts of Iris' report, the sections dedicated to each of the locations that Elil had pinpointed. Four places, each of great importance, and from where you were sitting you could see one of them. The spire was impossible to miss, towering above the skyline to your nominal northwest, and that was only the physical. There was an impossible presence to the structure, a solemn power that never truly intruded into your perceptions, but could also never be entirely ignored.

That was where it had happened. Whatever the Consolat had done to create the Secrets, it had been there. And the entire structure still resonated with the ancient echoes of that monumental act. Was that part of the building? The act? Some combination? Sadly, all the Shiplord directories had to say about the structure was less than promising. The structure's core remained sealed and entirely unresponsive, despite the growing number of breaches from intrusive flora, finally starting to show success after aeons of failed attempts.

And yet, part of you yearned to find out what was hidden there, locked behind the unyielding walls.

The other locations, though? They had more promise. Jane had still strongly suggested that you conduct your own explorations, but the information from the Midnight Dreaming gave you much more to go on.

The forest? Wasn't a forest. It was a vast computer and living archive. There were references to the interface demanding understanding in exchange for access, something that Shiplord scientists haven't been able to ever provide beyond the most basic levels. From what little attached data existed, however, Mary had a theory. This, she thought, might be an archive created by the Consolat for their own research into Practice. Maybe even early development of the Secrets.

The reason it wasn't used to store the data found in the Consolat Archive might also be the reason that the data there appeared intact. The entire archive was disconnected from the planetary datanet.

The Archive, well, what was found there went hand in hand with the summaries Iris found within the Dreaming's database. The Shiplords spent a great deal of time repairing the systems of the archive, but even their most powerful AIs proved incapable of fixing the data within. Practice could almost certainly repair much of that damage, but action on that scale would be impossible to miss. Especially as there's currently a full Shiplord research team down in the Archive.

From what Iris found, they were looking for details on what the Consolat were beginning to learn to use before the creation of the Secrets. What humanity calls Practice, and the Consolat called Shaping. It was a very young field by the standards of the species at the time of their death, unfortunately. And the Shiplords had found little success in that pursuit.

Though even with the damage, there remained a vast amount of information within those endless databanks. Some of it, much of it, was information you might need. You still knew so little about the Consolat, and the repositories at the Archive held the answers to many of those questions.

Finally, there was the location that had been identified in the report as an ancient university. A place of learning, with no specific focus that explained its importance. The only thing that the Shiplord survey sweeps had reported about the location during their desperate search for any sign of their lost friends was a somewhat above average degree of damage to the site's computers. Reading the date line for that report had made you feel very small.

You have Six (6) AP and One (1) Research (Mary) AP to assign, each representing a dice of effort. Unless otherwise specified, there is no limit to the number of AP you can assign to a given task. Some actions may require specific talents or characters to complete - this will be noted in the action text.

Exploration - Direct exploration of the Origin system, based on The Adamant's location in-system. The Adamant is currently in shuttle range of the Consolat homeworld, hidden in the mass shadow of a near-world asteroid.
[] Quarters - Send or lead a team to investigate one of the four points of interest on the planet below. You must specify which characters are sent to which location.
-[] Immaculate Evergreens - An enormous computer in the form of a forest, located in the outskirts of one of the Consolat's cities. The interface, apparently, requires proof of understanding to grant access. [Mary or Iris recommended]
-[] Crumbling Halls - A sprawling and mildly overgrown university complex, settled a comfortable distance from any Consolat cities. Computer systems show atypical damage. No other data. [Mary and at least one Mender recommended]
-[-] Occupied Archive - The Consolat Archive, so named by the Dreaming's files, is a cluster of heavily shielded bunkers. Contains a vast amount of heavily damaged data left behind by the Consolat, but is also the only location on the planet with a Shiplord presence. [COMPLETE]
-[] Last Spire - A towering construct at the centre of a city thoroughly invested by fauna, and quite possibly the heart of the entire system's echoing presence in your senses. It may be possible to directly interface with the echoes of the Consolat's creation and death here. Currently locked down. [Mandy required, Vega and Mary recommended]
[] Delving - Beyond the initial exploration of the Quarters actions, this will involve far more dedicated focus to a specific area. Thanks to your access to the archives of the Midnight Dreaming, this can be executed on any site immediately, but there are potentially downsides to investing this much in a location without a cursory survey. Select a location from the Quarters list when taking this action, and assign characters as normal.

Only one Delving action can be taken per turn, and you must assign at least 2 AP to the action.

Investigation - At-a-distance exploration of the Origin system. Generally not location dependent.
[] Matrix Webs - The system's datasphere appears to be nominally accessible, but any exploration of the systems is judged to have two requirements. First, that Iris is involved at some level. And second, that any exploration is done with extreme care, given how dangerous the Consolat system AI is likely to be. [Requires Iris]
[] Breach at Midnight - The Dreaming is not just a civilian craft. There is a section within the ship, repurposed to host a team from Shiplord Central Intelligence. It would be extremely risky, but it might be possible to breach its firewalls to discover what sent them here. [Requires Iris]
[] Heart's Caution - Vega has found a way to invert the techniques that first brought her to your attention. Teaching this to the Harmonic Choir would require more work refining the technique, but she could pass it onto you and the rest of the Heartcircle. [Requires Vega]
*New* [] You still have very little knowledge of who the Consolat really were. Delve into the functional history and culture repositories of the Consolat Archive, so that you might understand.
[] Write in?

Research - Theoretical examination of not just factors present here in the Origin, but far beyond. Your Research AP must be assigned to one of these tasks, but additional AP may also be used.
[] Underpinned - With a solid proof now in hand of who created the Secrets, Mary wants to continue her work on understanding how the Consolat actually did it. This could well prove crucial in the weeks to come. [+129 rollover to second stage research]
[] VIsions in the Jump - You saw a glimpse of the place where you met Tahkel when jumping to the Fourth Sorrow, and it had two figures there, one of them who looked human. Try to work out how that happened, and how to reach back to that place without requiring another jump. [Requires Amanda]
[] Practised Restraint - Vega was able to find a way to an understanding of Practiced Miracles that allowed her to trigger them with a level of regularity that was a little intimidating. She's offered to try and see if she can reverse the process. Not something you ever thought you'd need before now, but it should be possible. [+4 rollover to second stage research]
[] Write in?

*New* Development - Deployment and expansion of current Trailblazer-package outposts. May prove vital for certain tasks going forward, depending on requirements. These actions will deplete the Adamant's mass bunker, which is currently at 70 + 5 = 75% as a result of passive harvesting.
[] Blazing a Trail - Establish a Trailblazer-package outpost at one of several landing points on the planet, allowing for longer term habitation and direct access to the planet's major interest points.
-[] Outline location and type of outpost here. See sidebar.
[] Level Terrain - The Trailblazer Seeds were, by nature, modular. Expand your current Trailblazer outpost to support further systems. Will open a subvote.
[] Magi Link - Construct and lay a hardlink from the Magi to the Consolat Archive, allowing for easier access to the data and potentially opening up new actions.

You may also pick Two (2) Personal Actions. These will have limited mechanical effect on their own, but can synergise with AP actions.
[] Spend some time with your family. This will be a balm to you all.
[] Relax and train with your Heartcircle. Keeping your edge in combat sharp is more important now than it ever was. And it's good to share time together.
[] Dedicate personal time to learn the Restraint techniques pioneered by Vega.
[] Go for a walk through the city of the Spire. It won't be going inside, but maybe it will help you understand the depth of power resonating from the place.
[] Write in?

 

[Snowfire]

Looking down at the valley that held your objective was an experience in bittersweet solemnity. You'd all seen the dates, knew how long it had been since the Consolat had vanished from the galaxy. Actually seeing what time had done with all their works, though, that made it real in a way a number on a page simply couldn't. There'd been buildings of brick here once, you could see where the trees and vines had swallowed and tore them apart.

For most, that would have been sobering. You were a little distracted by the other half of your expedition's organic viewpoint. She, meanwhile, was doing a passable impression of a seventy year old kid in a candy store. And you hadn't even gotten to any of the buildings yet!

"Look, Mandy! Look!" Mary hopped from foot to foot in sheer excitement, green eyes sparkling above a smile of flashing white teeth. The two of you had the infiltration nanoshells active but retracted today, set to activate in a heartbeat if you detected any lifesigns. For now, though, it was nice to actually feel sunlight on your skin, even if it was a very distant sun to the one you knew.

"After what the team at the Archive found, I was certain there would be some structures that still were intact," Mary went on, every word radiating sheer delight. Following her pointing finger down, you could understand why.

Because yes, there were still buildings left. None of them were pristine, but the metal shells and reinforced structures of the lab complexes had weathered the passing of time with surprising aplomb. Not all their own work, you could tell, but it was another example of the Consolat's boundless mastery of the material universe.

Not that that had been where they'd stopped, it seemed, but that was neither here nor there for the moment. This specific moment, at least.

"So you were, and so there are," you agreed, smiling at your friend's antics. It had been too long since you'd seen this spark of brilliant curiosity, unshadowed by the subject matter. The possibilities of what could be here was more exciting than any reminder of the Shiplord presence far above the clouds could touch.

"Shall we head down?" you asked. You didn't want to rush any part of this survey, but time was still a factor here. It couldn't not be.

"Yes." Mary nodded, then took a few quick steps to the edge of the ridge you'd landed on. You could have landed closer, but she'd wanted a vantage point. Given that you'd been carrying her along with you in Unison flight, there'd been little reason to deny the request. It wasn't like you needed a shuttle's landing zone. "Just give me a moment."

Whilst you thought, your friend tapped a quick sequence into a virtual panel that extended into being along her forearm. The nanomass of her backpack shifted, a tendril extending to drop half a dozen silvery beads into her waiting hand. She lifted them up, tapped a final two buttons, and watched with a smile as the survey drones hummed to life.

They were each no more than an inch across, designed to be deployed in small swarms in low- contact-risk environments like this one. A tiny gravity manipulator and power source took up most of the space, crammed in with an omnidirectional visual sensor suite and a short range transceiver. As you watched, all six rose into the air then flitted down into the valley.

"There we go," Mary said. "Now we can go. They should be able to categorise everything by the time we get down to the valley floor." Her smile widened, and she nodded down and to the right, where a bed of brilliant flowers seemed to blur the air with intense pollen. "That way?"

"How many sample containers did you bring?" you asked warily, your own blue eyes flicking to properly look at the backpack she'd brought. It was….not exactly small.

She smiled brilliantly back at you. "Enough. Come on, faster we start, sooner we're there!"

Petals, pollen, and even two small insects were collected at your first stop, along with a small soil sample. And it was only the first of many, many stopping points for you both. And you had to be fair, it was both. Back when you'd been kids, it had been you who'd gone searching for strange, new or exciting things in the grounds of the Institute you'd shared. Now the paradigm was reversed, if only a little.

And here for the examination was a sliver of an entirely different planet's ecosystem. Mary even had a justification for the time spent on your way down. Two, in fact. One to let the drones do their work, the other to get geographically distinct sampling of the local ecosystem. And neither were wrong. Sure, you might have been able to do the survey faster with Sidra's help, but your Unison was a person too, and you hated to reduce their contribution to grunt work. Especially when doing so probably wouldn't have been faster than the drones.

The sun had risen well towards noon by the time you reached the first buildings of the ancient university. Or, more precisely, the shells of plant life around what had once been buildings. The drones had reported that they still held artefacts of Consolat civilization, but nothing immediately active. That didn't mean investigating was useless, but there were probably better initial targets.

There were the expected labs and other academic buildings, leading to you stopping for a few minutes to consider your options in the remains of what might have been an ancient auditorium. Whatever it had been before, it was now a blend of natural and artificial. The rows of benches, eerily similar in proportion to human seating, were scattered with patches of grass and small flowering plants that had taken root in the cracks.

"It's kinda beautiful," Mary sighed, wiping her mouth after a long sip from her flask. It was a Trailblazer piece, like almost everything else she was carrying. Inside was a mix of water and supporting nutrition designed to maintain energy levels in the field. Not coffee, your friend had noted severely, but it would suffice.

Above, the sky was visible through gaps in the canopy of enormous, ancient trees. Their leaves were a mix of familiar greens and more exotic hues of teal and lavender, filtering the sunlight into a diffuse glow. The branches of these trees intertwined high above, creating a natural roof that offered protection from the elements while allowing beams of sunlight to penetrate and illuminate the space below.

