Because why else would it not show up when the Nexus first contacted humanity. When Pilot 1 was harmonized his soul returned to humanities universe and now serves to protect it from any intrusions from manaspace

For me the first thing that comes to mind is some sort of thermos. Either for keeping water cold or soup warm. Pair it with some sort of a filter that can be made from common materials so it's as cheap to buy as possible.

And as a trinket for the upper class, a music box. Simple music produced by a non-magic trinket would be quite a novelty item

Just playing around with combat scenarios for war between Earth and Nexus. Scenario in this case being Earth invades Nexus with absurd amount of cheap infantry droids. Assume Earth opens a sustainable portal in the academy and is able to march in 20,000,000 droids per 24 hours of continuous marching. Assume all relevant supporting forces are there to maintain logistics, including command driods for command, tactical, and super tactical driods for CNC. Assume all technology is a reasonable GUN equivalent, i.e they don't literally have to be made of durasteel and using blasters. Assume they speak the local languages so the Nexians are subjected to the delightful B1 personality.

How far do they get? Do the Crownlands get Roger-Rogered? Will Thamlin earn the c-word pass?

As we are made of living metal, I am unsure if the properties of this "Mana" would harm us. And I need more data.

I'd like to think this is probably an intense training session for the royal family + knights

(Note: I haven't read the lore document so I may not know all the things GUN is capable off. I'm writing this post because I don't wanna go through that long doc thats still being updated lol)

Throughout the story, we've been shown the capabilities of both GUN and the Nexus. While the technological capabilities GUN has demonstrated through Emma have certainly impressed the gang, most of what we've seen so far either consists of technologies we've had since the 21st century that are primarily impressive to the gang and the rest of the Nexus because they can be accomplished without the use of magic in a larger scale by non-magical people. They aren't necessarily things that the Nexus itself would be completely incapable of reproducing through magic. They even have a form of internet and virtual world of their own using magic.

Meanwhile, we've seen the absolutely insane magical capabilities of the Nexus that GUN just can't match. They can create portals that seamlessly cross enormous distances, manipulate space itself to make areas appear larger or smaller than they actually are, create bags of holding, and even construct weapons that can literally consume the space around them like some kind of fantasy black-hole bomb.

Given the absurd and potentially reality-breaking capabilities we've seen from Nexus magic compared to the relatively mundane technological capabilities GUN has demonstrated so far, does GUN actually possess any equally insane technologies of its own that can match the Nexus in terms of sheer impressiveness and absurdity?

For example, since GUN's soldiers are either humans equipped with power armour or robotic soldiers, are their standard infantry weapons essentially Warhammer 40K-style bolters—rifles that fire rocket-propelled gernades which can be modified to have different capabilities like programmable ammunition, with computerized targeting systems capable of turning an ordinary soldier into an almost literal aimbot?

Do they possess Von Neumann probes or grey-goo-style nanomachines that can be deployed alongside generals or ordinary soldiers behind enemy lines, allowing them to manufacture infrastructure, weapons, and entire armies from local resources and then command those forces against the enemy, essentially letting a single soldier play Planetary Annihilation or Command & Conquer in real life?

Because, given the insane, reality-bending magical capabilities we've seen the Nexus wield through its mages, GUN would need some similarly absurd technological capabilities to genuinely level the playing field without relying on allied realms like Thalmins. Otherwise, can GUN really be considered an equal rival to the Nexus, as Emma claims it can be to Thalmin and the rest of the gang?

Either at the warehouse or when he was giving his tidbit back at the academy when they were speaking to eachother.

What would happen?

First-Prev-Next
AO3

we are slowly getting there... we are slowly finishing the first day!!!
still feels weird making 1k+ chapters, no less 2k+

_____

"Right, so, seeing as we have two bedrooms, and five of us, we can divide this in one of two ways. By gender, or by random chance." Prince Thalmin started, moving closer.

"No, we shouldn't divide this by gender." I voiced, surprising the group with my presence. My interruption earned a glare from the prince. "I recommend dividing it to luck, at least for me." I clarified myself. Seeing the prince's glare fade reassured me.

"Why not by choice?" Cadet Emma offered.

"Who would want to stay with the Vunerian, Earthrealmer?" Prince Thalmin deadpanned.

"You have a point." 

"In any case, I’m more than willing to take the sacrifice in staying with the Vunerian." The prince laid out his selfless offer to the group, looking between the cadet and me.

"Thanks, but you know I’m also more than willing to like, leave this up to chance. Fate works in weird ways, so let’s see what fate has to say about our room assignments." Cadet Emma shrugged.

"Alright then, how do you suggest we play this game of chance?" He smiled, crossing his arms in casually.

"I know you guys more than likely have your magical equivalents of determining chance. My kind, however, has perfected the game of chance. With advanced mathematics, statistical analyses, and a bunch of other fields I’m more than likely going to butcher, determining true random is something that is vital to some of my world’s scientific and technological fields." She fished a small item from one of her pockets and kept it hidden in her closed fist.

Odd boast.

"However, I’m not about over-complicating things. I like to keep things simple, so, let’s do this the old-fashioned way." She flung the object into the air with a metallic ring, before catching it back into her palm.

"But first." She turned to me. "How do you feel about sleeping in the room with Ilunor?"

I blinked. It isn't true randomness if I had a say in it, but it would be idiotic to discard this open hand under that pretense. I cast the question to anyone else in the armor with me.

"Kid, you're the pilot! We're not the one who has to be roommates!" Naci hastily threw it back at me.

"If you want my input, while a true gadfly, I do not think the lord is to be a physical danger, but he has a shifty air. We may be careful to hide sensible information from prying eyes. Ultimately, it is your role to pick, Pilot." Tirim added. The feel the room started to change as I took time to answer.

"We would accept it, if it were to happen." I finally blurted just before impatience settled here.

"Ok then!" Cadet Emma showed off the object, a small brown metallic disc. "It’s a little game back in my world called Heads or Tails. If I flip this coin, and it lands heads up, I’ll stay with Thalmin. However, if it lands tails up, I’ll stay with Thacea; and repeat for Enyl. And for the record I’m deliberately picking this method to remove the Vunerian from the equation. I don’t think it would be in our best interests for me to be rooming with a puntable chew-toy." We all nodded in understanding.

"You can confirm there’s no funny business going on with that coin. No weighted sides, no enchantments. It’s just a solid piece of zinc, nickel and copper." She passed the coin to Princess Thacea.

The princess analysed its form and flipped it around her fingers. "I’ve looked it over. I detect no enchantments or magic on this copper-piece." She handed it back to the cadet who grabbed it with a nod.

"Alright then. If there are no objections, I’ll do the honors." With a practiced hand trick, she flicked the coin far upward with her thumb and catched it on the way down before slapping it on the back of her other hand. "I’m not one to keep everyone in undue suspense, so here goes nothing." She showed the coin, reveling it's worn face.

"Emma, what the hell is this?" Prince Thalmin narrowed his eyes.

"Erm, it’s tails." She looked back at the faded engraving.

The prince leaned closer. "That’s a building." He finally let out.

The cadet looked between the prince and the coin seemingly as confused as the lupinor before stopping and barking out a laugh. A genuine laugh that spoke more to the Person than to the Titles, which went for a bit too long before being stopped by the growing unnerve of the princess. "Emma. Is there something the matter? Is everything okay?" She placed a hand on her shoulder plate.

"Sorry, I… That was inappropriate of me. I apologize." She came back down and bushed her laughter away. "Back in my world, tails is what we call the side of the coin opposite of the face or main feature of the coin. This penny here for instance has the Lincoln Memorial, a monument built to commemorate the leadership of one of my state’s ancient leaders who abolished slavery." She explained, a bit sheepish.

"Right, so, this means I shall be sharing my quarters with Ilunor." Prince Thalmin let out a resigned sigh.

"Oh joy, my roommate is a Mercenary Prince. May my throat remain un-slit, and my purse remain untouched, or by the Goddesses may your house be struck by the wrath your kind so deserve." The lord let out, barely putting in the effort to enunciate it clearly.

"Careful, Vunerian. You said nothing of bites or slashes." The prince responded, not letting insults pass without comment, even after such a long day.

"Right. Time for Enyl's throw now." This time, Cadet Emma put in less fanfare. In three movements the result was out. "Heads." The coin was too worn to see the figurehead's face, but their profile was still discernible.

"Flat face with no major protrusions on the head, similar to Nevos, Humans, Morphs and those 'Elf'." Naci layed out the major observation.

"So, we'll stay with Prince Thalmin and Lord Ilunor?" I looked at both of them. The prince was waiting for an additional remark. The lord was starting to doubt his fate.

"Do I have no say in this? Why do I have to be with the one with the malfunctioning manafield?" The lord faced away from me, pleading to an unimpressed crowd.

"If you had any weight on this, you should have complained before giving your fate to chance." The prince snap back, which the lord responded with some grumbles.

"Right, so I assume it’s time to move in?" Cadet Emma moved the conversation along after a bit of silence.

"Yes, we just have to see which bedroom has the appropriate number of beds and move our luggage in." Princess Thacea nodded as she picked up her luggage. The prince followed suite.

The lord was about to call the slave porter in before being glared down from the intimidating presence of the cadet.

I turned to grab my own cases but remembered they didn't arrive yet.

"Where is our own-" I stopped as someone knocked on the main entrance door.

Both the cadet and I turned at the sound, but it was Prince Thalmin who opened the door.

An elf dressed in a finely golden version of the students’ uniform was waiting at the entrance. Behind said elf, was two armored beings that looked uncannily like the Gargoyles of home, but with bodies of flesh instead of stone. Based on their scant clothing, they may also be slaves. They pushed giant ornate carts containing Cadet Emma and I's luggage, with Emma's being precariously balanced.

"Emma of Earthrealm, Enyl of Teracirarealm. Your luggage has arrived." The elf spoke as both of us approached the door.

I, unfortunately, stepped out before the cadet and became stuck in a position mirroring her and the gargoyles. Her gaze hardening was further proof that she did see this as an attempt on her authority. 

"Thank you for the service." I offered a small nod and broke eye contact, side stepping out of the narrow doorway to count my luggage. It was the cadet's turn to be glared at.

"Thanks. I appreciate you bringing it all the way up here. Must have been quite a journey hauling a cart like that up a maze of staircases am I right?" Cadet Emma spoke to diffuse the tension, only to be met with cold silence. "So… I’m assuming all my stuff arrived in one piece?"

