AN: So here's the next chapter in my backlog. Figured I could use the kick in the pants that an emptier backlog gets to motivate me to get going already with the latest chapter lol. This chapter is a bit longer than the others in my backlog so far, but well... it's the standard breakdown chapter, and more or less a hectic one.
This is really my first time writing any sort of angst/existential dread so that was... interesting? Not something I really think I enjoy too much, but still something that I'll need to do every now and then perhaps? Either way, it's hard to do this lol. Think I did a lot more telling than I did showing, which is a shame.
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Now, normally a person being stuck in a desert might freak out. They might plan things out. They might try and think over their situation. I was in no position to do any of those things, or anything else really.
As soon as I had registered that Precia was gone the anger that had burned so brightly in me went out. And considering that that anger had been the only thing holding back the biggest headache I could ever even conceive of…
I spend my time in a haze. Writhing, thrashing, caring not for the hot sand scoring against my skin. Anything that could distract me from the pain, even more pain, was welcome.
The entire time information burst into my head, as if tearing through my unconsciousness where it had lay all this time with searing clarity. Terminology and information began to fill my thoughts, to the point where there just wasn't room for any coherent thoughts of my own to form.
Linker cores, mana, calculations to link magic into coherent spells. A selection of spells for a variety of uses. Attacking spells, barriers, gathering breaker-type spells, flight spells, support spells… The information didn't discriminate at all, even mixing up spells from different schools.
At first the pain was just that of the spells bursting out into my memory, but as time passed I became aware, as much as I was capable at the time, of an even more pressing issue.
The ground was rumbling beneath me.
In my thrashing and pain-induced haze, I had probably been pretty loud. And I was on a planet with, as far as I had been able to tell before pain had disabled me, nothing but sand around me. If the ground was rumbling, that meant two things. One was a natural occurrence of sorts like an earthquake. This is what I hoped was happening.
The other was… some wildlife coming upon me. And again, I had been pretty loud and violent in my actions. It was, more likely than not, carnivorous if it was coming to investigate.
The adrenaline rush from realizing that I might be about to die helped push some of the pain away. Not like the surge of anger had before, but enough that I could once again think.
I froze. Of my own volition. If my being loud and moving around a lot had attracted the creature in the first place, I certainly wasn't going to continue moving around loudly.
My hands began to (quietly) pat my body down. Precia had seen fit to outfit me in a set of plain brown pants and a tunic, with a traveller's cloak wrapped over it all. My new repository of magical knowledge rather helpfully supplied that these were in fact ordinary clothes, and not the magically enchanted Barrier Jackets that generally came with… Devices…
"Oh, son of a bitch did she not even give me a DEVICE?!" For a brief moment the anger came surging back, stronger and harder than before. Magic is cast by doing comple calculations, adapted to the situation. Such things, of course, are easier to do if you have, say, a calculator. Devices are, for all intents and purposes, super advanced magic calculators. I didn't have one.
With the anger that washed over me because of this, came a clarity that simply washed away all the pain that I was still under.
And with that clarity came the realization that right after acknowledging that noise and movement were two likely causes of the unknown creature coming over here, I had promptly shouted out my frustration for the world to hear.
The rumbling increasing in frequency and intensify was the confirmation that I really, really didn't need.
With my train of thought taken away from Precia like so, my anger dropped, and the pain promptly hit me like a sack of bricks. Again. At which point I shouted out and dropped to my knees. Again.
As it was, when the rumbling ceased I barely had the presence of mind to listen to my gut and throw myself into a roll down the sandy dune I was on. Nevertheless, that little action saved my life.
Even as I bounced and flailed down that dune its top burst open revealing a fuckhuge monstrosity surging up into the sky. The best I could describe would be… it was a kind of sand worm. No appendages that I could see, and scales covered it's enormous body. Its open jaws snapped shut on empty air, and as it came down I could see that it didn't have any eyes.
It fell back down, tunneling into the ground and reshaping the sand dunes around it, collapsing some and creating new ones in their place. I was still on my side, although I had stopped rolling in exchange for somewhat painfully sliding down the bottom part of the dune instead. Thankfully I was on top of a newly created dune as opposed to crushed beneath one of the old ones that had collapsed.
With no more slope beneath me I came to a stop, panting heavily. The sun glared down on me and seemed to directly suck out my adrenaline, and with it, my energy. Even as the pain came crashing down with a renewed vengeance, I no longer had the strength to even unconsciously spasm.