"It is," you murmured. The building was just one piece of a vast planetary graveyard. And yet, it was peaceful. You'd had a few sips from your own flask, but that had just been water. One advantage of your altered existence as a Unisonbound.

At the bottom of the half-ring of seating was a stage, surrounded by the crumbled remains of podiums or lecterns. A pool of clear water had formed at the centre of the stage, reflecting the dappled sunlight and lush greenery surrounding it. The air was filled with the sweet scent of blooming flowers and the soft hum of alien insects.

Mary shook her head. "Alas, we still have work to do." She tapped at the forearm panel again, calling up results. Then she closed her hand around the data files and cast them into the air around you with a flick of her wrist. Dozens of images flickered around you as Sidra sorted through the data faster than either of you could think, even with perception boosters.

There were flashes of more viridian once-buildings, broken ceramic and metal pierced by the advance of unceasing time. Then specifics rose from the chaos, cleanly filtered for your convenience. A lab tower hidden within a stand of young trees, its metal weathered by age but seemingly intact. Several low blocks of reinforced structures, a few that seemed to still have active power. The drones had seen a handful of similar-sized constructs scrubbing away flora from one of the more intact examples.

And finally, the shattered ruin of what the data files told you had once been the largest structure in the entire complex. Much of the damage had been worn away by the millennia, but one thing was clear. Whatever had ripped the circular building apart had done so from inside. This, then, was the damage that had drawn attention to the place.

"What do you think?" you asked, looking between the options. Sidra had already weighed in as they sorted, having no firm opinion for now. Visual data could only take you so far. Mary tapped at her chin with a finger, humming in thought.

"I think…they're all good options, but for the time limitations we're working under for this survey, I'd want to focus on one or two of these at most." She pointed, light flaring around the imagery of maintenance constructs. "If you weren't here, I'd consider them the only real option. Those lab sections are the only places that we know still have power, and we didn't have space for generators."

"Alas, a backpack can only be so large," you agreed mournfully. And immediately ducked the playful swing the comment brought your way.

"Oh hush," Mary told you.

"If they have power, then they'll probably have some level of security." you pointed out, returning to topic.

"That's true," your friend agreed, "but this is a civilian installation, and I'm confident in my ability to crack their locks if I have to. Or we can just have you crack the locks more directly. That would also work."

You laughed, the sudden louder sound startling a small group of furred fliers in the nearby trees into flight. "And given that I'm here, I could also help with any power issues in the other immediate interest points. Which makes…what. All worthy options?"

"I won't deny I'd love to know what happened to make that building explode." She wasn't the only one. Especially with how there were several examples in the imagery that definitely looked like the server towers Iris and her team had found at the Archive. "But it would probably take all of our time here to scratch the surface, given we have to keep things quieter."

"Good thing I've been practising what Vega worked out about Miracles, then." Mary made an affirming sound, nodding. It wasn't a perfect solution; nothing was. But it was far better than the nothing you'd had before. "Too bad it makes the choice even harder."

"What can you do?" Mary said with a shrug. "I'm sure Sidra already said, but there's only so much we can get from footage. And we've only got so much time. Best that we make the most of it."

You've made an initial survey sweep, but still have some time available, and no potentially wandering Shiplords to dodge. Where would you like to investigate?
[] The unpowered lab blocks. Easier to get in and the power systems shouldn't be too difficult.
Mary: A bit of a lottery, but it should give us higher level data assuming we can get everything online. Might even get us into some powered sections?
[] The powered lab blocks. No need for repairs, but you'll need to crack the security to get inside.
Amanda: Mary is an excellent hacker, and Sidra is an amazing support. I'm confident they can get in.
[] The lab tower. It doesn't appear to have power, but the shell appears intact despite that. Any internal damage should be minimal, and once you get the power back up, there should be a wealth of collected data.
Mary: It's not a reinforced location like the lab blocks, so I doubt we'll get high level data. But even a map would help!
[] The ruin, destroyed from within. Wrecked server infrastructure. Will need to fix power and at least some of the internals to get anything.
Amanda: Look, we're both super curious about what caused this to happen. But getting actionable data without risking a Trance or worse? That's going to be a struggle.

 

[Snowfire]

The angle of the planet's sun had shifted by the time you made it into your target, though the colours of the shade were just as intense as they'd been at the auditorium. A stand of trees had grown up around the ancient tower, hundreds of years into their maturity and yet youngsters compared to their companion. It had endured millions of years, somehow still intact despite seeming far less secure than the sprawling, lower complexes around it.

Here you found, on close approach, signs of once active maintenance systems that must have been the source of the tower's unbreached longevity. They were dark, now, the tower's generators cold and lifeless to your senses. And yet, not damaged. Exhausted, expended, certainly those words applied, pulsed from the place when you reached out to the place through the lens of your soul. But nothing about it felt broken.

"Well, that should make this rather simple then, I think," Mary said brightly, after you explained what you'd felt. Her mouth was curved into a broad smile, green eyes flashing with anticipation and excitement as she dug into the storage pack she'd brought along.

"What were you thinking?" You asked. In answer, she pulled a power cell from the pack, holding it up between you triumphantly. You blinked, your mind taking a moment to work it through. Then: "Oh."

"If nothing seems damaged," Mary said, "then all we need to do is find one of the external energy links." Her free hand tapped away at the virtual panel on her forearm, then drone footage spiralled out around her in a momentarily dizzying display, each one slotting into place until they formed a panorama of the structure. A moment later a search grid overlaid the imagery.

You knew where that led. Your friend would dive into the process, and likely find a solution given enough time. But just because the building's systems weren't broken didn't make your Focus useless.

"How about I go looking with my own senses?" you suggested, before she could actually begin. "This building is fine, but the power links to it, they aren't serving their proper purpose. I think I can use that."

"Anything that saves me from this." Mary waved a hand at the imagery around you. "Think you can do it faster, Mandy?"

"Well just give me this." You plucked the power pack out of her hand, smiling. "And give me a moment to check."

The connection between you and your Unison surged and shimmering silver-blue and aquamarine consumed your survival kit, your Aegis unleashed without any concealment. It had been, you realised, too long since you'd done this for simple exploration. With no grim purpose driving you.

Then you raised your free hand, one index finger extended, leashed Practice crackling around you. Mary was opening her mouth, a question in her eyes, but it could wait a moment. Only a moment, of course, but that was all you needed.

You tapped your finger in the air, and green-gold radiance flared to life around the outstretched digit. That selfsame light pulsed out from that point into the panorama around you, and you felt the invisible surge as it branched from the pictures to the building itself. Connected through the imagery, and yet contained to what they showed. That, you hoped, would dodge any chance of dangerously obvious Miracles.

For now, you reached through the energy crackling out around you and touched the power cell you'd taken from Mary to their channels. A power cell without something to provide was incomplete. To be incomplete could be seen as damaged. To be damaged meant that a thing could be mended. Not a complicated chain of logic, but one that stretched far more towards Harmony than your own Focus.

But that was the entire working, truthfully. Vega's teachings, refined to fit the prism of your own soul, something that only a handful of Potentials could truly do. Unisonbound possessed a measure of ability to widen or stretch the breadth of their Focus, of course. But only Vega and yourself had ever reached so far beyond the limits of your Practice, enough for your acts to be considered outside your souls' Focus.

Should it work, given everything you knew of Practice? Probably not. But your actions had been guided by instinct and something very like faith, that the power reflected through the prism of your soul truly could provide a better solution. And when had the instincts of your soul ever failed you?

That answer remained what it had always been.

Where Do You Belong?: 96 + Amanda Stats. What the hell. Take your autosuccess.
Miracle? 25 + 36 (Amanda Practice) - 20 (Learned Restraint) = 41. Nope, not today. Sorry not sorry @Baughn

Never.

A piece of the panorama flared in your perceptions, not incandescent but brighter, and in the same moment you felt yourself pulled towards the space it represented. A section of blank wall like all the others, bordered by the dark grass that whispered quietly at your steps. Nothing about it looked like a connection to the power grid, but looks could be deceiving. And hadn't the access points Iris had eventually used to access the Consolat Archive been just as hidden?

"They were," Mary admitted, after you asked the question aloud. The section wasn't far, even at a walk. And you'd missed the simple pleasure of walking through grass on a world full of life without a Masque, well, masking the full experience.

The systems were designed for seamless integration of experience, of course. But you knew how difficult, near-impossible really, it was to do that. Mary might have been the lead on your work to build a human-experience shell for your daughter, but you'd been part of the team as well. In the end, you'd needed Practice to smooth out the edges.

From there, the process of entry was relatively simple. Some small work was needed to adapt the power cell to the inputs you'd found, but that was what Trailblazer gear had been designed to do. And with the Sixth Secret, a universal interface for some things wasn't relegated to being a pipe dream. Competing standards might as well not exist, when the input or output could adapt to whatever it connected to.

It was, of course, a bit more complicated where data structures were concerned. Trailblazer gear had been designed to overcome those limitations, of course, but were left entirely outstripped by one of the brightest minds of all humanity. And yet it proved entirely unnecessary. The doors opened when you approached, once power was restored.

You shared a look with Mary, suddenly hesitant. Your friend's fingers danced along the virtual keys on her forearm, and a full spectrum scan washed out from her equipment.

"Should it really be that easy?" you asked, reaching out with your senses. They sharpened impossibly as you did so, prompting a thankful thought to Sidra, and yet neither you nor your Unison found anything waiting in the shadows. Only dust and stale air, in the shadow of slowly kindling points of light. And yet-

"Look." You followed Mary's pointing finger up, to where a section of wall was flowing back from a set of intakes. Here, Sidra's aid meant you saw the faint distortion in the air as ancient fans and air processors began to hum. Pollen-scented air poured into the building on an artificial breeze that set the teal and lavender leaves around it rustling, and the dust within dancing in the slowly rising illumination.

What greeted you as ancient darkness fell away was a vast atrium, a seamless ring of desks enclosing its centre. A dozen tall stories rose up through the building, visible in the soft glow of holographic light sources. Thick coatings of dust swirled in the sudden rush of fresh air, flowing up to newly active, and perhaps revealed, vents like the limbs of some impossible cephalopod.

It was oddly beautiful.

"I'm not picking up anything dangerous." Mary's voice was oddly loud against the scene waiting for you. You heard the question in it, though, and the concern.

"This was a civilian education facility," you said, as much a reminder to you as it was to your dark-haired friend. The words felt important, something hiding in them that you forced yourself to follow to their conclusion. "An Institute wouldn't have any more security than this, would it?"

Mary blinked, considering the question, then shook her head slowly. "No, it wouldn't," she agreed. "So, we go in?"

"Not going to find anything out here, are we?" And you stepped across the threshold. For all your bravado you held your Aegis close to the surface, ready to flare to life at the first sign of any threat. But none came, even as you took two, three, five steps before turning back to look at your friend.

She was only two steps behind you, the concern and hesitance in her eyes banished by sparks of brilliant curiosity. Would this place be able to satisfy that, you wondered, or would it just be another endless, and incomplete, funerary stone for the Consolat's death?

The dust was entirely gone by the time you reached the ring of desks at the centre of the building, and you reminded yourself to keep an eye on the charge of the power cell you'd connected to the building's systems. It should have enough power for months at least, but that was going off of known baselines. For all you knew, Consolat technology required far more energy to operate.

As you considered that, Mary leaned forward to examine the display that had sprung into existence the moment she came close enough to operate it. "Huh," she murmured, "that's interesting."

"The activation distance?" You asked.

"Yeah," she nodded. "Either the Consolat had a similar range of motion to us, or it's a dynamic system that scans whoever steps up."

"Could be both, no?"

She hummed a noncommittal agreement, then reached out to tap at the virtual display. It flickered for a few seconds when she did before the image stabilised, and Consolat word-glyphs appeared on the display, gentle greens on a grey background. They flowed like water for a moment as your translation software kicked in, Sidra overriding the real images with more familiar human text. Mary's implants would be doing the same thing.

Your friend's eyes widened as the translated text rendered. Her breath caught, and you saw her hands trembling slightly. "Mandy," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion, "this is... it's really..."

You stepped closer, peering over her shoulder at the display. Your heart raced as you took in the words, confirming what you'd both hoped and feared on coming here.

"A library catalogue," you breathed, a mix of awe and disbelief washing over you.