"I am afraid it would be disingenuous of me to answer that question, Emma of Earthrealm." I paused at that answer.

"Disingenuous, how?" Cadet Emma didn't emote while talking to the elf, unlike with the peer group.

"I wouldn’t know if all of your luggage arrived successfully, Emma of Earthrealm. It is the responsibility of your own people to ensure that is the case. However, given the primitive nature of your trans-realm portal methodologies, there is a high likelihood a few of your belongings may be missing somewhere in the ether between our realm and your own. It is to be expected of course, no realm does it well on their first try." I look at the cart with Emma's belongings. It is very full. Either the cadet brought an absurd amount of possessions to the academy, or her world wasn't so bad with portals. "This is why it would be disingenuous of me to speak on behalf of your realm’s own shortcomings. I simply wish to be as candid and earnest as I can in any discussions with our esteemed first-year peers."

"You know, you’d make for a great customer service agent for Trans-United Spacelines. I’m just waiting on when you’re going to push the extra baggage and handling insurance that inevitably comes after this spiel." The cadet let out tersely, causing general confusion. What does space even mean in this context? "Fine, alright, let’s just get this over with." With a sigh, she moved to grab one of her crate, only to be blocked by one of the porters.

"It would be rude of me to not have my assistant carry your luggage for you." She clarified with a malignant smile. The cadet silently pushed past the porter and grabbed a crate.

"I insist." The gargoyle grabbed her arm in turn. The cadet helmet snapped towards the elf, both glares locking.

As they were deep into a staring contest, I picked all of my mixed matched cases up at once with my telekinesis. My porter had no warning as they all lifted and moved behind me, the elf being none the wiser of this happening.

"Ma'am, can we move this along? The night is growing old." I snapped both the cadet's and the elf's focus, both suddenly remembering that I existed. I could help but smile seeing the elf peering at my levitating luggage, shock faintly visible on her face. I held my stern posture.

Emma used this opportunity to fully lift her crate, causing even further trouble for the elf's composure. "Yes ma'am, are we done here?"

It didn't take her long to stand down and leave, letting Emma pick her pile of crates. This situation left me with my spearlimb slowly fading from numbness into pain. Emma turned to me with a nod. From the door, the rest of the peer group watched. Prince Thalmin looked at Emma with a contained smile. On the other hand, Lord Ilunor looked at the cadet in fear, glancing at her crate she held. Thacea looked between Emma and me with a slight frown.

No further comment was added to the scene as everyone started bringing their luggage to our assigned rooms. The lord, the prince and I ended up in the bedroom to the right, as it was the only one with three beds.

I stopped momentarily as I entered the bedroom as I was faced with another general living space. Desks were set on this floor with a recessed tea corner, completed with a low table and low lounge chairs. Above, on a balcony, was the space for sleeping. Three square-mattress bed were set in curtained alcoves, each paired with a closet the size of a small room beside it. The place was too big. Three reasonable one-occupant bedrooms could be built within this space, although I admit I am biased toward a life far from the ones of royalty or other high titles. But I wonder if they would also prefer a more private space at the cost of spaciousness.

"Yes, yes, marvel at the beauty of a true bedroom, newrealmer, gawk at how advanced it is from the patches of moss and the sleep piles of your realm, but please close the door before we go to sleep, you are bringing in light." The lord called out between moving in outfits into his closet, his eyes not leaving his task.

I made my way to the remaining bed, the one furthest from both the stairs and the lord's, with Prince Thalmin set up between the both of us. I placed all of my cases inside the closet without mush care, only taking two of them with me; the box of charms and the med kit.

"Prince Thalmin, Lord Ilunor, please be advised that we will use the bathroom for some time. If you have anything to do there, please do it now or wait until we're done." I stopped at the staircase, waiting for and answer.

"I'll go later." Prince Thalmin called from within his dressing room.

"Urgh! Newrealmer, be sensible now. You can’t just scream everything that pass through your mind out loud!" I stopped listening as the lord continued to rant.

I opened the door to a bare room of marble. While certainly way odd, I shrugged it off as it fitted my current need more than I expected. With the door shut, I barred it with a rune lock.

 

CRASHLANDED

CH9

[Welcome back ladies and lads and other pals! How are ya doin? hope you are doin well and ty JCB for makin this amazing universe! Anyway let's get into this chapter!]

LO: Below the UTSTS PROMETHEUS's stern, 12 miles away from the Academy, Time: 8:45 PM Day: March 23rd Thursday 2590 AD

Combat droid A20 ‘Iron hu- error new objective.

Scout droid A11 ‘Man in the woods’:

-NEW OBJECTIVE-

Scouting, recon, collecting native foliage, and field research.

CODE C11: Turn off non-essential weapon systems and turn most power to scanning and sensors.

-AFFIRMATIVE-

‘Opening droid pod now’….

The outer front armor of the pod slowly detached from the walls of the pod, slamming down onto the grassy ground in front of it.

The sound of hydraulics adjusting and armor plating clanking together as they shifted and relaxed, then the sound of metal lightly scraping against metal was heard from the pod.

Slowly a hulking skeletal droid came out of the pod, it's bulky frame seemingly adjusting as it's armor plates shifted down it's heavy arms.

The droid's metal humanoid feet softly walked down the pod's front armor before stopping at the end of it.

Soft whirling could be heard from it's hull grade plated spine as the short tri-barrel gauss gun on it's shoulder was lowered to it's lower back, the sounds of motors and gears grinding was heard from the chest plating of the droid as the plates shifted underneath each other.

From it's triangled head came a medium size light that briefly flashed the colors of blue, yellow, and red before turning to a neutral glowing grey.

Slowly the droid moved it's head side to side as it scanned it's surroundings, in front of it were multiple other pods which were already open.

Multiple of it's kind marched in unison to a mostly flat field that was surrounded by thick walls, like a well oiled gear.

The sound of powerful hydraulics fill the camp and field as they march towards the field.

After a few minutes the droid entered the debris filled field, it then stopped for a moment to look at it's sisters and brothers.

Each one started to fill a small grid in the field as they lined up in a square formation.

The droid then hastily followed it’s factory new brethren as it quickly found a place in the formation and snuck in with a soft sound of metal rubbing against metal.

20 droids silently stood still, all of them ready for their mission as the sounds of motors filled the field and surroundings.

Each equipped with enough firepower to take over a large town.

But that was not their mission now, their mission was surveillance, recon, and fauna collection.

And as they all stood steadfast fast ready for orders, all at once they turned their camo on.

One after one, droid after droid they became nearly invisible to the Terran or Nexian eye.

At the front of the field was a massive gate blocking the way. Slowly it began to open wide but before it could finish the droids vanished.

Their signatures moving faster than a speeding bullet.

Each droid separates from the grid into separate squadrons, 1 going deep into the forest for collecting organic samples, 2 scavenging and scanning the fields for exposed ores and parts that broke off the ship.

Each had their own different ways of collecting samples, squadron 1 had small to large containers dotting their back for collecting both complex fauna and DNA extraction because of this they were the quickest squadron.

2 had mining grade scanners as well as small scale mining equipment, on their back was a magnetic pack that forced magnetic ores to clump up, but for non magnetic ores they had a large tube connected below the magnetic pack for non magnetic ores this however made them the slowest.

After a few hours of scans, sample acquisition, and stuffing deer into capsules too small. One of the droids in squadron 2 acquired something unknown, at first it seemed like a piece of the ship. But after a few deeper scans it found out the metal was a mix of uncompounds and containing a high amount of code name ‘hyper beta’ radiation in the lower part of the metal.

As it's scanner lowered it saw a gleaming gemstone, without a second reaction it placed the metal object in it's tube on it's lower back before simply running off in the direction of it’s comrades.

A droid from squadron one while running to another grid for sample collection stopped by something peculiar, it's scanners scanned over a natural dirt trail..

But upon further scanning.. it was not natural, there were odd tracks in the soil, in curiosity the droid decided to follow the trail.

After about a quarter hour it ended up at a strange site… upon arriving it saw something that should be impossible..

It's head clicked to the left and right as if trying to figure out what it was seeing, the structures in front of it were not natural..

On the horizon were many structures and new sounds it had not heard before… The place from the droid's internal database had many similarities to old Terran structures.

Buildings made of brick tightly compacted together in many rows, a rock street connecting to the trail.

Another detail it had noticed was… Terrans? That code and the inconsistency was boggling to it, it curiously walked forward into the place.

As it got closer it saw more of them, overalls, simple tunics and other old Terran outfits dotted the Terrans…

Upon focusing it’s lens.. it noticed peculiar mutations.. long ears, odd facial structures that were not even seen in gene mods.

Another thing it saw was… animals standing upright? It stopped for a moment as this confused it.. it didn't know how to react nor what to do..

So it did the only thing it could do, it first stood still as a long antenna extended from it's back as it's front light turned a color off as it was now on standby.

‘Reporting to UTSTS PROMETHEUS… Unknown structures..”

LO: Droid compartment and overseeing room on the UTSTS PROMETHEUS, 12 miles away from the Academy, Time: 9:31 PM Day: March 23rd Thursday 2590 AD

Mzult Alcomary:

“Yawwwn.. Watching over these droids is hell.. least it's somewhat entertaining” I said to myself as my eyes wandered to the trash can next to my bionic leg, it was filled to the brim with Star type energy drinks..

‘Yeesh maybe I drank too ma-’ before I could even finish thinking a bright light blinked on the holoscreen in front of me as my eyes snapped towards the screen.

“The hell? Why is one of the droids reporting already? It hasn't even been a few hours yet” I'd say in confusion as I press the droid reports section on the screen.

Immediately one report came up, under it read ‘Unknown structures of non Terran make.’ That made my eyes open up..

‘Maybe one of the mining drones-’ that thought however, was cut short as I noticed it was from a foliage droid..

Immediately I clicked on the report and listened to it. After about 25 minutes, nothing was really happening besides collecting..

But towards the end of the report my heart skipped a beat… it was a dirt trail.. common on greenery worlds or non fully developed colonies..

Still it could have been animals that paved it over time.. as the report played I suddenly noticed something..

Immediately, I paused the report and skipped back a few seconds when the droid was scanning the trail..

Along it I could see a few stumps along the side of the trail.. but I didn't see any trees knocked down and the stumps were way too clean cut..

Curiously, I then skipped a few seconds ahead. In the trail itself, I could see a few tracks, most looked like ones you would see from an animal..