It only seemed like I had blinked, but judging from the way the sun had traded its place for a moon and the light had bled from the sky, it was now night. The pain had finally subsided, although my head was still throbbing lightly.
At this point though, it was a coin toss as to whether it was due to the memory download or dehydration setting in. I had just spent pretty much an entire day flailing about violently in the middle of a desert.
Ah.
Dehydration is a pretty serious concern isn't it? I should… probably be trying to fix that. Well, intellectually I knew that dehydration was an important thing that I should be taking care of ASAP. But I just didn't have the willpower and energy to care very much.
It was cold, too. It made sense. Deserts are scorching hot during the day, but the nights can freeze people as well. The cloak provided some warmth, yes, but it was a multipurpose one intended for general travelling. Thus it was light enough to not create unneeded warmth during the day. It certainly wouldn't let me survive the night on my own.
All I really had was my currently failing body, functional clothes, and the magic that Precia had shoved into my head. Of those, the only one that I really had any hopes in was the magic.
Searching through the repertoire of knowledge that I had was strange. First of all I had to shove aside the flash of rage that came up with the fact that Precia had violated my everything and tampered with my mind to artificially change what I knew. Then I had to actually access the knowledge…
It was as simple as already knowing it, despite never having learnt it. When I thought, ah I want to be anywhere but here, I thought of course of walking away. Or flying. Or teleporting. And all of those methods conjured up a mental image of me doing just that. I actually had to catch myself when I realized that flying and teleporting were well within my reach at the moment.
Well, I didn't trust myself to do anything for any amount of sustainable time, let alone complex equations that needed to be adapted on the fly, so flying was out. But teleporting… no. Teleporting on a given world required a mental image and had a capped range. Ignoring the range, I had just gotten to this world. All I could teleport to would be another part of the desert around me.
Teleporting to another world? Dimensional Transfer? Well that spell required precise coordinates, of which I had none. That was just impossible.
No, travel was just out, it seemed. Because of course it was. So my next priorities were to take care of dehydration, and to get a shelter and probably some warmth.
I focused on dehydration first. I'd like to say that it was because I was smart enough to compartmentalize. To focus on one task at a time. To be honest, I just didn't have the mental capacity to do anything else at the time. I was barely keeping a single train of thought going.
Could magic help me get some water? The information helpfully came to mind that, at least in my case, no, magic probably wouldn't help.
Magic is the use of mana to manipulate elements around oneself. I didn't think there'd be much water around me, and water isn't a type of energy so I couldn't convert my mana into it. Thermal energy would technically let me freeze any nearby water vapor, but again, we were in a desert and I didn't quite think that there'd be much water vapor to freeze.
My thoughts began to circle about, my singular train of thought having effectively lost one set of wheels and the half of the tracks that went with them. It was partially from the dehydration and exhaustion, but I would be lying if I said that part of me hadn't panicked and fallen into despair.
This was how I was going to die. Possibly for the second time, depending on how I felt about Precia's revelation at having apparently cloned me. I still knew that there were a number of other possible explanations for that, but I hadn't had time to sort through them yet, and now… I probably never would.
A pang of pain in my stomach broke me away from that spiralling circle of thoughts. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes to try and enjoy it, using it to slow down the heartbeat that I had just noticed was hammering away in my chest.
Right. Panicking wouldn't help. Adrenaline wouldn't help. What I needed was water, and a way to get it.
I couldn't move very far, and would like to avoid any movement at all if possible. I needed water. Therefore, I had to either bring the water to me, or find some water very close by. Bringing the water to me had already been discarded as a viable plan. Finding water nearby would likely require some movement, and that might bring back the sand worm.
Just the thought of it brought my heartbeat up again before I paused.
Wait.
The sand worm was, presumably, close enough to sense my movement and maybe hear the noise that I had made. But I was tiny compared to it. Unless it was really close by, it more likely than not wouldn't really be able to pick me up, even if I was the only other living thing around. That meant that more likely than not it spent its time around here.
And for any living being to spend its time in an area, it would have to have all of its commodities nearby. Food, shelter, ...water.
If the water was around, I couldn't see it. So it was probably somewhere I couldn't see. Like under the sand.
But how could I pinpoint exactly where it would be? I didn't have any spells that detected water. In fact, the only water-related spells that I had were freezing spells.
"Ah," I rasped through my dry mouth.
That was it. I could do a low-power but wide-area freezing spell. Any underground water reservoirs would likely have a higher amount of water vapor above it than its surroundings. If I could just find the areas with the most frost… Well, it'd be hard. Extremely hard, trying to detect which parts of the frost were more concentrated than the rest.