Mary nodded, her eyes glistening. "Not just any library. Look at the categories, the scope of it. It's not their entire collected knowledge, but it's all roughly analogous to university level subjects. But if all of these links work…" she trailed off, wiping her eyes.

A lump formed in your throat as the magnitude of the discovery truly hit you. Your fingers tingled when you reached out to touch the display, scrolling through the vast array of topics. "It's overwhelming," you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper. "All of-"

"Wait!" Mary snapped. You froze in place, adrenaline surging up for a moment, before Sidra wiped it away. Mary had finished clearing her gaze, and her green eyes were fixed on the display where your hand had stopped.

"That category," her voice filled with awe. "Is Sidra getting the same translation?"

You glanced back at the display. "Reality physics?"

Mary nodded fiercely. "It's what Pre-Sorrows humanity called early research into the Secrets. The technical name was Quantum Graph Theory, but that's not commonly known. The field was largely subsumed by study avenues opened through Practice, but the term is technically the same even today. What I've been doing with trying to unravel Practice and the Secrets, that's reality physics.

"We know the Consolat must have been masters of it to create the Secrets," she added. Not exactly new data, but a good reminder. "The question is which of the theories we've been putting together over the years are actually correct. And this, this could actually give us some of those answers"

Mary had a rather personal stake in that question, given how many of those theories she'd helped develop. And yet, as you stood here, the soft hum of the ancient systems surrounding you, it was hard to contemplate the reality that it might be possible.

"If the translation is correct," you pointed out. You would be the first to hope that it was, but even the best translators could lack context. And what the Consolat called reality physics might not be the same thing as your people had.

"Something we can look into," your friend agreed. "We'll need to dig into the archives, run searches and cross-reference what we can. But it's just staggering. Millennia of research... all preserved here, waiting for us to unlock it."

Was it, though? The thought had been growing steadily, insidiously, in the back of your mind. A catalogue was one thing, but had all the data behind it survived the aeons? You had to force yourself to ask. "Mary, how much of it is still here?"

Mary's brow furrowed at your question, the excitement in her eyes tempered by a sudden realisation. "You're right," she said, her voice low. "We can't assume that everything's intact. We need to... we need to check the system."

She turned back to the display, her fingers dancing across the interface with growing confidence. "There has to be some kind of diagnostic tool, something to verify the data integrity. The Consolat would have needed ways to manage their archives."

You watched as Mary navigated through the system, her expertise with alien interfaces evident in her fluid movements. "There," she muttered, more to herself than to you. "This looks promising."

As she worked, you found yourself holding your breath, the weight of potential discovery and possible disappointment hanging in the air. The soft hum of the ancient systems seemed to grow louder in the silence, as if the library itself matched your apprehension.

"I think I've found it," Mary said suddenly, a slight tremor in her voice. "It looks like some kind of system integrity check. If I'm reading this correctly, it should give us an overview of what's still accessible."

She turned to you, her hand hovering over what appeared to be an activation command. "Should I run it?"

You nodded, your throat tight with anticipation. "Do it," you said softly. "Whatever we find, at least we'll know what we're dealing with."

Mary took a deep breath and pressed the command. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then, with a low whir that seemed to emanate from the very walls around you, the system began its check. A subtle change rippled through the atrium, and the air seemed to thicken, a faint scent of ozone tickling your nostrils. The soft ambient glow from the holographic displays intensified, casting dancing shadows across the dust-free surfaces.

"I do have potential good news," she noted, stepping back from the interface. In the corners of your vision, you caught glimpses of fleeting data streams, flickering across secondary displays that had suddenly come to life.

"Oh?" A low-frequency hum vibrated through the floor, barely perceptible but making the hairs on your arms stand on end. And the temperature dropped. Not enough to make you shiver, but one more little thing to mark the scale of activity the ancient facility was making.

"This looks to have been a multi-discipline institution, like the catalogue suggested," Mary explained. She seemed determined to fill the quiet. "But it specialised in two fields in particular. Reality physics was one, but it was a secondary specialisation. The other was artificial intelligence, which is what that ruined building the drones found was dedicated to."

You blinked. "Why is it so, um…exploded?"

"I have no idea." She shrugged, smiling faintly. "But look." Mary made an underhanded tossing motion, and an image flared into being next to you. Glyphs formed words, Sidra overriding their appearance with translation, as an oddly familiar outline of shapes took form.

"This is a map of the university." And there was why it seemed familiar. "The various sections are all labelled, and that server centre was the heart of their AI development efforts."

"That could be useful," you murmured, only to pause as your friend shook her head.

"Amanda, what little I've been able to grasp of Consolat culture and scientific culture is still settling in. I was going to go over this with the command staff later in the week. But when I say this was the heart of their AI development, I don't mean this university. Or even this planet."

You felt your breath catch as the implications of Mary's words sank in. "The heart of all Consolat AI development was... here?" Your voice was barely above a whisper, awe and disbelief mingling in your tone.

Mary nodded, her eyes bright with excitement. "If I'm interpreting everything correctly – and granted, there's still so much we don't understand – this place wasn't just a university. It was the centre for AI research across their entire civilization."

You found yourself pacing, your mind racing to process the magnitude of this discovery. "But why here?"

Mary shrugged, her gaze flickering between you and the holographic map. "Isolation, perhaps? Maybe they needed a controlled environment for their experiments. We might find answers as we dig deeper."

As you both contemplated the possibilities, the low hum of the integrity check continued in the background, a constant reminder of the wealth of knowledge potentially at your fingertips – and the uncertainty of its condition.

"What do you think we might find?" you asked, unable to stop yourself. "About their AI, I mean."

Mary's expression grew thoughtful. "It's hard to say. Given what we've seen of their level of advancement it may well be entirely beyond us for a time. Their system-guard AI makes Iris feel small, and they built that millions of years ago."

You nodded. "But the implications for us, for humanity..."

"Could be enormous," Mary finished your thought. Then she sighed, her tense expression softening. "But that's not the real question you're asking. You're asking what it could mean for Iris, If we can understand or adapt even a fraction of their knowledge."

"Yes." You grimaced, glancing down as you added, "The potential here for her to grow, what if it's too much?"

"Then it's her choice," Mary replied. You had to smile. It was a little strange, after all, to be debating parenting whilst surrounded by the silent promise of ancient knowledge. Mary seemed to get it, catching your hand with hers and squeezing gently. "It's possible that what we find here might not be properly compatible with ensouled AI, at least not in the way she is one. But I doubt that.

"Short term, it probably won't do an enormous amount. But even scraps of Consolat information on the topic could revolutionise our own understanding of AI technology. Not to mention potential insights into the Secrets."

"How much longer do you think the check will take?" you asked, glancing at the interface Mary had been using.

Your friend shook her head. "Hard to say. Their systems operate on principles I'm not sure we've even started to grasp. But given the scope of data we're dealing with..." She trailed off, her eyes distant as she made mental calculations.

A soft chime interrupted the process, and lines of glyphs scrolled out across the display Mary had activated. She spun back to it, and you took a step up beside her, waiting for the translation software to do its work. You hoped there would be just as much as you both were wishing for, but this didn't strike you as a military or even high-security facility. Millions of years of decay would almost certainly have taken its toll, despite the building's structure remaining intact.

Archive integrity: 92. You lucky little-

As the translated text appeared, you and Mary leaned in, eyes scanning the results eagerly.

"This is incredible," Mary breathed, her fingers tracing the air just above the holographic display. "The core data storage is mostly intact. There's some corruption, of course, but far less than I would have expected after all this time."

You nodded, a smile spreading across your face. "It looks like their preservation systems were even more advanced than we thought. But," you paused, your brow furrowing slightly, "there's still a lot of damage to the peripheral archives."

Mary hummed in agreement. "True, but the most crucial information doesn't seem to have been there. This is a lot more than we could have hoped for, Amanda."

As the reality of your success sank in, a new challenge presented itself. You glanced at your chronometer, then back at the vast array of data before you. "We've only got a few hours left before we need to head back to base. There's no way we can even scratch the surface of all this today."

Mary's excitement dimmed as she realised the same thing. "You're right. We need a plan. We can't just dive in haphazardly; there's too much at stake."

You took a deep breath, centering yourself. "Okay, let's think this through. What are our priorities?"

"Well," Mary began, her organisational mind kicking into gear, "we should definitely consider focusing on the AI research first. That was the primary specialisation here, and if we can figure out how their data structures worked, it might help when it comes time to try and repair the data we're going to be getting from the Archive."

You nodded. "We could look for any overview or summary documents? Something that might give us a broader picture of what's contained here, beyond the catalogue headers."

"Good idea," Mary said, already turning back to the interface. "We should also flag sections related to Reality Physics for future investigation. Even if we can't delve into it today, we'll want to come back to that."

You smiled, watching your friend work with practised efficiency. Despite the time constraints, hope filled you. This discovery was a doorway, to knowledge that could reshape humanity's future.

"You know," you said softly, "I never imagined we'd find something like this when we came here."

Mary paused her work for a moment, turning to meet your gaze. Her eyes shone with excitement, and an unyielding determination. "But we hoped, all the same. Now we have to make the most of it. For Iris, for humanity, for the future we're all working towards."

The library hummed around you, its long-dormant systems now alive with purpose once more. You'd have to rig more power cells up to the building before you left, but that could wait. And as you worked, you couldn't shake the hope that the long-gone Consolat scholars would have approved of your efforts to understand their legacy.

You have limited time available today and across the rest of the turn. But where did you start?
[] Focus on AI research data
[] Look for project overviews and summaries
[] Delve into the reality physics archives
[] Something else? Ping me with any write-ins.

Full facility map revealed. Primary data repositories intact. Research and Support agents available – further investigation of the University will roll two dice for each one assigned. Actions unlocked.

 

[Snowfire]

"I see that you've been having a productive time down there," Jane Cyneburg noted through the secure link of the now fully online Magi. Her expression was far less stressed than it had been at your departure, with the low activity levels since then having allowed her ship to focus on maintenance, drawing on the mass of the asteroid it was using as a hiding place.

"Though I'll note that the focus of some of your productivity has been a little different to what you planned." The Adamant's captain smiled, dark eyes crinkling with amused curiosity. "Have you found anything?"

"Not as much as we'd like," you admitted, glancing around the circle of faces. Just in case one of the others had made a breakthrough whilst you weren't looking. None seemed to have done so.

Despite best intentions, the promise of a valley full of ancient Consolat knowledge ended up occupying far more of your focus than it probably should have. The promise hiding in the depths of its far more focused, and crucially undamaged, archive made it hard to pull away, even after returning to your current base of operations. There'd only been so much time, and so much data you felt safe copying out of the archives.

Especially lacking an answer to the question of how deeply the Midnight Dreaming might be monitoring the planetary datasphere. As far as either of you could tell, the library had lost any connection to that web when the university's centre for AI development had been destroyed. But that didn't mean you were right, and the nature of your mission made risk reduction the preferred path. It was frustrating, in the days that followed, but it also kept you hidden. And that was worth it.

"From what data we've taken, however, there are some things worth noting. There were a lot of projects being run by the university, as you'd expect given the size of the place. None of us have had much free time." You'd been the exception to that statement, this time. Vega could have helped you there, but your Harmonial friend was buried in an effort to further codify an inversion of the techniques that had made her so famous.

"But we've had some success narrowing down the scope of future investigation," you continued. "It should help when we get properly started on investigating the place." You paused, checking the list that had slowly emerged, then looked over at your daughter. "Iris, you've noted that there was something in the AI research you wanted to look at. One of the primary development projects, right?"

"Yes," Iris ducked her head a moment before addressing the small conference, and you could see the bright focus in her eyes as she did. "It was the only AI development project in their files that was still listed as active. To be clear, development here means creation of a new AI, one designed to support a speciality or purpose that their extant models couldn't support without modification."

"But wasn't the centre for that research destroyed?" Elil asked, dark lips turned down in a frown.

"It was." Iris nodded. "But the Animus project wasn't focused there. It was primarily worked on in one of the secure labs and, if I'm not mistaken, one that still has power. I can't say that whatever the new AI was designed to do will be able to help us; I'd want Mary to look at the project outline to tell that. But It would let me see how the Consolat built their AIs.