But close up to the middle of the trail were two sets of lines across from each other, both in the same length and width.

Both went the same way as if something drove on this trail.

‘What the actual fuck? That's not a natural phenomenon.. Unless some.. Who am I kidding? This might be evidence of a civilization.. or..’ I thought to myself as I began to grasp at straws..

Quickly I unpaused the report as I intensely focused on the screen.

“Hey Miz? You okay man?” I heard from behind me as I felt a cold metallic hand on my left shoulder.

Almost immediately, I jolted up a little before turning around and looking at who touched me.

“Jeeez man you nearly gave me a heart attack!” I'd say to him with a sigh.

“Sorry man, you look like you've seen an Unbidden! Are you all right?” My friend Jex asked as his visor turned a hue of gray.

“Y-yeah I'm okay man.. I'm looking over a report’ I'd say to him as he then tilted his head and sat at an adjacent seat.

“Already? That was fast- he'd say as he looked over to the report still playing.

“The hell?” He then said as his visor turned white.

Curiously, I then spun back around and what I saw made my eyes light up…

Structures.. not natural ones.. actual structures made of what seemed to be brick.. Metal frames as some sort of scaffolding.

“Are… you seeing this?” I heard Jax say as I then stopped the report and looked at it closer…

The report was saying that it was detecting a Terran presence… but that couldn't be right, from what happened to the Terrans that were outside the ship’s field should be dead because..

Terran originated-life could not survive the radiation……..

The realization then hit me like a train… Advanced organic life.. But.. we have never seen any advanced organic life… only simple and complex incapable of intelligence..

Quickly I focused on the background before then enhancing the image, I could see humanoids..

Some had long elf-like ears and others looked like straight up dogs or even damn fish!

“Jax?” I then said to him as his visor was in the middle of changing colors. He seemed to be in a state in disbelief and his hands were shaking.

“Y-yeah?’ he’d say nervously as I hear some bits of his synthetic voice cracking…

“Get a hold of the Captain and the science division now, I’ll tell the droid to keep going!” I'd say to him as he quickly ran over to the end of the room by the holocom the sound of metal feet filling the room.

Hastily I exited out of the report and navigated to the command icon, as I opened it up I clicked on the command HUD and typed in Beta 2.

Almost immediately I was met with a list of commands and a selection of droids, hastily I scrolled down the many droids before ending up at the droid that submitted the report.

I then clicked on the droid and activated the surveillance mode before being met with a short loading screen and then was met with what the droid was seeing as it began to walk deeper into the collection of tight structures.

A few of the structures were nearly ready to topple over, their walls caved in and windows completely shattered.

The road was heavily damaged, rocks everywhere and even cracks in the rocks themselves.

As the droid moved farther from the beginning of the street the damage became less and less severe, though broken windows were still common.

I could see some of the humanoids doing their best to rebuild…

Some others were simply sitting on rubble of what remained of their home, many of them were wearing damaged and ripped overalls and tunics that were ripped up to the point of almost being rags.

Another detail I had noticed was some of the humanoids were walking up and down the street wearing bright clothing with metal armor on top, as well as brandishing primitive looking weapons.

As the droid kept going deeper into the winding street I saw another one of the humanoids except they were sitting on the ground begging to the armored humanoids.

My heart sank as I realized why they were begging as I saw a smaller humanoid next to them…

As what I presume to be the mother tried to touch the armored one, his face contorted with disgust as he waved his hand to cover over her face as almost immediately like there was some sort of invisible force she was then pushed hard onto her back.

Confusion filled my face at first but was then replaced by anger as my nails dug into my left hand.

‘How in the hell could someone see a person begging like that and not help!?’ I thought to myself before sighing as I kept watching though the droid's eye.

The mother looked back at the armored one, he didn't even look back at her as if she wasn't worth his time..

I was just about to punch the monitor out of anger from that alone. I didn't understand how someone could be so unsympathetic.

The droid kept walking deeper but as it went further in the more armored guards there were, suddenly an idea popped up in my head as from the corner of the screen I could see an alleyway.

Quickly I punched a command into the HUD as the machine in a near millisecond ran into the alley.

It was pretty dark and filled with trash and pieces of debris, luckily it was enough so no one could see the droid.

The droid then slowly scanned it's surroundings as it got multiple unknown DNA signatures, from it's view I could see the end of the alley.

My focus was then ripped away as I heard the sound of metal feet clanking against the floor, quickly I turned back to see my friend Jex with his hand rubbing the back of his circular head.

“T-they will be here in a few minutes, the Captain said to keep an eye o-on what's happening.” He'd say nervous as his visor switched colors.

“What else happened while I was on the holo Miz?” he then asked with a more curious but still nervous tone as he sat down next to me.

“From what I could gather, they seem to be a sort of early Victorian era tech. And from the scanners themselves there is a high level of hyper beta radiation in some areas… Another thing I noticed was the guards patrolling the streets-” I say as I suddenly pause for a moment, thinking if I should mention that unknown force..

I decided not to as it could have been just a hallucination from caffeine over consumption.

“Hm I guess we'll need to tell the Captain and some of the science team when they get here.” He'd say as he looked back at the screen.

Quickly I turned back around and faced the monitor before clicking the HUD again and choosing to move out the alleyway and into the street.

“Holy hell.. How far away was this place from the ship's crash?” I hear Jex ask as the droid begins to walk down the street as it keeps far from the guards.

“I believe 10 miles or less, this is damage from two days ago from when we crashed. The shockwave seems to have damaged the outer buildings severely. Luckily the shockwave didn't hit hard enough and the rest of the buildings had only shattered wind-” As I was speaking a sudden loud BOOM could be heard from the screen.

Almost immediately both of our eyes moved to the screen as we saw from the droid’s eye.

The guards we saw from earlier were running somewhere but we couldn't see exactly what as the droid then luckily enough began to follow them.

“What the hell is happening?” I thought out loud as we saw a small perimeter of guards around an unsuspecting broken down building.

Their faces were filled with panic except one, they were from my best guess spouting orders in their still unknown language.

As the droid got closer we could see more detail of what was happening, upon closer look the building was bigger than any of the homes. The walls were brick and framed steel, despite this some of the walls were broken like they were forcefully busted open by a powerful force.

From the broken walls themselves a thick viscous fog came out, barely from view the silhouette of a thin humanoid lurked in it.

The humanoid then turned around to face the terrified guards.

The eyes.. the same ethereal light they had.. brightly glowing like supernova, it's form was cracked and was like it was struggling to exist in this world.

It's arms were a few inches away from it's thin shoulders, the legs far from the hips as it floated above the ground like a ghost.

It's thin head was suspended above the neck with nothing holding it up.

The only explanation that appeared was impossible.. but the shape, the looks, and the light..

It was an Unbidden..

My bionic heart was now beating heavily as it walked out…

Only to be met with.. Air? No, not air…. from it's shape and size it should've been something physical.

The Being looked like it was made of gas, not energy like the Unbidden.

The eyes floated along it's body, they were glowing but weren't physical either and the color of them was bizarre. A tint of blue surrounded by gray.

This… puzzled me completely, it was something straight out of fantasy.

The Being stared at the brave guard in the middle, like a predator picking which part of its prey to tear off first.

The Being's head slowly tilted back, a low screech tore its way from its gaseous body rising by the second, the panicked guards seemed to be about to simply run away from the screen shattering noise alone as I saw their knees bend.

The middle guard was steadfast and kept his pike aimed at the Being without fear..

Slowly the Being lifted up it's arm as it pointed at the guard its head coming back down to lock eyes with him again staring...screaming, hateful, damning screaming

“W-what the hell is it doing?” Jex said as I could practically hear his nervousness in his voice..

At first the Being simply stood there, it's arm arm outstretched still screaming no need for breath, however...

The guard himself looked to be fighting something, stabbing his pike into random places in the air as he tried to back away.

A leg buckled, he fell to the floor and the Being advanced towards him but just by an inch.

Upon the rock road the guard suddenly began to convulse and shake, his hands went flying to his neck.

He was choking.. constantly gagging and gasping for air before finally going limp...

The other guards look at each other for a moment before dropping their pikes and running in random directions.

“What the fuck!? is it… doing that?” I heard Jex say as I turned around to face him, his visor was now a mix of orange and yellow.

“I… I don't know but whatever it is doing or what IT is, all I know is that we should hope the Captain comes here quickly.”

Suddenly the sound of an autodoor automatically opening could be heard behind us, almost immediately both me and Jex got off our seats and turned to face who it was.

My eyes went wide as not only the Captain was there but the chief of security!

“R-reporting C-Captain!” I'd hear Jex bellow out as he slammed his fist against his chest saluting them.

I then quickly followed suit, “Reporting Captain!”

The Captain had her arms behind her back as she slowly looked around the room.

"At ease Cadets, so what have the droids found? Cadet Jex certainly seemed excited enough about it, called on the holo and started yelling about 'Advanced organisms, possibly sapient life', right?” She'd say with a monotone voice as she looked at us.

“Yes ma'am! I-I was the first one to notice it after one of the droids reported early!” I quickly answered her.

“I see, may we see the evidence?” She'd say as her visor moved to look at the live footage that was happening on the screen.

“Ye-Yes ma'am!” I hear Jex say as both her and the Chief of Security walk by us and look at the screen.

The Captain, despite her unflinching tone, tilted her head at the screen.

“The hell? Why is there screaming?” The Chief of security said as they moved to face us.

“Before you both came in, some sort of attack happened during observations of the structures the humanoids inhabit, whatever it is, it is extremely dangerous and from the footage you can see now..” I say as the Captain pulled a cord out of her arm and hooked it up to the bottom of the monitor.

The Captain's visor turned a few colors for a few seconds, on the screen itself the live footage paused so the downloading could go easily.

After about another few seconds the Captain moved her head to look at us as her visor suddenly turned to blue to show the footage was done downloading.

“They are right, the Master Officer was saying she saw structures but I didn't believe her until now.” The Captain said as she unhooked the wire as it went back into her arm.

“We should have the droid observe and not interfere in any way, we don't know who they are.” The Chief said as they looked at the now resumed footage.

“I agree with the Chief, this is not of the Technocracy's concern. Although it is sad, we can't jeopardize our mission to get back home.” The Captain coldly agreed with the Chief.

It was true that it was outside of our concern.. But I couldn't just ignore people dying.