But there wasn't much more water vapor to obfuscate the reservoir's theoretical location, and I had no other options.
I brought the relevant calculations to mind and began to plug in the appropriate variables. As I worked purple characters began to wink into existence, then lines and curves drawing in shapes as the corresponding magical circle began to form from my completed equations.
To be honest, calling it a spell would be… generous. As a mage performs the various calculations, each one is supposed to represent a specification of the spell. The range, spread, type of energy that the mana becomes, homing capability, etc. All of these are carefully set and adapted by the mage as the spell is cast.
I did away with pretty much all of those. All this spell specified was to gather the mana that I funneled into it, and then use it to push away thermal energy as it passed, which would generate the desired frosting effect. Basically the first parts of any ice-spell without any of the follow-up.
My magical energy gathered, purple motes of light clumping into a ball. I activated the spell with the designated trigger, a wave of my arms, and it dropped to the ground. The ball rippled as it landed, dissipating into a circle of purple energy that expanded, leaving behind flecks of frost in its wake.
My second follow-up spell was a way to detect the thermal readings of my surroundings. A heat sensor spell, easy enough to bring up and cast. The readings that were returned were about what I expected. An even spread of cold temperatures.
Not good enough.
I called the spell up again and messed with it, increasing its sensitivity but cutting its range a bit. The range was still within the bounds of what I deemed sufficient, but if the water was outside of that… I blinked, banishing that train of thought with a mental push.
This time the readings had some variation. Yes, a group of slightly colder than average readings formed a snaking line, almost like a stream.
The finale, and the last bit of magic that I would have in me for the day. A basic bombardment spell. Not anything fancy, no homing capabilities or multiple angles of fire. Just a simple collection of mana, and then calculations for focusing and aiming it in my desired direction.
The beam barreled forwards towards my intended target, the bottom of the dune next to me. As I expected, the explosion blasted the sand away and I hoped, for just a bit, that this plan would work.
It was only as my dune began to shift downwards in response to the displaced sand that I realized that I may have made some miscalculations.
Still, if before I had been drained, now I literally could not do anything besides ride it out. My eyelids had drooped closed, and it was only as I felt the familiar sensation of liquid around my body that I was brought back from the brink of unconsciousness.
Between my parted lips I managed to swallow some of the water, and then I rolled over onto my back before sleep completely took over my mind.
Day one in the desert: survived (?)
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The next time I awoke, I couldn't hold in a sigh of relief. The temperature was cool, not hot and not cold. Something had changed, but for the moment I didn't care what. I tried to lift my arms and stretch, only to be stopped by some resistance that kept my arms stuck to my sides.
This was a familiar feeling. Bindings.
My eyes shot open. Glaring light met my eyes and I winced, screwing them shut again.
"He's awake," a man said.
Shifting could be heard, and I decided to risk opening my eyes again. Slowly, this time. When my vision sharpened I looked around. It seemed that I was on my back on some form of table. There were two people on each side of me, a man and woman in some form of uniform. A light green jacket over darker green pants.
Both of them held thin metal rods at the ready, a jewel glowing on the top end and narrowed tips, reminiscent of prongs. Not rods, then. Staffs, most likely.
"So," the woman began. "I understand that you probably had a rough time, but I'm going to need to ask you some questions. Don't worry, we're both from the Frontier Nature Conservation Corps, we're here to help you out."
I looked down my body, wiggling my toes and fingers. The woman coughed into her fist. "Yes, well… there are protocols, you see. And you were the source of that burst of magic last night, right?"
To be honest, I couldn't blame them. Just from what they said, I could put together some information. Mainly, that Precia hadn't dumped me on some uninhabited desert deathworld. She'd dumped me on a known, mostly still wild, desert deathworld.
An explosive sigh ripped its way out of my lips. "Yeah, I can't say that I don't understand. My name is Faust, and I'm very confused myself. As best as I can tell…"
Caution stopped me from continuing. This was a bit of a dilemma. I hadn't exactly had time to think about it too much, but lots of the terminology that I had had implanted in my head was actually familiar, if not that detailed. And the name of the person who cloned me, Precia, and Alicia, who she spoke of… It was very familiar. On the tip of my tongue, but not something that I had the time or inclination to pursue right now.
No, I was more worried about how much information was wise to give up. "Frontier Nature Conservation" sounded like an NGO, but the word "Corps" at the end implied more structure and authority. Moreso, I didn't think it'd be smart to get tied up with the authorities. Precia very much held my life in her hands, as her note about our pseudo-Familiar contract let me know, and I didn't think that any governments would be particularly happy to hear about cloning projects like me.