"That's a huge learning opportunity on its own, but there's more to it than that." She paused, tapping the table with her fingers. "I know I've done my best to explain how dangerous the guardian AI that the Consolat left here is, but it's hard to truly describe the difference in scale. Vision and I are miracles, but the Consolat worked out how to create intelligences utterly beyond us, and do so on a scale alike to when humanity still knew how to use the Second Secret. If I could apply even a fraction of their knowledge to my own neural infrastructure…"

"It could change you," Mary warned gently. "But you're also right. The potential of that knowledge, and especially your ability to apply it to yourself. If we could do it safely, I'm not sure there's a larger force multiplier we could have right now. True AI…the way the Consolat did it, it's not that they're any more or less real than Iris or Vision. It's in the details of what they could do."

"A definite possibility then," you agreed. There was a lot more that your friend wanted to say, you could see that in the set of her green eyes. But there was only so much time for this meeting. "Iris, Elil, you had your own excursion to the forest repository."

"We did," Elil said, trading a look with your daughter before going on. "It is, to use Iris' own words, a little bit spooky. It's not that there's anything threatening, but the way in which the Consolat stored their knowledge made it difficult for Iris or I to escape the weight of it all. It was always around us, constantly present, and whilst I'm happy to say we've had some success in communicating with the interface, it might be better if future investigations are undertaken by Miss D'Reve."

"I read the report you filed," Mary said slowly. "But I'm curious as to that conclusion."

"It's because you're not an infomorph, like me," Iris said bluntly. "Or a Potential of Insight, like Elil. We can…feel everything going on around us in that place. It's not, well like Elil said, it's not antagonistic or threatening, but it's heavy. And it's always there. You know how much I love forests," she added, her expression softening a touch. Of course you and Mary knew that. "You know how they always felt welcoming to me. This one didn't."

"I see." You made a note to check on her again after this, if you could. She didn't seem overwhelmed, not now, but you'd also started to recognise how well your daughter could hide things. If she wanted to. "Given that, I'm very impressed by what you were both able to return with."

Immaculate Evergreens
Insight: 86 + 27 (Elil Practice) + 10 (Steel Eyes) = 123.
Knowing: 100 + 27 (Natural Crit reroll) + 33 (Iris Learning) = 160

Purpose of location fully confirmed. Solution sets compiled for basic system access. Further focus required to gain higher access levels. Mary is a mandatory pick for future exploration. Iris thinks the place is spooky.

"It gave us something to focus on," Elil admitted, chuckling. You wondered how many others saw the hidden strain behind that smile. "I'm pretty sure Iris could have gone further, if not for how the place threw us both off. And the interface is smart, but I'd not call it aware."

"Didn't stop some of its questions being just annoying," Iris complained in a growl. "Elil's right, but this is really more your area of expertise, mom." She froze for a second, colour flashing on her cheeks as she realised her slip. "Um, I mean-"

"I understand," Mary said, reaching over to squeeze her hand. "I'll take this into account on my schedule. The files you were able to bring back helped quite a lot with my own work on the Secrets, but I'm going to need to go a lot deeper to find the answers I'm looking for."

Underpinned: 65 + 36 (Mary Learning) + 20 (Lagless Computing Core) + 15 (Daughter of Secrets) + 129 (Banked Rollover): 265|250/???

Research stalled. Attempting to continue this research requires at least one dice assigned to Reality Physics related Exploration or Investigation.

"Which conveniently sums up my own research over the last period," she added. "I've made a lot of progress, but I've also reached the limit of what I can do without more information. There's not much more I can say on the topic beyond that."

"I can report a better result than that, at least," Vega spoke into the silence following Mary's statement. The typically tireless and tidy blonde had bags under her eyes, but there was a triumphant smile at her lips. "Not a perfect one, I'll admit, but close. And fascinating, besides."

"Does this mean you'll be able to teach the Harmonic Circle how to more safely use their Practice?" Jane asked, her focus sharpening on the still-young woman. The Harmonic Choir currently remained focused on the Adamant's stealth, but with its current location, they could likely be spared from that task. So long as you could trust their ability to not reveal you.

"Not quite," Vega admitted. "A little more work over the next week or so and I should be able to bring them into this. But some of this is worth the reading time. I know all of the Heartcircle members have done so as part of the learning process, but I'd recommend wider reading."

It was actually rather fascinating. The talent that had given Vega her title reached out into the world, bringing it into harmony with her desires by making it reflect them. With the support of a Circle, it could catalyse the raw potential of merged Practice far beyond its expected limits, as if translating a linear increase into an exponential one.

And that was the task that had so consumed your friend, so much that she'd barely spared moments for food or rest. Trying to unravel and properly codify a technique that by all rights should have taken months to prepare properly, all in a handful of days, would push anyone to the edge of their ability.

Your own part in learning had taken comparatively little time, likely a result of how closely you'd come to sharing Vega's Focus in the years since your actions at the Second Battle of Sol, and then again at the Third. Being at the heart of a tempest of harmonised power had taught you more in a handful of hours than years of study had won even the most determined Potential. In a way, it was almost predictable though. The name given to your power was Practice. Not Research

"I can say that the full Heartcircle can now use the technique," you added. "And I think you need to continue focusing on this, Vega. Given what you think you've started to find."

"And what is that?" Mary asked. "I'm afraid my own work has kept me from reading through the final report."

"It's to do with what I've done in creating this technique," Vega said, mouth twisting in concentration. "On proper examination, inasmuch as that's possible, what I've been teaching seems quite simple. When I sought Miracles, I tried to find shortcuts to what I was trying to do with my Practice, and it's always been quick to follow them."

Mary nodded slowly, prompting a small smile from Vega. Being understood, as always, brought confidence with it.

"What I've done now, what I've been to teach Mandy and the rest of our Heartcircle, is a way to twist the," she hummed a moment. "The order of priorities that I've been working with for so long. If I have unity with the world, I can find the best ways to change it. That leads to Miracles, unmistakable expressions of Practice on the world. It puts the change I want above the current harmony of reality."

"And what you're doing now, I'm guessing it inverts that order?" Mary sounded out.

Vega nodded quickly. "Essentially, yes. It's not a huge change in round terms, but it makes an enormous difference. Shortcuts already present in reality are how we returned Skylark, and then the rest of the pre-Sorrows colony cities. That's very important sometimes, but there can also be a need for a lighter touch."

"And from my first proper use of the technique at the Consolat university," you added. "I can say that it really does work. Like Vega said, it's not a change that seems large. But the difference it makes is obvious."

The rest of the Heartcircle had continued their work in the flickers of spare time you dedicated to shared training, maintaining the peerless edge that had seen you through true battle and practice combats that anyone else would have called mercilessly unfair. Until they saw the six of you actually fight, at which point the direction of how the battle was unfair swiftly inverted. Keeping that edge now…well it might be crucial. You didn't want to get into a fight with the Shiplords here of all places, but if you had to? You wanted to be at your best.

Practised Restraint: 92 + 27 (Vega Practice) + 10 (Proven Miracle - Complex Harmony) + 4 (Banked Rollover) = 133/150.
Heart's Caution: 61 + 27 (Vega Practice) + 20 (Harmonic Record teaching bonus) = 108 vs 60.

Miracle Restraint technique passed to full Heartcircle. Research continues. Potential new action once the second research stage completes.

The true target of Vega's attention, though, proved beyond her this time. She needed more time to unify her approach, however, to turn the technique into one that could be shared easily without the crutch of the Heartcircle connection. She was most of the way there, but more work was needed, and she wasn't sure she was done, either.

"What do you mean?" Jane asked, and you caught the flicker of motion as she accessed relevant files through her implants. "The…next research phase outline?"

"Just so." Vega nodded. Somewhere beyond the simple mechanistics of shifting focus, the Harmonial had found something tugging at her awareness. "If it will be useful in the here and now, I can't say. But it feels similar to the still-untested technique Mandy and I developed to connect with the imprints of Consolat Practice. If there's another way to do that, we could unify the techniques perhaps. Or even just have a second string to our bow."

"We could certainly use as many of those as we can get," you murmured. You still had no idea what might happen when you tried to make contact with that ancient echo. More options seemed good.

"On the topic of the Consolat, though, there's some final notes to make before we start making further plans." Lea rarely spoke up at these occasions, but you knew she'd spent much of her time over the last few days examining Consolat history, trying to tease out a better image of who they were. It was all very well to follow in the footsteps of their civilization, but it was probably a good idea to know where those footsteps led.

"First, I'm happy to report that the process of establishing a hardlink to the Archive was an unqualified success. Iris, Elil, Mir and myself were all involved in the process, and our success is a big part of the second half of what I have to say." She leant forward, eyes surprisingly intent. Lea was usually far more relaxed, unless her Focus was involved.

"The Consolat as a people, we already know they looked in instead of out. We know that the Shiplords tried to understand the universe through physical exploration, trying to chart the stars and see every wonder they could find among them. The Consolat, too, we knew explored the universe, but did so with a very limited expansion across space."

Lea tapped the air with one of her slender fingers, and imagery bloomed at the centre of the table, archive files and imagery. Ancient, timeless vessels above the world you now stood upon, their hulls marked by millennia of travel, and yet somehow still intact.

"From the historical files I've been able to access, they'd yet to spread beyond this star system by the time the Shiplords found them. Those files also confirm what we were told before, that the Consolat gave the Shiplords that name, though it's an abbreviation. The full text translates to The Lords of Ships, Who Seek Among the Stars. The Consolat described them as fellow travellers on the path to wisdom as well, though that came first. The name Shiplord was only formally extended after several thousand years of shared existence.

"And here," Lea sighed. "Here is where it gets complicated. There's a lot of cultural intricacy in these files, details that the translation matrix is still working on understanding properly, and I'm also struggling to a degree. I'm not a xenocultural specialist. With that said, those we do have among the Adamant's research staff have had a few things to say.

"First, is that the Consolat culture was deeply focused on an overarching search for knowledge and understanding of the universe. This world was largely tamed by them around the point of their 20th century development, but despite lifespans only marginally greater than human normal pre-Secrets, they made plans on the scale of centuries. That's a big part of why this planet isn't an ecumenopolis, actually. They recognised the limits of their technology, and planned around what they knew was possible."

"Surely that would've been difficult to do, given how human development across history made even ten-year plans difficult in the extreme." Despite her comment, Lea had clearly caught Mary's full attention. "How did they work around it?"

"As described, their plans were designed as loose outlines that would be filled in as those years approached," Lea explained. More files blossomed across the table, the vast majority of them text, though here and there were more visual documents. City plans, ecological engineering projects on a scale that would've made any pre-Secrets designer weep in envy, but all orchestrated across decades. And in between the broader plans, you could see the notes of more precise structure, timestamps marking them as added later.

"What's interesting, though, is that their focus never really changed across thousands of years. They were always searching for deeper truths to the universe, trying to understand, and from that understanding find better ways to live. Stretching out the line against entropy as far as it could possibly go, and in ways I honestly can't understand. Others here would have better luck there, I expect."

"But that focus," Iris said, speaking softly. "It changed, didn't it."

"It did," Lea nodded. "Sometime… several hundred thousand years after they met the Shiplords, they changed the direction of their entire civilization. Something made that happen, and from all the files I can find, it wasn't because they were asked to. There was…an article that we found, from around the time of the decision. It talked about how their friends, the Shiplords, felt lost. Unable to truly complete the mission they'd set their own civilization to completing."

"That being… charting reality, no?" Mary asked. "That seems a little extreme."

"It does," Lea nodded again. "But the Consolat thought they could help. They believed that in the knowledge they'd gathered across millennia of steady development, there was an answer to the impossibility faced by the Shiplords. It's worth noting that at this point, Shiplord society had Consolat living among them, and vice versa. But the core of the movement, it originated here, on the Origin.

"And once it spread far enough, converted enough people for it to be agreed, the Consolat focus turned almost entirely towards the study of what most of us," she shot a look at Mary, who laughed, "call reality physics."

"And from that, the Secrets," Mary finished, her face drawn. "It took them a while, didn't it. But they got there, they changed the galaxy. And they did it… they didn't even do it because they could." Awe touched her words now, along with a subtle, terrible pain. "They did it because they wanted to help their friends."

"Exactly," Lea bowed her head fully this time, and you thought you saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes before she blinked them clear. "The Shiplords never asked for the answer that the Secrets gave them. They never… I don't think the Consolat ever really told them. The shift in focus of their entire species, yes, that's hard to hide. But the reason, that's more difficult to tell. And I'm not sure which answer would be worse. If the Shiplords knew, if they still know…I know it doesn't change anything about what we have to do here, what they've become and what they have to stop being. But still!"