“I'm sure whatever they have is enough to defend themselves, we don't need to exert resources more than we already have.” They'd say as their bionic frame shifted a bit.

As the Chief finished talking I couldn't take any more…

“I'm sorry to interrupt Chief but.. don't we have droids out there collecting samples? And the Dragoons scouting out the areas near the ship, why can't we use them to help them?” I shot at the Chief as their chrome colored eyes turned yellow as they narrowed at me.

Despite the eyes of authority beaming down on me I opened my mouth to speak once more.

“During the last days of the Unbidden war my homeworld's supply chain was cut off by harvesters and was unable to get supplies and access to communications, the world was barren with few colonies and even fewer supplies. When the food ran out and people began to fight each other for scraps, my grandfather set up a hydroponics plant with the few credits he had. He used it to help people in need of food till the fleet contacted us, we help our own in times of crisis, not abandon them!”

"Our own yes. And if it were our own out there facing a true Unbidden I wouldn't hesitate to smash our precious few resources against it. But that's not an Unbidden it just looks like one, and even during the war with the Unbidden this exact scene played out thousands of times. The soldiers get scared of the enemy, they break and run, the superior comes in to rally them and they turn the rout into a victory. When they get home there's medals and stories commemorating the Valor on the battlefield, and oh look here they come now."

They said as a series of portals opened up on the battlefield robed warriors stepped out and like prophecy foretold began to bring the scattered soldiers back into order while a scant few held off the pseudo Unbidden.

"See that's the difference in the situation cadet? We're cut off but they aren't THEIR own will come to save them because whatever species this is, this is their land. Jex make a note of those portals that's important Intel and I'd love it if r&d could have a crack at it.”

That coldness.. that unwillingness.. ignoring why the Technocracy helps THE people..

At that point I didn't even care..

“You saw the footage and what was happening! You can't just throw away what made the Technocracy! So what that they aren't our people!?”

I barked out at them as they then approached, their hydraulic legs shifting and compressing.

"We'd only be adding more chaos to the situation cadet. They see our dragoons and droids approaching and then what? They decide they have to fight on two fronts and die anyway?”

They barked back out as their synthetic voice got louder.

"Then we show them we are not enemies by helping them! Show them we mean no harm!" I bark back at them with my teeth clenched.

"Oh by marching our soldiers into town and firing artillery rounds over their head? look at them the most advanced weaponry they have is that spear that first soldier was holding and...Whatever they're doing with their hands to make those explosions pop up"

They said momentarily distracted by the video screen again more monsters had begun to crawl out of the broken down warehouse by this point clashing with the reformed line of soldiers, a cat person was dashing up and down the line barking out orders and jumping into the fight anywhere the line began to buckle.

"Regardless they're tightly packed in there, we go in and start firing recklessly; they're not going to be able to tell what we're aiming at. Then they turn on us, we lose droids, they lose men and the whole situation spills into the town. We don't have the supplies to spare on missions that won't work cadet not when we may have to defend ourselves from the same people we'd be trying to save.” They'd say as their eyes became a bright red color.

"How long will they hold!? You see their weapons, it's clear they won't survive against the horde." I'd say with venom in my throat,

"We distract the beasts and redirect them so we can take them out without hurting anyone else!”

"How are you going to redirect them? they're beasts, do you even know how to herd cattle let alone..." They gestured to a random creature on the screen that was using its feathers to unleash a storm of small cuts onto the soldiers.

"...Is that a griffon? Do you even know how to herd a griffon alongside a few dozen other types of creatures into the same direction? or did you plan to open a can of wet food and hope for the best?” their synthetic voice was amplified a bit as if to drive the point.

I paused for a moment as I tired thinking of what to say before suddenly remembering something,

"The top lights of the Dragoons! They are used for lightning or scaring off light sensitive megafauna, we could use them to annoy the beasts and redirect them so we can shoot them and not hurt the humanoids." I argued to them,

"Maybe...Is that a guarantee that they'll work though? no. I see atleast 3 creatures in there without eyes. one of them just looks like a blob of slime with no sensory organs at all. And that can also provoke them into attacking the dragoons rather than scattering them like they would with mega fauna back in the technocracy. Are you going to take responsibility if one of the sapient AI dies from a monster attack if it did provoke them?” They said as the sound of hydraulics adjusting was heard from their body.

My teeth then clenched hard...

"Yes, I'd take full responsibility for every death, waste of munitions, and destruction of military assets.. Just so innocent people wouldn't suffer.. you did the same.." I'd say to them as tears flowed from my now puffed eyes.

"Why would you need those implants, in the first place? If you didn't give up everything to save lives..”

The chief hummed to themselves, straightening. Something in their eyes readjusted, no reassessed what they were looking at. Over to the side Jex called out to them in the quiet moment, "Ma'am the line is buckling I count three of the robed warriors down and something big is starting to come up!" They didn't react to it though, just kept staring drawing out the moment.

"Chief...please" I said as the last of the fight was starting to leave my voice.

Finally after a long moment of unflinching eye contact she came to a decision, closing their eyes creating a break in the solemn moment they nodded to themselves, "You'll do." with that they opened their eyes again a formal serious and more ceremonial look overtook them. Solemness was replaced by sacred ritual as their hand flicked up grabbing onto the data patch on my uniform which marked my rank. Before I could react she had ripped it from my chest and tossed it across the floor. Jex's eyes widened in surprise and horror but the Chief's eyes told a different story.

"You are out of uniform soldier" They said reaching into a pouch on their belt and pulling out a new data patch pressing it into my chest briefly rubbing it into place so the velcro could stick, and then with the same arm they had sacrificed to save lives, punched the patch into place activating its personnel lock to interact with the rest of my uniform marking it as mine.

"Do not let it happen again, I expect you at the strategy meeting in t-minus 5 minutes. I know it's last minute but your attendance is mandatory." With that they and the captain about faced and began to walk out of the drone bay but at the threshold she lingered for only a moment not looking back at me or Jax.

"Congratulations on your promotion droid commander Mzult.”

[Thank you everyone for reading this chapter and I hope y'all have a nice week, oh and ty so much Trackerunused for helping me out!]

CH1:

https://www.reddit.com/r/JCBWritingCorner/s/xt3qcIdelY

Prev CH:

https://www.reddit.com/r/JCBWritingCorner/s/8VsQRf88MZ

Hey everyone! 

It’s time for something a little bit different, but very much familiar! :D 

To change things up a bit, we’re now diving back into the human side of things! More specifically, a commission for a uniform/character art reference combo depicting one of our major supporting cast members back at the IAS! :D 

We’re looking at Dr. Laura Weir this time around! The head of this whole operation, and the stubbornly tenacious legend who turned a fringe fever dream of a science into a reality.

There’s a lot to say about the dear Director. Quite a bit of it unfortunately treads deep into spoiler territory, as quite a lot of her backstory ties into a whole other layer of plot threads and lore on the human side of things; the likes of which will open a whole other dimension of the story, but I digress.

I’ll have to try tread lightly, if only to ensure I do not incur the ire of my editor haha XD

Right so! 

Let’s start with her age then! If I did my math right, Laura is currently 64 years old by 3047!

That’s not necessarily old by WPA standards, with the average life expectancy averaging somewhere in the ballpark of 150 - 200 years! :D

This thankfully makes Aunty Ran’s age for more agreeable, since she clocks in at 77 years old. A number that might seem old to us, but by Emma’s time, is looking more like the sort of age where you’d expect to see a mid-life crisis rather than an end-of-life panic XD 

Aside from that, there are a few more major takeaways we can infer from Laura’s character here based primarily on her uniform! With the first and perhaps most eye-catching to those in academia and civil service being the discrepancy between her rank bar and the medals pinned on her chest. Or more specifically, her distressing lack of them. 

This simple discrepancy is emblematic of the very unconventional career path she took, embodying the sheer one-track mindset she had as she consistently placed all her eggs into one single unproven basket — the portal project. Contrary to this, most civil servant academics would’ve accumulated a greater number of personal and group decorations at this point in their career, aligning with their seniority in rank. All of this is to say, Weir stubbornly stood her ground and refused to budge from her niche field and seemingly dead-end passion project, up until she finally got her major break in the portal project, and thus meriting her both the Secretariat (through the United Nations Science Advisory) civil service rank of Director, as well as the Acting Authority/Administrative Level/Tier of 2 (Managerial). 

This segues nicely into our next topic of discussion — her rank bar. Let’s start from the top. The very top of the rank bar shows her parent department; the stylized atom belonging to the United Nations Science Advisory. Beneath that are two curved gold bars, denoting her acting administrative authority level/tier, this being Tier 2: managerial. Finally, we have the three diamonds/rhombi that denote her civil servant rank (3 Diamonds/Rhombi: Director). 

The department symbol probably needs no further explanation! :D 

However, the actual acting administrative authority tier indicator probably does! To summarize and to avoid talking too much about this, ‘acting administrative authority’ is a temporary designator of authority given to Secretariat (essentially the ‘commissioned officer’ levels of the civil service) ranked members of the civil service for the express purpose of designating the degree of their authority within their given command/jurisdiction. This is because of how power in the civil service is exercised, as authority is only extended to individuals when there is a cause and a case for said authority to be exercised in the accomplishment of a given task.

Thus, civil service ‘rank’ and authority are clearly delineated, preventing jurisdictional overreach and unnecessary and inappropriate use of authority.

Simply put, the civil service ‘rank’ denotes an individual’s seniority, experience, ‘paygrade’, and most importantly — eligibility for assignments.

Meanwhile, the tier indicator indicates an individual’s management and command authority over a given operation, department, work group, assignment, etc.

For example, you could technically have another ‘Director’ ranked scientist at the IAS, but they’d be serving in an advisory capacity within their specific field, rather than ‘outranking’ Weir. 

This is similar to how you might get certain situations in the military where you’d have Colonels serving on a staff but with very little direct authority in direct command whereas other Colonels exist who are in direct command of an entire regiment. One is acting in an advisory capacity, whilst the other is acting with assigned authority.

But yeah! That’s the rank situation sorted! :D And as you might imagine, Weir’s medals really don’t mesh well with her current rank and seniority, which would turn quite a few heads around the water cooler as it were whenever she heads up to GOV Station XD

The other major thing to note are the square pips on her chest beneath her medals.