I didn't think that an in-depth examination would reveal my nature as a clone, but it was better not to risk it. I already knew that Precia had at least tampered with my memories and my basic body structure… who knows what else she did.
So in the end, I supposed that my best bet was simply to withhold as much information about those topics as I could.
"Sorry, I'm still a bit confused. Working through what happened right now," I laughed. Some of my tension slipped its way into my voice though, and it came off as more harried than I would have liked.
The man waved his hands. "No, no, we understand. Take as much time as you need." Both of them gave me looks that made me instantly feel bad about trying to come up with a lie good enough to fool them.
Well. In that light, it'd probably be best if I stuck to only lies by omission. There is something to be said about keeping things simple, and I'd hopefully feel less shitty if I didn't technically lie to them.
"I don't really know how I got here. Maybe some kind of dimensional incident? In any case, my name is Faust. I'm a… wanderer by trade, I suppose. The magic last night was my last ditch effort to find water," I said.
I wasn't really lying, right? I truly had no idea how I got to this… universe.
Both of the other people in the room shared looks. The man nodded. "I see. We'll call in the TSAB for investigation. You may have to stay and answer some questions, but don't worry, you're not under arrest. Your story matches what we could tell from a preliminary search. We found you floating on your back in an uncovered riverbed."
He waved his staff, dismissing the bindings, before walking off to the back of the room.I heard him knock on the wall until the sound of glass sliding on glass interrupted it. He kept his voice low, but I could hear him murmuring with someone on the other side of the wall. Wall was likely the wrong term for it though, at this point it was more likely that I was in a vehicle of some sorts. Like an ambulance, perhaps.
I sat up and looked around. Smooth metal surrounded us. I couldn't see any equipment, and there were benches lining the sides. A transport ship then. The woman and I looked at each other in a bit of an awkward silence before the man returned, conversation over.
"Do you have any family members or friends that you would like us to contact for you?" The woman continued.
I shook my head, keeping my gaze from focusing on how their expressions fell. It spoke to their characters that they were being this open and empathetic to me, but it really wasn't helping the guilt that I felt.
"Like I said, I'm a wanderer. I don't think I'm all that close to any of the places I've been to before. They weren't within range of Dimensional Transfer, at least."
"I'd be surprised if they were," the man nodded. "This is uninhabited world number twelve. We're about as far away from civilization as you can get."
He looked like he was about to say more, but the transport jolted slightly, slowing to a stop. "Ah, we're at our destination. Follow me, we'll get you settled in a room. After the TSAB gets here and does their thing we can give you the dimensional coordinates for Aenia, TSAB-administrated world number seventy-three. It's still a bit out there, but you should be able to find dimensional coordinates for more urban worlds there, and it's at least inhabited."
From then on, I was shuffled left and right. I had to fill out some paperwork in which the pitying looks that I got increased with every field left blank. They shipped me over to an infirmary where a kind man in a lab coat gave me an examination, which revealed the bandages over my side. You guessed it, more sympathizing looks.
When they took me to their cafeteria, lots of the staff nearby were watching me as I ate, as if I wouldn't finish my plate unless they stared me into doing it.
It was nice, I could not and would not deny it. But it was irritating too. They had such good intentions towards me, but they were misdirected. Pointed towards someone that had never really been in whatever sad situation that they concocted in their heads.
I was a fairly well-adjusted young man, who had gone to a good school, had good friends, and so-on, so forth.
Then it hit me that I wasn't entirely sure if I should be thinking of them in the past tense. When had that happened? It was… factually true, yes. But I would of course be back one day. I…
With a cough I excused myself from the table with some polite words. My appetite was gone, and I had some thinking that I needed to do.
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Days later, I dropped out of the Dimensional Transfer onto a landing pad with a soft thud. The coordinates were precise, and this was an area specifically for TSAB-approved mages to use as a teleportation destination for this world. Even so, a small cloud of dust was kicked up as I landed.
"Eugh," I shielded my face from the dust with my cloak. The air seemed to be just as dry as the desert had been, and only barely cooler. Wonderful.
Still, I had to count my blessings. The TSAB was still mainly a policing force rather than a central government. They had cared enough to get me the paperwork to officially clear me of all wrongdoing and provide coordinates for a Dimensional Transfer, but not enough to do a particularly deep background check.