"How dare you profane that gift and persist," you whispered. The words from the leader of the Tribute Fleet that you'd destroyed in the Second Battle of Sol seemed to echo across the room. "Oh stars, I get it now. I made the connection before, but this would put it in an entirely different light. Because we were never sure why the Consolat did it, even after we found out where the Secrets came from."

"And the horrible part," Lea added, "is that it doesn't matter. It tells us that the Consolat were a lot like us, I think. Or at least the best of us." You tried to avoid the piercing intensity of several sets of eyes focusing on you. "The footsteps we're following in, I think they were good ones. They were a people who wanted to understand, and then give."

"And what they gave was," you waved a hand, as if to encompass the entire galaxy. "It was this. All of this. Not meant, but the dichotomy of what they were trying to do and what we have now. It would be enough to drive anyone insane. Even me. And it still doesn't excuse a thing."

"No. No it doesn't." Lea gave you a wan smile. "There's a lot more in the report that was put together. I helped a bit, but it's not really my work. I think the scientists just wanted someone else to talk about it, so they could keep working through this meeting."

Laughter rippled across the room at that statement. Goodness, if it didn't fit. And who among you hadn't done exactly the same thing at some point in their life. You wiped at your eyes for a moment, as the sound settled, watching others as they did the same.

"Well, it's still good to know the footsteps we're following," you said at last. "Though I'd say we might all need to take a little break after we're done here. And before any of the rest of us read that report in full." You forced yourself to take a steadying breath, straightening in your chair.

"If that's everything, though, I do have one final point to raise." You hadn't been sure about bringing it up, but if not here, where? And if not now, when? "The progress we've been making since we reached this system, it's incredible really. And I'm," you frowned, searching a moment for the correct words, to make sure this made sense.

"I'm struggling to make sense of it, compared to similar work back home," you said at length. "Maybe that was just because Arcadia and Earthgov, the projects were always more measured. We had a time crunch of months or years, not weeks and days. But…the scale of what we've worked out here, especially you, Vega. I know it's in many ways just an extension of what you do, but you've said yourself that it's not easy.

"So how have we all done so much, in so little time?" You looked around the table, finding similar confusion to your own there as the faster minds among them recognised what you were pointing at. "Is there something about this system? This world? The nature of what this place is? And if so, why are we affected by it where the Shiplords and the Teel'sanha weren't. It can't just be because of being Potentials, because not everything we've found has been done by Potentials. Mary, Iris, you have human souls I know, but-"

"But we're not Potentials," Mary agreed, nodding slowly, her eyes a million miles away. "And if it just affected creatures with souls, who looked at things the right way, the Teel'sanha should have made the connection. They spent decades here. So what's different?"

"That's what I'd like to know."

Your eyes met hers, and sparks of something almost like anger stirred there.

"Me too."

You have Six (6) AP and One (1) Research (Mary) AP to assign, each representing a dice of effort. Unless otherwise specified, there is no limit to the number of AP you can assign to a given task. Some actions may require specific talents or characters to complete - this will be noted in the action text.

Exploration - Direct exploration of the Origin system, based on The Adamant's location in-system. The Adamant is currently in shuttle range of the Consolat homeworld, hidden in the mass shadow of a near-world asteroid.
[] Quarters - Send or lead a team to investigate one of the four points of interest on the planet below. You must specify which characters are sent to which location.
-[-] Immaculate Evergreens - An enormous computer in the form of a forest, located in the outskirts of one of the Consolat's cities. The interface, apparently, requires proof of understanding to grant access. [COMPLETE]
-[] Crumbling Halls - A sprawling and mildly overgrown university complex, settled a comfortable distance from any Consolat cities. Various active or potentially active structures, further exploration possible. [Mender, Vega or Elil recommended. Will expand to a subvote]
-[-] Occupied Archive - The Consolat Archive, so named by the Dreaming's files, is a cluster of heavily shielded bunkers. Contains a vast amount of heavily damaged data left behind by the Consolat, but is also the only location on the planet with a Shiplord presence. [COMPLETE]
-[] Last Spire - A towering construct at the centre of a city thoroughly invested by fauna, and quite possibly the heart of the entire system's echoing presence in your senses. It may be possible to directly interface with the echoes of the Consolat's creation and death here. Currently locked down. [Mandy required, Vega and Mary recommended]
[] Delving - Beyond the initial exploration of the Quarters actions, this will involve far more dedicated focus to a specific area. Thanks to your access to the archives of the Midnight Dreaming, this can be executed on any site immediately, but there are potentially downsides to investing this much in a location without a cursory survey. Select a location from the Quarters list when taking this action, and assign characters as normal.
*New* -[] Immaculate Evergreens - An enormous archive of the Consolat's knowledge of reality physics, contained by a computer in the form of a forest. The interface requires proof of understanding to grant access. [Mary required. One Potential must be free to accompany her as a bodyguard]
*New* -[] Animus - One of the university's secured lab projects, and the only active AI development that Iris could find on file. Could give crucial insight into how Consolat AIs function, which could be used to directly upgrade Iris's neural architecture. Assuming you can get inside. [Iris required, Mary recommended]

Only one Delving action can be taken per turn, and you must assign at least 2 AP to the action.

Investigation - At-a-distance exploration of the Origin system. Generally not location dependent.
[] Matrix Webs - The system's datasphere appears to be nominally accessible, but any exploration of the systems is judged to have two requirements. First, that Iris is involved at some level. And second, that any exploration is done with extreme care, given how dangerous the Consolat system AI is likely to be. [Iris required]
[] Breach at Midnight - The Dreaming is not just a civilian craft. There is a section within the ship, repurposed to host a team from Shiplord Central Intelligence. It would be extremely risky, but it might be possible to breach its firewalls to discover what sent them here. [Iris required]
*New* [] Lending - The library you found is now active, and there is much that can be found there. Draw on its archive to support other work. [Boosts Reality Physics or AI related actions.]
*New* [] Shattered Archive - The Consolat Archive is a shattered wreck of patchwork data, and fixing it could prove challenging even for a Potential, given the nature of the damage. Still, you've nothing to lose in trying. [Some combination of a Mender, Vega and Elil strongly recommended]
*New* [] Ripples - Since arriving here, the pace of your collective work has increased far beyond what you'd consider normal. There's a limit to your tolerance for coincidence. What is going on here? [???]
[] Write in?

Research - Theoretical examination of not just factors present here in the Origin, but far beyond. Your Research AP must be assigned to one of these tasks, but additional AP may also be used.
[] Underpinned - With a solid proof now in hand of who created the Secrets, Mary wants to continue her work on understanding how the Consolat actually did it. This could well prove crucial in the weeks to come. [+250 rollover to second stage research, requires a supporting Exploration or Investigation action]
[] Visions in the Jump - You saw a glimpse of the place where you met Tahkel when jumping to the Fourth Sorrow, and it had two figures there, one of them who looked human. Try to work out how that happened, and how to reach back to that place without requiring another jump. [Requires Amanda]
[] Practised Restraint - Vega was able to find a way to an understanding of Practiced Miracles that allowed her to trigger them with a level of regularity that was a little intimidating. She's offered to try and see if she can reverse the process. Not something you ever thought you'd need before now, but it should be possible. [+133 rollover to second stage research]
[] Write in?

Development - Deployment and expansion of current Trailblazer-package outposts. May prove vital for certain tasks going forward, depending on requirements. These actions will deplete the Adamant's mass bunker, which is currently at 75 + 5 = 80% as a result of passive harvesting.
[] Blazing a Trail - Establish a Trailblazer-package outpost at one of several landing points on the planet, allowing for longer term habitation and direct access to the planet's major interest points.
-[] Outline location and type of outpost here. See sidebar.
[] Level Terrain - The Trailblazer Seeds were, by nature, modular. Expand your current Trailblazer outpost to support further systems. Will open a subvote.

You may also pick Two (2) Personal Actions. These will have limited mechanical effect on their own, but can synergise with AP actions.
[] Spend some time with your family. This will be a balm to you all.
[] Relax and train with your Heartcircle. Keeping your edge in combat sharp is more important now than it ever was. And it's good to share time together. [LOCKED]
[] Dedicate personal time to try and understand how you've all made so much progress in the last few weeks. Maybe it's just luck and new data. Maybe.
[] Go for a walk through the city of the Spire. It won't be going inside, but maybe it will help you understand the depth of power resonating from the place.
[] Spend some time at the ancient university, exploring what was left behind.
[] Write in?

 

[Snowfire]

It had taken meeting other members of the galactic community, such as it existed, for humanity to truly realise how gifted your race was where the Secrets were concerned. To wield the Fifth and Sixth before even the first Tribute Cycle returned hadn't been without precedent, but it had still been a shock. Unravelling the truth of the Third Secret in so few years had been another, though the reaction to that was probably only just beginning to propagate across your allies.

You'd not thought much of it at the time, given the help of the Luminary in providing a functional Emitter to support Arcadia's research efforts. Now, though, you wondered why. The Fifth and Sixth's discovery had been built upon decades of steady process in their relevant fields, spurred on by the examples of Practice. But the Third…there'd been no great investment of time, nor effort, into that field. Not since long abandoned experiments of the mid-21st century.

There'd been the example of an Emitter, true, but part of the process of discovering the Third Secret had been taking that knowledge and going all the way back to first principles. A process that, from the records later transferred by your now-allies, should have taken most of a century, at minimum. Against that record, Mary had led Arcadia's teams to success in less than ten years. And there, in her, was the singular point of unity in each situation.

And that made you wonder. Your oldest friend had long since grown into the title Daughter of Secrets, the epithet now hers by right. But it had come from her parentage. Her mother and father unlocked the First Secret together, offering humanity the stars and dooming your people to the Week of Sorrows in the same moment. Mary had inherited the fullness of both their genius, but the title remained. And in a world of Practice, where every human could subtly influence the fabric of reality, could that mean something?

Could the very title that had hounded her in her early years have helped create or shape the ascendant genius whose work had more to do with humanity's continued existence than almost anything in post-Sorrows history? It was possible, at least theoretically, but proving its existence was proving challenging. And that was only half the question. Assuming you were right, there'd been a shift since arriving here at the Consolat Origin, from the undeniably swift to something so obvious that it just couldn't be ignored.

"Look," you sighed, rapping your knuckles on the table. The blow rang louder than you'd intended, but it cut the steady hum of competing voices entirely.

You'd commandeered the Magi's conference room for this meeting, despite it being a little big for the affair, and the colourful sprawl that the chamber looked down on was just as beautiful as it'd been a few weeks ago. It was just that none of the four of you present had focus to spare for it right now. Diagrams and formulae were scattered across the air between you, interlinking in some places, fiercely separate in others. And not one of them had given you the answer you were looking for, even after hours of work.

"We can circle this issue as many times as we want to," you went on, cutting through the temporary silence your action had won. "But the fact remains that actually testing what we think is going on here is going to require significant preparation to be safe. We worked that out yesterday."

"I, for one, can already hear the objections to doing any sort of deliberate, complex Practice within this star system, let alone this planet," Mir said. There was a faint strain on his sharp features, a tightness around the eyes that you'd done your best to soothe on the journey to this planet. Faded from that height for now, thankfully, but still potent. "I don't need my Focus to know the sort of argument that's going to cause. And you all know I'm right."

"None of us are gainsaying that," Vega replied, laying a gentle hand on your comrade's shoulder. For all their similar age, the pale-haired Harmonial seemed far older in the moment. "And the possibility of going outsystem for this is worthy of consideration. The problem-"

"Is that we don't know how much time we really have, I know," Mir sighed. From almost anyone else, the words would have been snapped, maybe even harsh. THe worst you got from him was simple resignation to the difficulties of the task at hand. "Four days each way to the Stellar Exclusion Zone, and then whatever time we need to do this."

"Which just brings us back to the question of what you want to do," Mary pointed out, the words more than a little challenging. "I can follow most of what's been suggested here, but…I'm me." Those words had a different feeling to them today, and you weren't sure how much your friend liked that. Something you filed away for now, though, in recognition of the broader issue.

"Oh. Oh goodness," you breathed, shaking your head. "You're right." The 'of course' went without saying, this time.

Mary smiled faintly, her green eyes flickering with gentle amusement. She'd heard the words left unspoken. "So what are you three wanting to do to confirm this hypothesis, Mandy?" She asked. "I assume it will need me, as well."

"That's correct." It took several moments for you to properly arrange your own thoughts, something that only sharpened Mary's point. "Though please understand that I'm…heavily simplifying here."