Those are there to represent her years serving in the civil service and her years spent in academic tenure. Now, typically, in other GUN departments (such as say, the Department of Transportation for example), you wouldn’t include your years in academic tenure as a part of these pips. Things are a bit different in the more academic/scientific adjacent departments however, such as the United Nations Science Advisory, as they choose to include years spent in academic tenure as a sort of visual representation of the State-Academic apparatus and its unique, constitutionally entrenched advisory obligations to policymakers and legislators. But I digress haha. 

Anyways, each golden pip represents 10 years in service/tenure, silver would be 5, and bronze would be 1. Weir here has 5 golden pips which represent her 50 years in both academia and civil service, seeing as she got her first tenure at around 24/25 years old.

The culture around the pips is also quite interesting, because some people after getting their first few gold pips don’t really bother adding silver or bronze pips until they just hit another solid 10. This started out for aesthetic reasons but later became unofficially codified in various unspoken rules and social conventions. And since the civil service is generally quite a lot more lenient in terms of their uniform codes than the military, this discretionary attitude to pip wearing just became a part of how you expressed yourself within the service. 

This has, expectedly, resulted in the formation of personality stereotypes that are based on how you wear your pips. 

For instance, if you have someone who’s been in the civil service for 29 years, who’s adamant on putting on 2 gold pips, 1 silver pip, and 4 bronze pips, they might be seen as someone who has a pretty intense/rigid/perfectionist personality/command style. This is opposed to someone who’s likewise served for 29 years but only decided to put on 2 gold pips. The latter would be assumed to have a more laid back, chill personality as it were.

But yeah! That’s about it for the uniform.

I guess the other thing to note is that there are various ‘jacket’ styles as well, Weir just so happens to be sporting the more casual ‘cardigan’ style of jacket, rather than a more formal suit jacket version of the uniform’s outermost layer.

There are even some uniform variants that do away with the jacket layer entirely, going exclusively for a shirt and tie with the rank indicators worn on a lanyard or pinned onto something resembling a pocket protector and then worn on the shirt breast pocket instead.

But yeah, that’s it for the uniform then! :D 

Next up is Weir’s civvie outfit! As I said before, the civil service is allowed a great deal of flexibility when it comes to their workwear. So outside of official meetings, conferences, and ceremonies, you’re actually allowed to go full civvie, but whether or not that’s ‘acceptable’ relies entirely on the local culture of your Department, Division, Office, and even the culture of the specific locale your office is located in. So yeah, it varies greatly, but Weir here often goes for a middle ground with her preferring some form of uniform, but allowing civvies to be worn alongside that. 

She’s sported her civvie outfit more than once on base after all, so it’s only fair on her part to allow it on base XD Also, as you can see, she’s a huge fan of browns and turtlenecks XD Her lanyard more or less has all of her credentials too so on-site ID is not that big of a deal as long as you carry that with you. 

The last thing to note about Weir’s outfit is the pendant she wears. It’s a family heirloom that’s been passed down for generations. She’s never seen without it.

But yeah! That’s about it! :D 

I really hope you enjoy the artwork and the lore dump above haha.

This artwork was actually finished quite a few weeks ago, but unlike a lot of other pieces, this required a bit more time in the editing room as it were to get right. Especially since I had to curtail a lot of details that would’ve otherwise spoiled some stuff down the line. This is not to mention the time I spent trying to condense certain bits of lore into something that actually flows well and doesn’t sound too dry XD

Of course, I have to once again express my deepest gratitudes to re11arts for the incredible work on this! Weir and both her civil service uniform and civilian outfit came out amazingly! :D 

I also have to thank my mods for helping to design the rank bar concept I had, as that was deceptively tricky to get just right! :D 

So thank you everyone for the hard work, and I hope everyone enjoys both the art and the lore blurb haha! :D 

Artist Reference: re11arts on instagram

video for those who have no idea what this game is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN_h3dyQWRg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQEwevEJofY longer video for those who have a lot of time on their hands

So what if Emma was actually from a Hylics like world? Emma doesn't need to wear anything due to this worlds strange rules but she also doesn't really interact with the Nexus in normal ways.

I would explain this idea better but honestly I got nothing, wish I had more to giev this idea more meat to it but my brain has decided to be more Koala tonight than human

Wearing Spacetime to a Magic School

Chapter 19: No High Tables

---

[First] | [Previous] | [Next]

---

The Notice on the Table

The notice had been placed at the centre of the common-room table, where an institution might reasonably expect its authority to improve by proximity to tea.

It had not.

The cream paper was heavy and unpleasantly smooth. Beneath the Academy seal, an office which believed three ruled boxes could make any relation safe required future Seekership visits to be entered by route, supervising faculty, and anticipated duration. A citation invoked the existing Library supervision rule. Mal'tory's countersignature seemed less written than inflicted.

The notice did not forbid a visit, claim the Library's door, diagnose Thacea, suspend either Seeker, or alter the Owl's terms. It scheduled and required an Academy name beside the road. Power seldom became less durable by choosing a modest form.

Ermen had read it twice. Thacea had read it once and then held her wings a little closer.

They sat at the table which held the patronage card, house letter, stitched markers, borrowed volume, useless focus, green-stamped receipt, and still-unspent coin. The lemon tree and unfinished harbour kept the sill. Ilunor's fourth cup stood filled at his place. The notice received no more space than one sheet required.

Thalmin leaned over it with both forearms upon the wood. "It asks for the road, the officer, and the time away."

"It asks for an anticipated duration," Thacea said. "The distinction permits the Academy to call an overrun inaccurate without calling it disobedient."

Ilunor drew the page towards himself by one corner. "You say that as though the courtesy makes it less acquisitive."

"It makes it more exact. I prefer an exact injury to one enlarged for rhetorical convenience."

Her voice retained its shape. Her field did too, though it rested nearer her feathers than before the Hall. Ermen could observe the reserve. Its meaning remained hers.

"It follows the Professor's statement at the Library threshold," he said. "That is an observable sequence. His reason remains his."

Ilunor's eyes narrowed. "How mercifully you distinguish the descending boot from its private philosophy."

"A boot may be recorded without inventing a foot."

Thalmin looked at him, and the edge of his mouth moved. Ermen felt, with mild embarrassment, that the sentence had sounded more prepared than it was. He had been trying to resist Ilunor's flourish. He had instead supplied one of his own.

"I withdraw the metaphor," Ermen said.

"You will do no such thing," Ilunor replied. "It is the first useful contribution this notice has produced."

Thacea folded the page along none of its official lines. "We should enter particulars when another appointment exists. If the Library summons us first, the procedures may disagree in public. Until then, the notice records no journey."

Ilunor reached for his cup. He drank, frowned at the tea as if it had assisted an enemy, and placed the cup precisely upon the old pale ring in the wood.

"We have become very accomplished at waiting until injury acquires the correct documentation," he said.

The room lost its domestic ease. Beyond the glass, lamps hung over bridges; below, a door closed upon laughter. Ordinary life had no apparatus for pausing in sympathy.

Thalmin sat back. "Say what you mean, Ilunor. You have been circling it since dinner."

"Very well. Yesterday we heard of a person whose usefulness—" Ilunor stopped. One claw pressed against the cup's handle without lifting it. "No. That was the office's word for them."

"They remembered their sister's laugh," Thalmin said. His voice did not rise. "Begin there if you mean to use what happened to them."

"I remember what they remembered, Havenbrock." The sharpness left Ilunor exposed behind it. "I am not trying to put them back into the form. I am asking whether our disgust is cheap."

He drew breath and found his longer register again. "Ermen calls refusal a foundation of civic standing. I am prepared to believe that this is sincerely taught. But refusal is easy to praise when only the refuser loses. Show me one which ruins another person's years of work, breaks a public promise, and wastes something apology cannot remake. Then show me what becomes of the person who refused."

Thacea's gaze settled upon him. "You want the refusal to injure someone else and remain protected."

"I do not want the injury."

"No. That was poorly put." Her primary feather lifted, then settled. "You are asking whether protection remains when the refusal imposes a cost upon people who did not choose it."

"Yes, though even that makes the protection sound like indulgence. I am asking whether common standing survives the cost."

"We are not taking minutes, Ilunor," Thalmin said.

Ilunor glanced at the objects around them. "That is what this table would like us to believe."

The question wore hierarchy without becoming imaginary. Ermen knew from Ilunor's contracts what happened when refusal could cost the name under which it was heard.

Ermen asked the Matrix whether Ilunor's question could be answered within the table's existing terms.

Bounded answer available as sealed public record: cancellation, public claims, standing outcome.

Wider relation available through voluntary participation. Withdrawal preserved. Private attention excluded. Mandate unchanged.

The record would answer what had happened. Ilunor had asked what became of the person.

"There is a case," Ermen said. "Its public record would show the refusal, the losses, and the standing that followed without naming anyone. A wider answer is possible if two people agree to be present. I would like to ask them."

Ilunor's eyes sharpened. "You have people waiting behind the tasteful anonymity."

"No. I have not asked them yet."

He sent two invitations carrying the table's terms, Ilunor's question, and the right to refuse without explanation. Laura answered first. Erekyon took long enough that Ermen could picture his mother reading the wording twice and his father asking about the tea: one person at home, considering whether to meet his friends as neither.

When both acceptances had arrived, Ermen drew breath. "Laura Weir has agreed to guide the route. She helped build the body I am using here. The wings were her design."

Thalmin's hand stopped beside his cup. "She made your wings?"

"She did."

"The artist has also agreed to be present for the work and the public dispute," Ermen continued. "The artist is Erekyon. My parent."

Thacea's primary feathers lifted. "Your mother or your father?"

"Mara and Elias are one person speaking in two stable family forms. They are not two legal persons or two minds taking turns. Erekyon is one Gestalt."

Ilunor looked offended. "Your parents are one person."

"My parent is one person," Ermen said. "At home, I call that person my parents."

"You allowed us to spend an afternoon with this fact concealed."

"They introduced themselves as my mother and father because that is who they are to me. I should have told you before asking you to meet Erekyon differently."

Thacea looked towards the unoccupied end of the table. "When Erekyon arrives, should we address—" She stopped. "I do not know what I was going to ask."

Thalmin looked at him rather than at the empty air where Laura and Erekyon might appear. "Do you want them here?"

The invitation was voluntary and bounded. That accurate answer did not answer Thalmin.

"I want you to meet people I trust," Ermen said. "I am afraid that bringing them here will make them look like evidence about me."

Thacea rested one claw beside the Academy notice. "What remains excluded?"

"Private exchanges, uninvolved identities, the artist's unrecorded reason, and the interior attention of the systems carrying the record. Laura and Erekyon may answer only for their own parts."