In fact, they didn't do a background check at all. That was probably on account of the breakdown that I went through after realizing that I had lost all of my friends and family. It had started right after I had left dinner, and had lasted the entire following night, filled with constant pacing around the Conservation Corps' camp, some minor displays of emotionally-fueled, rampant magic, and more than a little bit of incoherent shouting and bawling. From what they told me, I had kept going until I had simply collapsed on the ground, and they had needed to bring me to the infirmary again instead of to my room.
The following morning, when a man in a blue and white TSAB uniform had showed up, I realized that I had seen that same uniform before. Everything clicked. I knew where I was. And where I had heard of Precia before. And linker cores, and devices, and well… you get the idea.
I was proud to say that I hadn't suffered another breakdown. Instead, I had assumed that I was going crazy and proceeded to punch myself in the face, after which I was then lugged off to the infirmary where they kept an eye on me until I had calmed down.
See? No rampant magic, shouting or violence from me. And, well, if anyone said otherwise than it'd just have to be their word against mine, now won't it?
Still, the process had gone remarkably well, especially once they had indeed established that I was merely undergoing an immense amount of stress, and some small amount of potential psychological trauma, as opposed to actually being balls off the wall crazy.
The memory was a sore one, so I shook it off. There was time for introspection later. For now, I had a plan. Or at least the beginnings of one.
Precia was crazy. The death of her daughter, Alicia, had driven her insane, and as bad as she had been when I last saw her, she still had hopes that she could use the same cloning process I had undergone to resurrect Alicia.
The fact that I could be considered a success was strange, considering that Alicia's clone was, well… not Alicia. She would become an entirely different person in her own right, but for the time being what was clear was that this would drive Precia over the edge.
Precia had dismissed me. Sure, she had sent me out as a "backup," but I was under no illusions that she actually thought she'd need me. I had seen her. She was desperate, and I was, for better or worse, an apparent success.
What she would do once driven over the edge I don't know, but as bad as it might have been before, it was going to be far, far worse now. Because I was an apparent success. And because I was another resource for her to use, one magically bound to obey her every word.
She had told me to search for any sign of Al-Hazard, this universe's magical version of Atlantis. If Atlantis had been a super advanced predecessor world filled with supposedly omnipotent magic and technology. Thankfully, I didn't know jack about Al-Hazard, or any of its items.
Hell, I didn't even if Al-Hazard was more than a very well-known myth. The only way to Atlantis that I know of at the moment was Precia's original plan. The Jewel Seeds. Potentially wish-granting items, they held an unfathomable amount of magical power within. Precia was planning to tap into that magical power to open a pathway to Al-Hazard… somehow.
She either didn't see fit to include the particulars in the magical knowledge that she had shoved into my head, or she hadn't thought of it yet.
In any case, I was compelled to follow her orders. Just the thought of trying to sabotage myself had me running into a mental wall, where my mind blanked and thought stopped. A void of being, which I found myself invariably turning from.
It was cruel. Even the thought of trying to simply live out this year, a neutral middle ground between opposing Precia and submitting to her, had that wall engulf my consciousness. Nothingness.
I must have looked like an idiot, taking a single step forwards before freezing up for who knows how long each time.
I kept trying anyways. Each attempt had me drawing in, sinking further into that cold pit that was spreading in my gut, yet simultaneously feeding a steadily growing spark of defiance and anger in me.
It was a loop that somehow fed into itself, anger becoming despair, which turned into more anger. I couldn't even show it on the outside, my body becoming almost locked into this loop by the continuous bouts of emptiness that the wall enforced.
This inner conflict was an unstoppable force against an unmoving object, drawing forth from me a greater body of mental strength than I had ever imagined that I was capable of.
Of course, as the paradox went, something had to give eventually.
I did.
With a shudder I sank to my knees, fists clenched at my sides.
It was only the slightest of gives. A resignation to at least keep an ear out, even as I planned to confine myself onto this dusty hell for the next year.
But the wall vanished, and deep down I knew that I had lost. My anger returned, impossibly hotter than before, and this time with no target but myself.
I hated myself in that moment. I hated Precia, I hated the situation she had put me in, and I hated how I had given up on resisting, even just that little bit.
In that moment I resolved to get off this planet as soon as possible. To get somewhere else, anywhere else, because to stay on this planet would be to remind myself that I had submitted to Precia Testarossa.
Yes, it was stupid. Yes, it would help her far, far more than any satisfaction that I would gain in turn. But fuck it, every second that I spent on this planet had me itching,
At that moment, I broke a little bit.