Your friend's quick nod was all you needed to continue.

"One of the clearest points we can agree on here is that, whatever is going on here, it's incredibly subtle. Enough that if you are the heart of it, Mary, none of us ever noticed. Not during the Metaconcert event, or any time after. Our understanding of the web of Practice between humanity is still quite limited, but something that we've always wondered is how much it's doing without conscious notice."

"So we needed a way to effectively screen out any interference, and make the experimental space as calm as possible." You snapped the fingers of one hand to point at the singular man in the room. "Which is where Mir's Focus becomes critical."

"It's possible that Vega could smooth things out with her Focus," Mir added, shifting a little stiffly under your attention. "But if we're trying to examine this web, Amanda could use the help. And I certainly can't support her there."

"Why not bring Elil in on this, then?" Mary asked. The lines around her eyes crinkled in focus, and a touch of confusion. "He's not busy this cycle, is he?"

"He's not, no," you replied. "But we've been trying to keep Insight Focused away from study of the Practice-links between humanity ever since we realised they were there. Overload avoidance."

Mary winced. "Ah." She didn't need any more explanation than that. Trying to apply the abilities of Insight-Focused to the Secrets had never once ended well for humanity. Practice hadn't been seen as the same, and recent discoveries had shown how true that was, but close enough that no one had wanted to risk it.

The man's Focus could be impossibly valuable in the coming days, and you wouldn't risk him on this. Not when you already had a good idea of what to do. If it didn't work, then maybe you'd have to ask your friend to try something dangerous. You hoped it wouldn't come to that.

Brushing those thoughts aside for now, you went on. "Once Mir calms the space around us, and around you, Mary, Vega and myself will link our senses." Something that was only possible thanks to the seemingly inviolate Harmonic link that bound your Heartcircle together. "The aim is for a half-trance, bringing our mental impressions close enough to the web to properly examine it, but without the risk of any larger energy discharge.

"After that?" You grimaced. "We want to try and examine your presence within humanity's web, kinda like an input/output test. See where it connects, how it does so, and the way in which your soul integrates any energies. It's a poor explanation, as it's so much more than that, but it's all I've got."

Your dark-haired friend's expression softened, her green eyes gentle. "I'm going to guess that any of our scanners won't be detailed enough for this."

You shook your head. "I really doubt it. I've seen their output. It's nothing compared to what I've seen myself, and if you really are some sort of…invisible nexus, I guess? We need that level of analysis. That said, point every single sensor you've got at this anyway. We could be wrong."

"And it could also catch anything the two of you miss," Mary nodded, before glancing at Vega. "Has Mandy gotten it about right?" She asked, grinning. The expression transformed her, brilliant humour stripping away all the tension and fatigue, at least for a moment. Meanwhile you sputtered, your indignant reply mauled to death by laughter.

"Essentially," Vega said smoothly, her own lips quivering. "She missed our risk estimate, but you'd know how she is with those."

"Everyone's a critic." You rolled your eyes, flicking a hand at the air between you to clear the projections. Two different outlines replaced them. "But it leads to the decision we need to make."

"Put simply, there are two options," you explained. "We can prepare the ground here as best we can, something that will take several days at least." In the air, the outlines formed into an image of stars, and an image of the world you were standing on. "Or we can do this on the Adamant, outsystem. Which will take eight days, minimum."

"And the relative risk?" Mary asked.

"There's a valid concern that the nature of this star system might interface with what we want to do in an unexpected fashion." Vega said, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the table. "The problem is that it's impossible to say how that could happen, if it even does. I'm confident that I can handle that sort of harmonisation, but it's something we need to think about."

"And if something…louder happens," you added, humour fleeing from your face. "The Midnight Dreaming has a truly excellent sensor package. The Shiplords will detect any large-scale energy burst that we can't contain."

"Then why are we even considering doing this here?" Mary asked. Or at least began to, the words cutting off in a sound of frustrated realisation. "...it's because of how much faster things have become, now that we're here. Isn't it? You think that if we examine me here, where the effects of what might or might not exist around or within me are so much stronger, it'll be easier to find."

"Yes." There was no point in you denying it. The time pressure had only been part of the issue, and it had come up as a result of this one. "Whatever has allowed our people to do what they've done, it's strengthened here. Now, it's possible that we're entirely wrong about your part in things. But even then, you were still at the head of every discovery of a Secret since the Sorrows. If anyone has been touched by this in a way we can find, it's you."

"And outsystem?"

"Safer, at least in terms of detection if anything goes wrong," you said. Mary twirled two fingers sharply, a hurry-up gesture if you'd ever seen one. "But we're concerned that it'll be harder to pinpoint anything out there."

"Ultimately we feel this should be your choice, Mary," Vega added softly. "It's your soul we're going to be examining here. Where we do it, that should be up to you."

"Even if it risks you missing something?" your friend asked, glancing between the three of you.

"Doing it here could risk far more, if we can't control any rogue outbursts," Mir reminded her. "I don't think that'll happen, but that's no guarantee."

Mary blew out a breath, strands of dark hair dancing for a moment as she shook it. "You really know how to give me a hard one, Mandy." There wasn't any accusation in her voice, thankfully. But you winced, all the same.

"I know," you sighed. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she told you a moment later. Pushing herself back from the table, she came to her feet in a single, smooth motion. "You've made plenty of hard decisions. I can handle this one. Though, if you'd be okay helping me a little?"

"Of course," you nodded, already halfway to your feet. She shot you a grateful smile.

"Thanks."

You are presented with two options to investigate what you believe to be going on here. Both will involve Practice, as the mundane tools of humanity are still lacking in this field. Other options might exist, and you're free to suggest them, but these are the ones that are there right now.
[] The risk is worth it. Prepare a space on the Consolat Origin itself to the best of your shared ability, and attempt to unravel the truth here. Just hope you don't get anything wrong, because if you do, there'll be no going back.
[] Too much is still at stake. Go outsystem aboard the Adamant for this investigation. It'll be safer, but it'll also take you away from the source of your accelerated workflow. And cost days of precious time away from the Consolat homeworld. (Will noticeably extend the length of the turn)
[] Write-in?

 

[Snowfire]

There were many things to do in the days that followed, but perhaps none proved more immediately important than convincing Jane, the commander of the Adamant, that the choice Mary had made was really worth the risk. In this, the rigorous standard your oldest friend had demanded of you in outlining the proposal proved most welcome.

When the time came, you took the call in the small study the Magi had afforded you. You'd configured the nanolayers to match the decor of your office back home, and though the room was a little smaller, the similarities remained quite soothing.

"You're quite certain there's nothing I can do to convince you to try this somewhere else?" were the first words out of your captain's mouth. She looked fresh, and focused, but you could see the marks of lingering stress. And recognise your part in it.

Jane had a duty no less than your own to every member of the Adamant's crew, to lead and protect them in service to the mission. With every risk taken, that pressure increased. Revealing yourself to Kicha had been such a risk. Entara, the poor, ancient survivor of the effective genocide of her species had been another. But in both cases, the breach had been restricted to a single person. This…

"If this goes wrong," Jane continued, unconsciously mirroring your own thoughts, "goes wrong here, we aren't going to be able to hide it. Not like we might have been able to do with Entara or Kicha, if those encounters had proven to be mistakes. We both know that even a minor energy discharge on the scales you've outlined here will be trivial for the Shiplord pickets to detect."

"And you know what that would mean, Amanda." She frowned, eyes dark with worry. "You sure that this is worth that risk?"

She wasn't just talking about the risk to the Adamant, and all the few hundred souls who were part of its mission. There was the broader risk to humanity, and everything you were trying to obtain. If the Shiplords discovered you here, the very heart of their racial trauma, the consequences for humanity didn't bear thinking on.

And yet.

"I am," you replied, forcing calm into your voice. "Because even if this is simply an unknown expression of Mary's linkage to humanity's web, we need to know. And if it's more than that? Even a fragmentary link to the echoes here could be a path to understanding we desperately require."

Jane's lips parted, concern clear in her eyes, no doubt more to come from her words. Yet instead of letting her, as you normally would, you brushed the response firmly aside.

"Vega, Mir and I will do all we can to minimise any risk in this endeavour. But," you grimaced. "I'm not sure you're asking the right question, Jane. I don't think we can afford not to do this. We need an answer to this mystery, even if it's nothing we can use."

"I understand that," Jane sighed. She brushed a hand through her hair and then shook it back out, expression conflicted. "And I admit, I sometimes wish you didn't make it so easy for me to do so. It would be so much easier to object if I didn't properly understand what you were suggesting, or why it mattered."

You spared a moment to thank Mary for her foresight, again. "I can see that," you confessed. "And I know I've not been kind to this mission's risk profile. I wish I could tell you that this would be the last time, I really do."

"Don't be." Jane's lips curved into a small smile, stopping any further apologies dead in their tracks. "I know what this mission is for, Amanda. Which means I know why you're doing this. Even if I didn't understand this specific endeavour right now," she shrugged. "I'd still concede the point.

"Because this is the mission we committed ourselves to when we left Sol. I never would have made some of the decisions you have, but I can't argue with your results." She flicked her fingertips in a precise pattern, nodding once. A moment later, the reason for the motion registered, and your eyes widened.. A virtual countersign for your proposal.

Jane's hadn't needed to do that. You could have gone forward with this plan anyway, solely on the basis of your position as the mission lead. But for your FSN support to directly support the proposal meant a great deal. And told you exactly how much her next words meant.

"You've all our support, Amanda. Do your best with it."

You dipped into a small bow instead of your usual nod, temporarily speechless.

"We will," you told her, after a breath restored your verbal functions. "That I can promise."

---

It took until the end of the week for everything to be ready to come together. Fortunately your meeting had taken place on Tuesday. Mary spent much of it buried in work at the living computer that acted as archive and gatekeeper to the Consolat's knowledge of the Secrets, guarded by Kalilah this time. You'd have gone with her, but your presence was needed at the Magi, working with Vega and Mir to prepare a section of the base for what you intended to do.

Each day she returned from the ancient repository more centred, energised by the challenge of a system that had been designed to demand proof of a user's understanding before dispensing relevant data. As safety measures went, she was ambivalent as to its effectiveness. But, she noted one evening, it had seemed to keep the Shiplords out.

The details of her work were still coming together at week's end, with her intent to complete any final touches to the summary report during whatever recovery period the triple working of you, Mir and Vega might inflict. And if it did nothing, well, the planning meeting wasn't scheduled until Monday.

Even so, you felt a little nervous as you led your dark-haired friend into the room that three of humanity's most gifted Potentials had been pouring their Practice into for days. For what you were about to do. For what you might find. And, most of all, what it could do to all of you – none more so than the woman at your side, who'd been your friend for almost as long as you'd been able to truly understand the term.

Preparing the Ground: 33 + 44 (Amanda+Vega+Mir Practice/2) + 20 (Multi-tool) + 15 (Calm the Void) = 112 vs 60/80/120. Second Degree Success.
Marginal imperfections in final design. Minor increase of complexity to final working.

The room all but glowed to your senses as you stepped inside, but only once you stepped inside it. You'd shaped intricate patterns across the once-smooth walls with your multi-tool, the device returned to your hand for this effort after long months of disuse. If your old Artefact had possessed its own intellect, you'd have called it overjoyed to be a part of things. And it had reminded you of your other Artefacts, too. Clever things, which you'd already discussed with your fellows how to turn to the work ahead. Particularly the Mender's Eye.

Into those patterns, Vega had poured the fullness of her own gifts, blending techniques so recently discovered and refined to invert her aptitude with Miracles into something truly unique. She transformed your, naturally inviolate, webworks and spirals into a catcher for Practice itself. A web that would capture and guide any unexpected energy surge, or so you hoped. And from there, the energy would flow down into the centre of the room, to where Mir's contribution lay.

There was no pattern to mark the younger Third's creation, though you tried not to think about when you'd started to consider someone nearing their forties young. His part was purely felt, a sense of peace that suffused the entire room, growing gently stronger at its heart. There it intertwined with your markings and Vega's power, sink and ground both for any power caught in Vega's net.

It was an intricate, elegant creation, and the only regret the three of you shared was that it was still imperfect. Oh, the issues were subtle, but for any as skilled as the three of you had become, quite clear. Fortunately, none of them were beyond your ability to resolve.

"You mentioned issues?" Mary asked, her voice pitched low, the feeling of the place making it almost reverent. "But there's so much energy soaked into the walls that I can't imagine it's something serious."