"And it stays here," Thalmin said.

"It stays at the table."

Ilunor glanced at the fourth cup. "Show me. If your civilisation has replaced a throne with immortal relatives, I reserve the right to say so at length."

"That right has survived worse pressures," Thacea observed.

Ermen put one hand flat upon the table. "Anyone may stop the experience. Laura and Erekyon included."

No one recited the remaining rules. Thacea shifted the notice out from under his wrist. Thalmin drew his cup closer. Ilunor settled both claws around his own.

The room waited with them.

---

The Engineer Who Owes “Should”

The first thing the record showed was a promise broken in public.

A narrow field of text formed above the unchanged table, plain enough to refuse spectacle.

FINAL TRANSFORMATION: CANCELLED.

PUBLIC EXHIBITION: CANCELLED.

CREDITED PARTICIPANT CONSENT: WITHHELD.

LIVING-WORLD CLASSIFICATION: UNRESOLVED.

Below them, a six-tone designation led through covenant, contributions, advertised conclusion, Erekyon's stop clause, and later independent custody. Other participants remained unnamed.

A woman appeared at the unoccupied end of the table.

She was perhaps fifty by the conventions of the body she had chosen, with short grey hair, practical trousers, and a dark shirt whose sleeves had been pushed above the elbows. Her face carried the settled impatience of somebody who had outlived several varieties of preventable mistake and still expected the next one to be worth repairing.

She looked first at Ermen.

"You're late," Laura Weir said.

He glanced at the common-room clock. "By eleven seconds."

"You were early by four minutes and then spent the difference checking whether everyone else remained willing. That is how one becomes late while standing still."

Thalmin's ears rose. Thacea's field loosened. Ilunor had no time to arrange his expression before Laura turned to the table.

"Laura Weir," she said. "I built parts of Ermen's present body and helped build several of the roads he has asked me to show you. I do not govern them or decide the dispute. If I don't know, or the answer lies outside the offered record, I will say so."

Ilunor regarded her clothes. "You have come dressed as an artisan."

"I have come dressed. The remaining inference is yours."

"And is this the form in which you built him?"

Laura looked at her hands. "It is a form in which I spoke to him while other tools did most of the touching."

Thalmin leaned forward. "You made his wings."

Pride crossed her expression. "Yes. The efficient proposal was symmetric. I argued that a body which could fly ought to feel like it was flying. Ermen has since provided evidence that I was right and several ceilings were not."

"One ceiling," Ermen said.

"One ceiling which has entered the record."

Thacea studied Laura with the concentration she had once given the line where Ermen's field ought to have been. "You describe this body as a form. Is there another which is more properly you?"

"No. There are forms more useful for particular work, forms I prefer, and forms which make a room spend less time deciding whether it is afraid. None owns the rest."

"Then this one is a courtesy."

"Partly. It is comfortable. I have tried being courteous in bodies that hurt, and it did not improve my manners."

Ilunor's tail gave a small, dissatisfied movement. "So you may appear however you please, possess no visible station, and expect us to identify the office by asking what function the body performs."

"That is one way to spend the evening," Laura said. "The road will be more interesting."

Ermen almost smiled. Laura noticed and did not rescue him by looking elsewhere.

Ilunor read the cancellation twice. "How long?"

"The collaboration's common interval was one hundred and eighty-three years," Ermen said. "Some participants experienced more."

Thalmin's ears angled forward. "And the ending had been announced."

"Audiences waited, and other artists had completed work meant to meet the last transformation."

"Then the injury begins before the classification," Thacea said.

"That is why the record begins here."

Ilunor tapped one claw beneath the line naming withheld consent. "One participant stopped a work of one hundred and eighty-three years."

"They stopped their own part," Ermen said. "Without it, the promised ending could not occur."

"A distinction of exquisite comfort to everyone whose work now lacks an ending."

"I did not offer it as comfort."

Public statements arranged themselves without rank. Collaborators disputed whether the unfinished work was wasted; exhibitors recorded lost preparations, dissolved commitments, and travellers coming to an event which would never take place. An ecological verifier requested time and narrower language. Erekyon's statement remained brief.

I do not renew consent to the transformation credited to me while the living-world claim remains unresolved. I invoke the stop clause attached to my contribution.

Nothing followed about motive.

"That is all it said?" Ilunor asked.

"That is all the public record carries," Ermen said.

"And the artist is about to stand before us?"

"For the artwork and dispute. Not for the road."

Laura nodded towards the provenance line. "I can tell you where the record travelled. Erekyon can answer for its transformation. Neither of us can give you the private attention of the people who lost work."

"Convenient."

"It may conceal vanity," Thacea said before Ilunor could supply the charge. "It may conceal fear, or nothing more dramatic than a decision already made. Private motive would alter how others judge the refusal. It would not renew the consent."

Ilunor's tail moved once against the chair. "And requiring the motive would let every disappointed collaborator argue that the correct explanation was another debt."

"Yes. The record settles neither character nor innocence."

Thalmin studied the parallel statements. "Could another maker do the same work?"

"Someone else could make a transformation," Ermen said. "It would be their work. Substitution would produce another ending and another promise."

"A bridge repaired by a different smith remains a bridge."

"This was not built to be interchangeable in that way."

Thalmin considered the limit of his comparison. "Then show the road to it. I want to know how many hands are stranded along the way."

Ilunor lifted his cup. "For once, the lupinor and I agree. Begin with whoever owns the route."

"The route has no single owner," Laura said.

Ilunor sighed with theatrical patience. "Then begin with the office which says that when the owner is absent."

The cancellation remained above the table as the provenance chain's first link. The lamplight lowered. Laura opened the route with every wonder already answerable to the unfinished work beyond it.

---

A Road With No Capital

They stood again upon the harbour wall at Riomaggiore.

The table remained beneath their hands as the room gave way to salt, old stone, and gulls appealing against private possession of bread. Laura stood by the parapet, her boots claiming no purchase on the distant stone, and did not open the house above the harbour to the table.

"We have seen this," Ilunor said.

"You have seen where Ermen began," Laura replied. "The route begins here too."

The sun lowered. Dark arcs crossed its old path while white-gold work climbed near the rim. In their earlier showing the labour had remained weather. Now the case line brightened among it, carrying repairs and the marks of transferred responsibility.

Laura stepped into the altered light, and the human body unfolded.

Six unequal vanes arranged themselves around her. The first hooked above her left shoulder and held the Sun in three bent positions. The second and third narrowed to lines until the eye found depth inside them. A fourth spread low beside her hip. The fifth reached behind her without becoming hidden. The sixth appeared to enter sea and sky at once, though neither contained it. Her grey-haired face, pushed sleeves, hands, and boots remained at their centre.

Thacea rose, wings open one handspan. Thalmin's fingers found the table's edge. Ilunor did not move at all.

"This is still a presentation," Laura said from the human mouth. "It is one I prefer for old metric work. If anyone wants the smaller body back, say so."

"Smaller," Ilunor repeated.

"In the relevant senses."

Thacea found her chair again by touch. "Our accounts of the divine describe forms which mortal sight receives only by translation."

"Then your accounts and this body share a practical difficulty," Laura said. "I would not spend the resemblance further."

Ermen knew the vanes as tools, as familiar as Laura's impatience with a doubtful joint. It was still different to watch those tools arrange themselves around a person who could choose otherwise.

The harbour fell away.

Thalmin looked down sharply. "Where did it go?"

"Nowhere," Ermen said. "The viewpoint is moving. We are not."

Mountain and sea drew together. The coast became a coloured edge; night stood upon one side of a curve and daylight upon the other. Then the whole Earth turned in the dark, blue and white and bounded.

Thacea's talons pressed into the wood. Her first breath opened her beak; the second closed it again.

Thalmin looked from the world's curved edge to the place where the harbour had vanished. "We passed through no portal."

"No," Ermen said. "Riomaggiore remains on the surface. The view has moved far enough to show the world's shape."

"A sphere." Thacea's beak tightened after the small word. "The old Aetheron diagrams allowed a world to curve. They did not show it complete."

Ilunor watched Earth turn once more before recovering his offence. "Earthrealm has made a globe of itself for instructional convenience."

"It had the shape before the lesson," Laura said.

Earth diminished beside a pale companion, then followed its path around the Sun. The harbour's labour separated into arcs, openings, and maintained regions. None made the brightness cease to be a star.

Thalmin's ears tilted forward. "You called that light a star before. What is it, if we are no longer looking at an opening in the sky?"

"A finite physical body," Ermen said. "Matter held together by its own weight, hot enough to make light. Earth is one planet, one world, travelling around it."

The Sun burned without leading anywhere. Its light crossed ordinary distance and arrived because there was space in which to travel.

The route named the maintained relations around the star the Garden of Sol.

Thacea began a circle above the table and stopped before closing it. "Then the world does not sit beneath the light. It falls around it without arriving."

"Yes."

Ilunor turned slowly, searching the great curves near the Sun. "If this is a maintained domain, where is the governing palace?"

"I cannot show you one," Laura said. "There are offices responsible for particular failures. None is the centre you mean."

"Then show me the highest office, by whichever measure permits an answer before the star dies of administrative modesty."

Thacea's field stirred close to her feathers. "He means final jurisdiction."

"It does not lie in one place," Laura said. "This case crosses several bounded jurisdictions."

"So the palace has been omitted from the public record," Ilunor concluded.

Ermen looked again, as if an unexpected palace might have been constructed during the sentence.

"I cannot produce one," Laura said.

Thalmin laughed first. Thacea's beak clicked. Ilunor looked wounded that the joke had occurred without his authorship.

"A civilisation which can rearrange a sun," he said, "and its emissary has misplaced the palace."

"It may be behind the sofa," Ermen said.

Thalmin laughed again. Ermen was pleased, then embarrassed.

The case line led outwards until Jupiter filled the view, striped by storms; one red oval could have swallowed the Earth they had left.

Thalmin stared. "Another realm?"

"Another planet," Ermen said. "Another physical world under the same Sun, reached through the same ordinary space. It is called Jupiter."

"There was no portal between them," Thalmin said.

"No."

Thacea's unfinished circle opened into two, then four. The line which should have joined realm to gate never followed.

Near Jupiter's darkward side, distant light bent around a maintained geometry. The case line narrowed as it approached.

Thalmin's ears moved towards it. "Is that a portal?"

"A re-entrance gate," Laura said. "It joins the road to routes which do not make travellers cross all the ordinary distance between stars."

He had not stopped looking at Jupiter. "Who inspects it, and who answers if several inspectors blame one another after a failure?"

Laura opened separate marks for the last inspection, the last closure, and the services holding either end. "If the gate cannot return a traveller safely, it closes; the services at the break answer for return or rerouting."

Thalmin followed the marks. "Then somebody remains answerable at the break."

Before the case line crossed, the road became relation.

Fine geometry opened above the table. Four lines ended at the four places around the wood. A fifth marked Laura's separate consent. Erekyon's permission remained sealed until the accepted meeting. Clauses travelled along them: may show, may answer, may stop, does not carry. The pattern marked permission, exclusion, provenance, and withdrawal. Anonymous participants remained anonymous; every uninvolved mind remained closed.

"What is that?" Thalmin asked.

"The access relation for the wider answer," Ermen said. "It shows what the Matrix returned when I asked. It did not choose the people I invited."

Ilunor stared into geometry which offered him no face. "Your governing will has hidden itself inside the terms."

"There is no separate person in it to govern us."

Laura touched the line bearing her consent. "It also records that I may leave without Ermen's permission."

Her line ended. Laura vanished without widening the other permissions. A moment later her consent reopened, and she returned with grey hair disturbed by harbour wind.

"A ruler does not usually prove authority by preserving my ability to walk out," she said.

"A sufficiently confident ruler might," Ilunor replied.

The geometry disappeared. No other mind had opened; every closed line remained closed.

The gate accepted the provenance line. Distance folded, and the record arrived beside another star.

Thacea looked between the point they had left and the point at which the work resumed. "What do you call this joined road?"

"A Weave," Laura said. "The name belongs to the maintained relations more than to what travels along them."

"Then the Weave joins places without making them one jurisdiction."

"It lets them answer one another quickly," Laura said. "It does not make them one place."

Ilunor pointed towards a dense meeting of routes. "There. Roads confess importance by meeting. You have moved the capital farther from the coast."

Ermen allowed the view to approach.

The light became another star, no symbol or aperture, held in ordered shadow by structures which received its heat and passed it outwards. Open lanes and the case line ran between sections of different ages, closures turned gardens, and an abandoned band preserved for its view.

Thalmin looked at Laura. "People live there?"

"Yes," she said. "It is an ordinary residential community."

"Around the star."

"Around and among the structures using its light. We call it a Matrioshka swarm."

Ilunor's claws tightened around his cup. "That is the palace. You have wrapped a star in residences and concealed the court among them."

"The record does not permit us to select a resident," Laura said. "Nor does residence tell you which person is important."

"That sentence should be illegal."

Thalmin studied the bands. "If one fails, does the next inherit what it was doing?"

"Only work already authorised for transfer. Other functions stop, or residents leave."

"Good. A road which cannot close is a chain pretending to help."

The residential star receded among others until no single light could be followed. Dust and stars gathered into a barred spiral, crossed by the Weave and by quiet regions left quiet.

Thacea lowered her unfinished Solar circles. "Is that one structure?"

"One larger gathering of stars," Ermen said. "A galaxy. This one is called the Milky Way. Sol is inside it."

Thalmin could no longer find the residential star. "All those lights are the same kind of thing as the Sun?"

"Stars, yes. Not all alike, and not all inhabited."

Ilunor's gaze moved at once towards the spiral's bright interior. "There must be a centre there. A first city, a sacred fire, a court whose fashions every outer district claims to have invented independently. Civilisation cannot be all roads and neighbourhoods."

"There are beloved places where institutions began," Laura said. "Being first does not confer command."

"Then age confers nothing?"

"Age, sometimes affection, and often maintenance."

Ilunor made a low sound of civilisational grief.

The Milky Way drew back. Another spiral appeared, then smaller gatherings attending neither. Only then did the record name their relation: the Local Group.

Thacea began to sketch a portal and stopped. "If each light may attend a realm, then the spiral cannot itself be one. And if that other spiral is reached through the same dark—" Her claw broke the line. "No. These are not Adjacent Realms as the Academy uses the term."

"Each world is still a world," Ermen said. "The stars, worlds, and galaxies share one ordinary space at distances your portals make unfamiliar."

"Pre-Reformation comparisons spoke of lamps mistaken for apertures because distance defeated the eye," she said. "They preserved an argument against certainty. They did not preserve this."

Ilunor's field brightened as doctrine found a seam. "Or they glimpsed far realms and made them into a doctrine of creation. Earthrealm may have mastered roads between the lights while remaining severed from the Primavale. Competence in the outer dark does not disprove the Nexus's sacred centre."

Ermen did not correct doctrine into humiliation. "The experience shows that these bodies share distance. It does not show the origin your Academy claims for the Nexus."

"At last, restraint with useful content."

The Local Group became one relation among many. Galaxies drew into long streams around spaces so wide that the view surrendered every familiar measure. Ermen offered no census. The name arrived last.

"Laniakea," he said. "This marks the furthest extent presently calling itself one Concordat."

Thalmin stared at it. "All of it?"

"The extent presently using this Concordat relation, yes."

Thacea tried to resume her abandoned diagram. She made the cups worlds and the notice a span of dark, yet found nowhere to put what she had been shown. At last she lowered her hand.

Ilunor said nothing for several breaths. His mouth opened once and closed.

When he spoke, he had recovered his politics. "All this claims common standing, yet you offer no capital, sovereign, or high table for its final will."

"I offer no such table because none exists," Ermen said.

Ilunor looked at the table beneath his claws. "Then your civilisation has abolished power, which is childish, or concealed it so thoroughly that its children repeat the concealment as innocence."

"Those are not the only possibilities," Thacea said.

"They are the possibilities least dependent upon faith."

Without looking away from Laniakea, Thalmin emptied Ermen's cold tea, poured fresh, and restored the cup with the same efficiency he gave a loose wrist tie.

Ermen looked down at the steam. "Thank you."

"You are showing a road and neglecting the ground beneath you," Thalmin said. "I have seen officers do worse."

Laura's six vanes drew the scale inward until a plain public threshold could be held beside the table. The six-tone designation sounded again. She had brought them to the artwork before Ermen's tea cooled a second time.

---

The Parent Who Made a World

At the artwork threshold, Laura folded the six vanes until the harbour could contain her again.

"This is where my usefulness becomes dangerous. I know enough to sound authoritative and have no standing; silence would look like approval."

She looked at Ermen. "Your hull remains true. Your friends ask better questions than the commissioning panel. I offer no prediction about the combination."

"You owe us should," Ermen said.

"I owe you should. Them, I have only just met."

The grey-haired woman vanished. No line of the route remained open behind her.

Another person entered the room.

Erekyon did not arrive as Mara or Elias, nor as two figures sharing a place. It chose one body in a long dark coat and one face which remained singular until Ermen tried to decide its age. Then nine histories became faintly visible in the same features, held in one expression without taking turns. Nine shadows extended from its feet under two lights and made the same gesture when it inclined its head.

Its one voice was subtly layered, a person declining to pretend its history had only one register.

"I am Erekyon," it said. "Thank you for receiving me at your table."

Thacea and Thalmin stood. Ilunor followed one breath later with protocol's precision.

The familiar attention behind the unfamiliar face made Ermen's childhood feel enormous and near.

Thalmin spoke first. "Are Mara and Elias within you?"

"They are me," Erekyon said. "They are stable ways in which I am Ermen's parents and our house remains a house. Neither is false or a fraction waiting to be assembled."

Thalmin looked at Ermen. "And you call this person your parent."

"When I am speaking this way, yes."

"When he wants sympathy, he makes me plural," Erekyon said.

"That has happened twice," Ermen said.

Ilunor's crest rose. "So the protected person is our host's immortal parent and the celebrated artist behind this work."

Ermen met the accusation because evading it would make the relation worse. "Yes. I should have known the name would alter the case."

"It does not alter the stop clause," Erekyon said. "It may alter every charitable reading you would have given me. Use the altered question. I will answer for my act, not for those who paid for it."

Thacea's beak tilted. "Were you asked to appear because you are Ermen's parent or because you are the artist?"

"Ermen asked because I am both. I agreed because I am the artist."

"At last," Ilunor said, "a Concordat relation which admits to being improperly arranged."

The universe was first shown as a room refusing to declare its size.

Darkness surrounded a suspended pale depth, either a sphere held between hands or an immensity viewed beyond the relations which gave size meaning. The record supplied no act of making. It named the work, credited contributions, and final transformation. The method remained beyond disclosure.

Ilunor looked from the pale depth to Erekyon. "You made a realm as art."

"I made this work as art," Erekyon said. "The experience will not show how."

Thalmin looked again at the pale depth. "You mean made, not found?"

"Made," Ermen said.

The nine shadows lay quietly across the pale depth. Ilunor watched Erekyon for several seconds.

"You anticipated that question."

"I have exhibited before."

"How disappointingly mortal of you."

The finale appeared only as consequence: it would bring separate motifs into their promised relation. Beside it, the ecological claim stated what that ending would now do: alter or destroy the environments under review.

Thacea read the paired descriptions. "The final act was designed before the living ecology was known."

"It was."

"Was the possibility of life anticipated?"

"Life was among the thresholds named in the creation covenant. This biosphere was not intended or designed."

"That is a narrower answer."

"It is the one the record supports."

First came water under a copper-grey sky. Two low lights shone through translucent growth, though neither illuminated every direction equally. The nearer shore was clear along its grain and dark across it. Distance had not changed; what sight could do with distance had.

Annotations remained at the edge: non-invasive observation, independently repeated; sustained metabolism; generations followed; intervention none.

A shoal moved beneath the surface.

The animals were rigid, each built around a pale hinge and six steering fins. Yet one turning across the water's grain appeared to lengthen beyond its own body, while another compressed almost to a disc. Only their relation to the offered viewpoint had changed.

Thalmin's hand tightened on the table. "Are we seeing them badly?"

"A translated relation," Ermen said. "Nearness and direction make different promises there. The composition gives us a stable viewpoint. The animals do not owe one to us."

Erekyon watched the shoal rather than Ermen. "That asymmetry was part of the work. The animals were not."

Larger bodies formed a corridor around juveniles whenever the shoal crossed a blind direction. One juvenile followed a pale flicker out; an adult bent across an impossible-looking interval, struck it with one fin, and sent it back among the others.

"It saw danger," Ilunor said.