"Minor imperfections in the non-physical structure," you replied, pointing two fingers towards the centre of the room. "It'll require some level of split focus from one of us, to keep it all running properly. It's not a perfect result, given how important this could be, but nothing we can't handle together."

The next words out of Mary's mouth made you smile. "Did you consider bringing in someone else from your Heartcircle, to do that instead of one of you?"

"We did." You nodded. "But we've already set this up for the three of us. Bringing in another Potential would mean reworking sections, and we might make more mistakes in the process."

"You could also find better paths," she pointed out, riposting gamely. Yet the humour vanished as she glanced across the room again, her smile slipping to a level line. "But… You're confident in this?"

"We've had time to talk about this a lot, thanks to our links and Unisons." The resulting conversation had actually involved the entire Heartcircle, but the result had been the same. "There's a lot of detail, but in short, yes. We're confident."

Mary nodded slowly, green eyes thoughtful. "And what about your Unisons?"

"What do you think I meant when I said we?" You asked, a gentle lilt on the edge of the question robbing it of any sharpness.

"I suppose that's fair." Mary laughed. She glanced across the room again, eyes lingering on the patterns in the walls. "Is it wrong that this seems a little sparse?"

The incongruity of the question won a smile, though it didn't lack substance. The room at the base of the Magi was essentially bare but for your own additions, every other aspect of Practice woven into the space invisible to the eye. Small monitor blisters had been placed to provide overlapping sensor coverage, of course, but the only real furniture of note were four chairs at the centre of the room.

"It is a little odd, I suppose," you mused. You traced a finger across your mouth for a moment, considering the statement. "Do you think we should change that?"

Mary shook her head. "I think it's just fine. Familiar, even."

"What's that supposed to m-" you broke off as the meaning penetrated, laughter bubbling from your lips. Mary's eyes danced with matching humour, and if you hadn't already been laughing, her smile would have been infectious.

"I suppose it is a bit similar," you admitted. It had taken you several moments to master your reaction, but you couldn't find it in yourself to begrudge it. "Though at least this time, we're planning for it."

"We planned then, too," Mary said. "It's just that what we expected and what the Metaconcert event actually did weren't the same thing. Could be that the same thing happens here, today."

"And yet you still want to try," Vega said, speaking from the door behind the two of you. You turned to find the Harmonial leaning against the doorframe, her Aegis fully extended. She must have tucked her hair back, as not a single dark strand strayed past the line of her ears. You'd considered that entirely unfair, once. Now you were just used to it.

"Somehow I don't think I'm alone in that," Mary replied. Vega chuckled.

"Choice in clothing gave her away?" Mir's voice bounced through the doorway, preceding him by moments only. He, like Vega, wore his Aegis extended. Mary raised the one hand, thumb and two fingers separated around an invisible gap.

"Just a smidge."

"Then I suppose I should match." You suited action to words. Aquamarine and silver light flared around you, settling into the comforting weight of your Aegis, and you cracked your neck as it settled into place. A silly gesture, maybe, but it still held meaning.

"Let's get this on the go."

Invisible power swirled across the room as you took your seats, with you taking the seat at Mary's right hand. A swift thought signalled the Magi that you were about to begin, and to be ready to evacuate if something did go wrong. Kalilah, freshly back from Mary's latest excursion, would be preparing to sear the Midnight Dreaming from the heavens instead. But that was her role, and you couldn't dwell on it.

Instead you took a deep breath, unconsciously matching the timing of your fellows, and reached down into the seemingly endless well of power that secured your soul. The patterns of it had grown more complex since your conversation with Tahkel, though it was hard to say if that was a result of current change, or of you simply becoming aware of it. And yet for all that, it still resonated as it always had.

This is you, those patterns seemed to whisper. No matter what you might become in the future, they would always be you. It was a comforting reminder, though also chilling in a way. If the patterns were still you, then you had changed. And, as Tahkel had suggested, changed a great deal. Coming closer to the Uninvolved, whatever that truly meant.

:Ready, my friend?: The question flicked out to Sidra, your Unison. Their reply you felt more than heard, a steady presence of certainty and peace that whispered of fleeting veils and the strength of sight. It wasn't speech, but it left you no doubts as to their preparedness. At the centre of your Aegis, the working set there shortly before the Third Battle of Sol pulsed the beat of one rousing from slumber. And beside it, ahead of it, the last physical artefact you'd created came to life.

Your Mender's Eye had been designed as a medical scanner, and in that role it would always excel. But there was a world of difference between the Clarions it had been used to create and the truth of the Artefact. The streams of power all across the room suddenly snapped into focus, leaving reality behind as a faded overlay, barely visible through the surging currents of Practice that surrounded Vega, Mir, and yourself.

Mir's focus and Focus poured into the working around you, settling into the markings, and the weave of Vega's creation bound to them, with an ease you'd have scarcely imagined of him but a few short years ago. The light born of your combination was gentle, soothing, and you felt the energies of the room around you still as it touched them. They hung there for a moment, shivering in the light of Mir's soul.

To Hold The Peace: 78 + 25 (Mir Practice) + 10 (Light of Peace) = 113 vs (70-30 [Prepared Ground] =] 40. Greater Success.

Then all of it poured like water down through the patterns you'd forged, caught and guided to the creation of the Peace Focused. And there, it simply vanished. It didn't drain or disperse, Mir had told you that either of those options could still hold the faintest possibility of being detected, if placed under enough strain. Instead, one of the purest creations of the man's Focus you'd seen in your life caught the power streaming into it…and then it was gone. Just…gone.

That wasn't the whole truth of the matter, of course, but for the purposes of your efforts here today it was all that mattered. Mir's Focus demanded total serenity, and Practice made it true. The last eddies of rogue power faded from your sight, and you extended a hand to Mary, wreathed in the shimmering green-gold that you'd become used to seeing in moments like this.

Across from you Vega raised her own hand, infinite patterns of pure radiance streaming out of nothingness to wrap her fingers in a lambent star. Her eyelids flickered, light dancing beneath them, and she matched you perfectly when you spoke.

"Are you ready?" You both asked Mary, who'd yet to take your hands. Her eyes were fixed on the diagrams around her, a half-ring of analytics drawn from the room's sensors, struggling to articulate what was happening into something that made sense. Yet she didn't seem uncertain, just in awe.

She lifted her hands from her virtual displays as you spoke, looking down at them for a moment. Then she reached out, and your heart swelled as you recognised a total lack of shaking in her long fingers. Presented by the unknown, by a triple-working in the vein of one that had entirely changed her understanding of reality, she still trusted you completely.

"I am," she said, very softly. And your hands met.

And See Through Harmony Renewed: 79 + 50 (Amanda + ½ Vega Practice) + 20 (Mender's Eye) = 149 vs (70-30 [Prepared Ground] =] 40. Critical Success.
Miracle ch-

Interrupt

The plan had been for you to use the moment of connection as a catalyst for analysis, teasing out the true patterns of the web of humanity. Your hope had been to find something that could explain your progress here, at the birthplace and grave of the Consolat, those who you believed had first wielded something like Practice.

That plan could still be pursued.

But as greengold met patternwhites in a moment of sublime harmony, a moment of connection, another presented itself.

In what little spare time you'd had around your work here in this room, you'd started to investigate whatever had happened – twice now – on making an FTL jump. There, in that instant of transition, you'd felt the presence of the hall where Tahkel had first met you. And within, two figures. One that radiated all the impossible presence of an Uninvolved, the expected host, your mind liked to imagine. But the other, the other was familiar. Human, even, though how could that be?

Now you knew that, for all your doubts, you had been right. You had no idea who they might be - a Thoughtcast from Insight, waiting for you perhaps? It certainly seemed the most likely option, but you couldn't imagine Phoebe sitting there for weeks on end, just in case you noticed.

No. This felt like someone else. Someone who had the time to wait, and the gift or skill to attract Tahkel's attention. Vega's thoughts flashed across your own as the image of that star-spun cathedral flared across your shared mind.

:What…is that?:

Yet it was only one half of the vision. In the other, you beheld the soul of your oldest friend, almost lost in the fastness of a truly immense pattern that only now started to make sense. It had, you realised, been sunk into the fabric of humanity so deeply that looking for it made it seem natural. But it had begun decades ago. You weren't sure how many from this far away, but for that ring of glimmering starlight to have evaded your sight for so long, even through all the complexities of the Metaconcert even? It had to be old.

So, a choice before you now.

You could follow the image of a vision that waited in the space between spaces, what Insight and many others called a void. Tahkel, or whatever substitute might be present, would surely greet you kindly. But how much would they be able to tell you about what you suspected was happening with Mary? Uninvolved were clearly vastly powerful entities, the formation of billions of willing souls into a singular existence.

But how much would those souls know about what humanity had created? Tahkel had scarcely believed your abilities to be possible, until they'd observed them during the Third Battle of Sol. Even if they knew nothing, though, at least the mystery of the figure standing beside the Uninvolved in the moments of jumping would be resolved. And it wasn't as if you'd leave empty handed, even if whatever Uninvolved waited for you proved obstreperous. This moment of connection, of harmony, it would stay with you. And that would give you much.

Yet the other option was to remain as you were, staring across the patterns of dust and starfire that seemed to surround your most treasured friend. Something was going on with Mary, that much was clear. But to truly understand what, it would be best to stay.

No Mary to help you with your decision this time, you lamented, for a moment remembering that old decision when an Elder First came to offer you a place as one of their apprentices. You'd just have to do your best.

Two paths. Simple enough then.

Which would you choose?
[] Visions: Pursue the memory of the star-woven cathedral where Tahkel met you, and set you on this mission. Who waits there? What might they know, or be able to tell you?
[] Tracing Ripples: Stay here, stay now. Trust in your own abilities, and unravel the truth with them alone. You will find your way to whatever lurks between jumps in due time, now that you recognise it.

In either case, you will receive the full roll value of both relevant actions. This vote will influence how those events unfold, and is likely to lead to enhanced results in whichever option you choose. For now, the containment of the working is holding strong.

 

[Snowfire]

It would be a lie to say that you considered both options fairly.

In that space of woven starlight, you had been offered truths that not even Project Insight had been able to uncover. Whatever human presence had found their way to it, their presence there should surely matter. The possibilities hiding there, the promise of them, would have been difficult to turn away from in almost any other circumstance.

But this was Mary. Your oldest friend, among other things. Even if she hadn't also been the reason you were doing this, why you'd spent ceaseless hours perfecting every aspect of this attempt to make it safe. It was the only choice that Amanda Hawk could have made.

You felt the faintest touch of humour from Vega's presence in the link as you turned your focus, and Focus, to what was right in front of you. A gentle, lilting laughter that flitted across your soul, the touch of which was impossible to really ignore, holding a recognition of your own truth. That of course you would take this path. It was who you were.

You let any curiosity towards that tracing thought fall from your mind, though. Self-inspection could wait for a time that wasn't so critical. For a moment you were distinctly aware of Mary's slender fingers wrapped around your own, but the sensation faded from thought as you sank your awareness into the Mender's Eye. The world rippled away, yet after so many times in near-trance states, the shift was almost familiar.

Quiet enfolded you, the manifestation of Mir's Focus untempered by the strain of focusing so completely on more than just a single task. Your vision shrank to a sphere around you, the one anchored by the perfect ring of Peace, boundary rippling with the light of energies usually rendered invisible. It was, you noted absently, rather stronger than normal. Just one more thing to be added to the list called 'for later'.

It was what was usually hidden beneath those gentle, background energies that mattered to you now. Patterns of light and colour, cast in a stardust that glittered with all the cut purity of diamond, wove around each one of you. In them you felt the harmony of humanity united, and a surge of emotion from Vega confirmed it even as you thought it. An endless weave, that bound and enfolded you all, and looking at Vega and Mir you could almost see the burning sigil of the empowering imprint that made them Potentials. Only a fragment of the true gift the Dragons had wished to give you, but more than enough for those who had survived humanity's fall. A gift unique and, as far as any understood, impossibly perpetual.

Around Vega and yourself, the patterns themselves had flowed into new configurations. Vega's was a spiralling fractal of gentle light, unspooling and embracing every new connection, and endlessly reaching out for more. It should have made the result chaotic, but instead the traceries of light around the Harmonial's radiant soul had woven together into a brilliant representation of her Focus at its most pure. Each new contact had found ways to add to the ever growing harmony, the entire construct growing and feeding on itself in almost equal measure.

It was rather like watching crystals grow, you thought in wonder. But these were crystals born of countless souls, all woven together by a force for unity as potent as your existence had ever been. Something twinged in the back of your eyes as you looked away, though, making you glad to have done so.

Around yourself, the shift was more deliberate, an overlay of energy that encased the connections around you. Memory shifted in the back of your mind, deep in your soul, but it wasn't until you brushed fingers of formless green-gold across the structure that you realised what the overlay was. And when you did, the presence of a smile blossomed in the space around you. You recognised this work. And to think you'd been afraid.

In the last year before the Third Battle of Sol, you'd sought to create an Artefact that would bring you closer to the truth of your Focus. It had been a construct of concepts and multidimensional mathematics, pushing the boundaries of everything you'd learned about Practice. And though you'd known it had worked, this was the first time you'd ever seen it in truth. Or at least, as close to the truth as you could probably get. It was the creation of the Circles, of you, that had been catalysed by Veda – not Vega – into perhaps the most directly powerful of all your Artefacts.

The energy shining through the overlay was that of your Focus, shining out far closer to the surface of your soul than either of the two other Potentials in the room. But that, too, was as it should be. You forced yourself not to look closer, though, even as Tahkel's words rang from the vaults of your memory: the night after the Third Battle of Sol.

What you did today changed you.

The Uninvolved had been right, of course, but the opportunity to examine yourself this deeply… You forced the impulse down again. There would be other opportunities. An echo of the same resolve pulsed from Vega in near synchronicity, carried by the now entirely visible link between you. It bubbled for a moment with shared amusement, recognising the similarity of your thoughts without a shred of judgement.

So decided, it left only one place for you both to go; back to the purpose of this entire endeavour. Mary's soul was a radiant thing in its own right, you found, but it lacked the more encompassing light of a Potential's. It forced you to look closer than you had with Vega to make out details. You wondered if that was why, or part of why, you'd never noticed the trails and channels that surrounded your oldest friend, each outlined in sparkling dust. Those crystal motes caught the light of two Potentials brought close, catching and reflecting it across the complex pattern, but as tempting as it was, you held yourself back from any brighter lights.

Within those channels were fragments of energy, flowing deeper into the maze of connections that had… it was hard to say. It was too organic for the word grafted to apply, and such a creation would have felt different to your senses. Flickering up a hand of goldgreen light, you brushed it across the edges of the pattern, careful not to disturb it.

No, definitely not something artificial, at least not in the way that Mending recognised. A look at Vega translated that belief into a message and question that the Harmonial caught deftly. The gentle white of her presence danced out, splitting apart into countless strands that wove across the stardust's edge. Then her voice, threaded with wonder, spoke across the flickering space between you.

:It feels like it's her own harmony, simply extended,: she sent. :Almost like our Aegis in some ways, but far less deliberate. This wasn't made, Mandy. It grew.:

:What do you think it's for?:

The streamers of light wove back into the shape of a hand as Vega finished her examination, and you felt her considering the question.

:I think it's an intake,: she sent. The words felt carefully chosen, imbued to match specific meanings. :At its core, at least. All of these outer layers grew into place to handle incoming energy, but there's something at the core that we can't see from here.:

:The reason that everything's been going so fast, since we got here?: You wondered. The motion-feel of an uncertain nod came faster than any words. But it was uncertain, which was an oddity for Vega.

:I think that's what it's doing now,: the Harmonial ventured. :But that's not its purpose.: Your shared presence shifted, and you felt her prodding you towards a certain section of the pattern. :Look, there.:

It was just more stardust and faded light, but that was only a moment. Then a flare of energy raced down the pattern. It had no particular colour, but it burned with feeling. Curiosity, the brilliant flash of an insight revealed, long days of study and the feeling of answers that came only from tireless effort. All that and more, in endless variation, packed into a glimmer of light that vanished towards the heart of the construct.

Then there was another flicker of light, from close by. Another, up and further away. More and more, forming a subtle stream through the stardust channels that only became clear as a result of your paired Foci and at least one Artefact.

:It's odd.: you found yourself murmuring back. :It feels somehow familiar?:

You recognised the truth as you said it, something in the words resonating with the image before you, making you draw back to try and see the whole picture again, Doing so set the patterns of sparkling crystal awash with the light of your two souls in motion, overwhelming the gentle light of Mary's own existence. And yet in that motion, clarity flared across your mind.

Because you'd seen Mary like this once before, cast in the light of the same two souls that were now examining her. An evening almost fifteen years ago, when trying to teach Vega how to Speak had instead provided the priceless truth of how Practice had been created. And in the doing, brought Mary've already peerless understanding of its workings to a point so far beyond any other human that-

How had you missed that?

You focused, tightening the circle of your perception to concentrate the effects of the Mender's Eye. For a moment your sight swam with colour and complex confusions, words insufficient to the task of explaining either. Until you felt the gentle presence of Vega's power intertwining with your own, a simple harmony found without effort to support your seeking.

White light flickered across your sight, and the strange artefacts that had twisted your awareness smoothed away. And as they faded, you saw.

Beneath the stardust pattern and flickers of quiet, curious insight across it, lay an older foundation. It was difficult to judge time without a proper measure, and in this state of being those were hard to come by. But between you and Vega you could make an educated guess. Their beginnings predated even your friendship, faint echoes that had grown with the young prodigy as she began to retrace the steps of her parents. And, if you weren't mistaken, had fed upon the results as deeply as Mary had drunk of the validation her early successes had given her.

You remembered again, or perhaps Vega did, that Mary had been born to a legacy of great advancement of humanity. Her parents having led the research teams that unlocked the First Secret. And you remembered, too, that in the time since the Week of Sorrows, humanity had only slowly recognised the influence that Practice could exert on the nature of life. The way that cities and more grew together more closely when communities believed that they should be close.

The way that children found mystery without harm in the gardens and forests of humanity's home, and how all were supported. The Circles were, you couldn't deny, a part of that. But they weren't all of it. Mary was still the smartest example of humanity you'd ever met, and this didn't change that. But somewhere along the way, humanity's recognition of her genius had started to support it.

And you'd accelerated that, hadn't you? By accepting her as Minister for Science, something that she'd never offered to any other President, you'd made her an icon of humanity's progress. The position had granted her visibility to billions of souls, and… cities could change just from the belief of dozens. Your daughter had constructed a cave full of adventures, gremlins and trolls, but the majority of those adventurers had never come across her. Nor had she been the one to create everything they'd found there. Nor had anyone.

It was shockingly similar to how you'd become a nexus for humanity's will during the Second and Third Battles of Sol, but that was a mantle you'd taken knowingly and deliberately, to anchor the defences that had had to succeed. As Mary had risen into the public consciousness, and the truth of all she'd done to support humanity became clear – and then clearer still from her work – the same thing must have happened.

For a moment, relief surged through you. Whatever this was, it hadn't just been an artefact of Practice. Mary's genius was hers, as you'd always believed, and the result here today wouldn't change any of that. She'd become an unconscious nexus in the network of humanity, and it had fed her their knowledge, their insight, and their hopes. But that had only sharpened what had already been there, subtle things most likely, that had guided her down better paths.

Until the Metaconcert event.

You could see the echoes of that event even now, where Spoken power had transformed the slowly growing links around your friend into something far more tangible, if still beyond her awareness. It was nothing like being a Potential, but the infrastructure that had grown to allow those like you to manipulate reality had adapted Mary's place in it to support a different type of transhumanity. And it explained how far and how deeply her understanding of the world had grown since that event.

The strongest and most coherent points of argument and study would combine around her, highlighting patterns to lead to the next great discovery. And in her mind, those patterns and points of view had blended together, before being refined into truths. Only a mind as brilliant as Mary's could have adapted to this sort of change without noticing, you thought wryly. She'd always been so quick to make connections, and much of what Metaconcert had done would only have strengthened that.

But whilst undeniably a relief, if a big of a shocking one, this didn't explain what was happening right now. This effect was, as far as you could understand, a subtle one. It allowed Mary to draw on the collective intelligence of humanity to support her work, but also only that word: support. The increase in workflow across all aspects of the Adamant's mission since reaching the Consolat home system was much, much more than support. So why, and how, was it happening now?

As you considered the question, you found your attention drawn to a section of the pattern, something about it calling out to your Focus. For a moment you found yourself confused again, staring at the same iridescent stardust as the rest. It didn't last. Your Focus pulled you on, until you were able to pick out where sections of the crystal network had been warped and scorched by the energies rushing through it.

That, you considered worriedly, wasn't right.

:Vega?: You asked, tugging the Harmonials attention towards your own. You were already digging in deeper, trying to trace back whatever flow had caused this as well as any other consequences.

:Help me fix this.:

You felt her own awareness surge across to your own, and opened your thoughts to the Harmonial, letting the concepts and questions you were feeling pass without need for words. As always, she integrated them seamlessly, but you felt her pause as your suspicions became her own. Yet only pause, not stop, and as you continued your own investigation you felt her begin her own alongside it, but from a broader point of view. Unfortunately, the further you went, the more worried you became.

The intake – it seemed best to use Vega's understanding – seemed like it had been burned by the passage of some far more intense energies. It was recent, in the last few days even, but had no source point that you could find. A vastly increased packet of insight and power had entered this pattern then, and the result had clearly overloaded the limits of the structure built up around your friend. It hadn't broken, but it had left an entire section of the pattern scorched and fraying.

:Not just one section,: Vega's mental tone was woven with deep concern, a twisting echo of dark clouds and winter winds. Yet the Harmonial also seemed deeply curious about what could have done this. :The entire pattern is showing similar levels of damage, some of it weeks old. Our construct is fraying, Mandy. And if we can't find a way to fix it…:

She didn't need to continue. The idea of whatever searing energy that had scorched this network ripping into Mary's soul wasn't anything you wanted to imagine. But it also gave you a direction to follow. If there was damage, that was something you could fix. Not right now, not until you could actually diagnose the problem properly. But it would be possible. The structure you'd found had been made by Practice, and you knew how to fix those.

Repairing works of Practice and even Artefacts had been something you'd been doing ever since you'd been recognised as a full Mender. And you were good at it. Really good at it.

And once it was fixed…

For a moment you wondered how much brighter Mary's genius could shine, deliberately reflecting the light of humanity. Or, perhaps more importantly, what she might be able to do with the more dangerous energy flow that she'd been exposed to, if it could be harnessed. Stronger didn't always mean better, of course, but it didn't have to not mean that, either.

That would require identifying it. And for that…you'd have to remain utterly focused on Mary for a time, to catch whenever it touched her pattern next. What was causing it, though, that would be the question. Your immediate guess was that it had something to do with the echoes the Consolat had left in the system of their birth and death. Unfortunately that just raised more questions.

Like how could an echo take action like that?

No, you thought, shaking the question away. It wasn't important right now, not against the integrity of Mary's soul. The pattern around her had to be repaired, and for all your confidence, that would not be a simple process. After that…then you could really get started. But first, you'd need to explain everything to her.

That was going to be…fun.

:But at least she'll know,: Vega's comment was thick with sympathy, twined to an enduring care. She was also, you admitted silently, correct.

:Time to wake up, then?: She asked.

You consulted Sidra's chronometer, and blinked. It had been several hours already. Somehow. And, you glanced about, Mir's containment was still holding strong.

:Yes.: You pulled yourself back from the pattern around your friend, forcing your awareness back into your body. Your vision flickered a few times as you disconnected smoothly from Vega along the way, better to do that before waking up. And then the world of physical reality slowly reasserted itself.

You felt it keenly when all of your senses returned, a feeling much like a change in air pressure making your ears pop. You groaned a little as the feeling of your skin and bone returned, muscles painful despite the aid of your Aegis in sitting still for hours. A thought set your Focus brushing across them, relieving the strain.

"Hey you." Looking over at Mary, you gave her a hand a little squeeze. Vega, opposite you, simply let go. The dark haired woman smiled slightly at you, though the look in her green eyes was hesitant. "What did you find?"

You shook your head, wondering how she'd determined that from barely a look. Better not to question it, you supposed.

"More than I expected," you said, even as Mir let the ring of his Focus around you fade. You turned in your chair to face your friend, expression earnest. "We have a lot to talk about."

Ripples completed. Visions in the Jump rolled 191 on a d100 and, as such, a single dice allocated to its second stage will prompt an autocomplete. Containment of this working was successful.

Actions unlocked.