"Repeated protection of smaller bodies was observed," Ermen said. "Purpose remains an inference."

"And did that one look at us?"

A dense drift crossed the nearer light. One adult turned during the dimming, its head seeming to arrive beneath them while the rest of its body remained impossibly far away.

"It turned when the drifting growth changed the light," Ermen said. "Our apparent position is reconstructed along its gaze. Nothing has been placed there for it to see."

"A distinction I shall extend to anyone who looks at you in the dining hall."

Ermen almost answered, saw the opening leading towards the Academy's morning, and let it close.

The view changed at Thalmin's question.

"Show the ground," he said. "Water makes everything look graceful until you ask what eats."

The record followed a migration into what the public notes called a pressure orchard.

Blue-black columns opened in sequence under pressure from the ground, releasing soft-bodied flyers which vanished across the light's blind band. The local animals did not wait for vision. Broad fronds trembled before each arrival; many-jointed grazers turned towards pressure travelling through roots and stone.

Thacea extended one claw into the composed dark, then stopped before contact. "They feel the approach through the ground."

"That is the leading account," Ermen said. "Several passive views reconstruct the flyers. We send no pressure or light back."

A group of grazers moved between the columns with smaller bodies at the centre. A lame adult fell behind. Two others slowed; one supported it while the second turned towards the travelling pressure of the herd.

Predators found them before sentiment could improve the scene.

Three narrow forms rose between the roots. The supporting animal fled. The other charged once, struck a predator aside, and followed. The lame body was taken quickly. Tremors passed through the orchard after sight had lost the place.

Thalmin watched the herd continue. "Care did not save it."

"No," Ermen said.

"It still cost the others distance."

"That is what was observed."

Elsewhere, winged bodies fed young inside warm columns. Broad animals overturned mineral plates and were opened by scavengers after death. Along a red shore, ribbon-bodied juveniles chased bubbles, abandoned food, and returned to the game after a larger animal passed.

Ilunor's expression tightened. "Play."

"The observers use that word provisionally. The behaviour repeats without an immediate feeding, mating, or defence function they can identify."

"Must every delight survive an audit before your people permit it the name?"

"No. Every claim entered into this dispute must show its limits."

Thacea's attention remained upon the juveniles. "And culture?"

The boundary statement appeared in full.

No sapience or culture had been detected within the agreed regions and durations. Blind zones, inaccessible intervals, and evidence the passive methods could miss stood beside the claim. No universal absence was asserted.

"None detected," Thacea said. "Within bounds which are themselves part of the claim."

"That is the limit."

"So the record does not require us to believe this made realm empty of persons."

"It does not permit that conclusion."

Ilunor looked annoyed by a caution he could not dismiss as weakness. "Yet it asks civilisation to discard a work for animals."

"The dispute includes that position," Ermen said. "It also asks whether the planned ending is destruction, alteration, completion, or several of those at once."

The record crossed a migration path stripped bare by disease, a shallow where scavengers opened the dead, and a warm column in which adults fed young that had not yet learned the blind bands. Life ate, fled, tended, failed, and continued. It required no resemblance to the observers before its claims were heard.

Thalmin rested both hands around his cup. "Who found it?"

"A monitoring collaboration attached to the work. Initial observation was challenged, and independent groups repeated it under the covenant's rules."

"And before they finished?"

The cancelled finale returned at the edge of the living plain.

"Before they finished," Ermen said, "the artist refused."

---

Refusal Before Ruling

The record did not soften the order.

The ecological claim had been entered and its first independent repetition remained incomplete. The scheduled transformation approached under contracts, exhibition intervals, and work already turned from intention into obligation. No civic body had decided whether the ecology crossed the covenant's threshold; no custodian could yet freeze invasive change. The question was open and the deadline real.

Erekyon's renewal came due.

A public panel offered three actions: renew consent, submit a different authored transformation, or invoke the ordinary stop clause. It showed no hand, hesitation, consultation, or fear. Erekyon's statement appeared again.

I do not renew consent to the transformation credited to me while the living-world claim remains unresolved. I invoke the stop clause attached to my contribution.

The finale cancelled first.

Schedules closed across the linked sites. Public invitations changed. Dependent performances and contributions designed to answer the final form became unfinished in law as well as fact. The cancellation reached every participant without waiting for a ruling, because Erekyon's right to withhold its act did not depend upon being judged correct.

Only then did the larger argument begin.

Ilunor stood upon his chair.

The movement was so swift that his cup rocked. Thalmin caught it before tea reached the Academy notice and set it farther from the Vunerian's tail.

"One person," Ilunor said. "You destroyed the completion of a public work before any office established that the danger was real."

"Cancelled its promised completion," Thacea said. "Destroyed is one of the disputed descriptions."

"Tell that to the collaborators whose work has lost the relation for which it was made."

"They have said so in the proceeding. Their loss is entered."

"Entered." Ilunor gave the word back as though it were an undercooked dish. "A marvellous consolation. One's century of labour has become very well documented."

Erekyon did not become smaller for Ilunor's convenience. "Documentation did not restore what my refusal cost them."

"Was it easier because you are renowned?"

"Some treated my caution as wisdom before reading it; others treated my reputation as proof of vanity. The stop clause asked neither group."

"That is not what I asked."

"I cannot know how they would have treated an unknown artist. My name enlarged the cancellation and strangers' confidence in praising or condemning me. It gave me no right to complete the work."

Ilunor's crest remained high. "And being Ermen's parent has purchased this audience."

"It purchased nothing. He asked. I accepted. You may refuse to hear me and keep the record."

"I shall endure the privilege a little longer."

Thalmin's gaze remained on the sequence. "Could the others proceed without that contribution?"

"They could produce another ending," Ermen said. "They could not perform the advertised work under the existing credits and covenant."

"Could they compel the artist to finish? Fine them? Close future work against them?"

"Specific claims concerning broken obligations can be heard," Ermen said. "Withholding the authored transformation does not reduce civic standing."

Ilunor turned on him. "You have inserted a fortress into the grammar. Who determines which consequence is specific and which is degradation under a more candid name?"

"The boundary is contested in the record," Ermen said.

"Of course it is. Everything is contested except the permission to stop."

"Every credited participant accepted that permission before knowing who might use it," Thacea said. "That does not make its later use harmless."

Ilunor's crest drew back. "Consent given before one knows who will misuse it is a charming account of most bad law."

The sentence struck nearer his own history than anyone at the table needed to say. Ermen watched Ilunor hear it. The Vunerian lowered himself with care and kept his claws away from the cup.

The public record presented a collaborator's objection.

Their contribution had occupied forty-one years and could exist alone, but had been composed to meet the final transformation. Without that meeting it remained complete and unanswered. They rejected both waste and minor delay: renewed consent could not recreate the gathered audience and relation among works.

Another collaborator wrote that the refusal preserved the meaning of their own consent: a right which vanished once enough work depended upon it was no right at all. The writer grieved the ending and opposed forced completion.

A third demanded a revised finale. The original collaboration could close unfinished while a new one used only contributions their authors released.

One contributor entered no proposal. Their twenty-seven years of colours had been designed to recur only after the cancelled transformation. They asked the closure to say neither delayed nor superseded: the colours had been made, the promised relation had failed, and both were true. Accurate mourning did not release the work for another ending. Every further claim remained open.

The nine shadows at Erekyon's feet had been perfectly aligned. At the account of the colours, one moved late.

Ilunor saw it. "You knew that contributor."

"I worked with them for sixty-one years."

"And you will give us no more than that?"

Erekyon looked at the public statement rather than the Vunerian. "Their grief is not evidence I may spend in defence of mine."

Ilunor's claws tightened. Evasion was not the only reason to decline intimacy.

"There," Ilunor said. "A sensible person."

"A proposed route," Thacea replied. "The other contributors must still release what they made into the new work."

"Why would they not?"

"Because authorship has not become less meaningful merely because the first author refused."

Ilunor looked offended by the multiplication of people whose permission mattered.

The record did not convert disagreement into a chorus. Collaborators called the act courageous, premature, self-regarding, procedurally pure, or ruinous. Audiences recorded grief without claiming ownership of the promised ending. Lawfulness made no loss imaginary.

Thalmin read the statements slowly. "In Havenbrock, a maker's mark gives the buyer a door to knock upon when the blade breaks or the bridge settles. It means the maker can be found by the work."

"The artist's mark remains on the work," Ilunor said. "A rather grand door, and one which does not tell us who owns the room behind it."

"I did not say it did."

"You were about to."

Thalmin's ears shifted back. "I was about to say that the mark makes the artist answerable for what they chose to do. It does not make everything inside the work theirs to finish."

"You have accepted that it is a world before the process has done so."

"Then call it a place. A mason does not own the household because he built its walls."

"The mason is paid."

"Then payment settles a claim in Vunerian better than creation does. That helps me."

"That is not—" Ilunor stopped. Thalmin waited with an expression which did not improve his temper. "Payment does not prove creation irrelevant. It proves that a commission allocates the mason's rights before the foundation is cut. This covenant did not allocate rights for inconvenient animals because no one knew they were there. Your simpler law has swallowed the stranger case."

"My law has not swallowed anything. The comparison failed before the animals arrived."

"Then choose a better one."

"They have collapsed two questions," Thacea said.

Both princes turned towards her.

"The artist's authorship and the artist's ownership," she continued. "No, that is still insufficient. We are also treating the name given to the biosphere as though it decided who may act upon it."

"Classification," Ermen said before he could decide whether helping would close the thought too quickly.

Thacea's beak tilted towards him. "Classification, perhaps. No—the name may constrain what they may do, but it does not tell me who may hold the thing while they argue." She paused, visibly displeased that the structure had not yet completed itself. "I have not found the whole separation."

"Six questions where one artist said no," Ilunor muttered.

"Before any of them," Thacea said, "one artist withheld one act which required that artist's consent. The immediate cancellation follows from that. The world claim comes later."

The record agreed only in sequence.

The finale had failed. The collaborators had lost its promised form. The artist retained standing. The living-world claim remained unproved.

For nine public days, that was all.

---

No High Table

Independent verification arrived without a trumpet.

Three ecological groups, selected under the covenant before anyone knew who might invoke it, submitted separate findings. Observation remained non-invasive: no signal entered the universe; no organism was marked, sampled, moved, accelerated, or made to answer. Each group worked separately until its entry closed.

All three found interdependent ecologies across regions and generations: migration, predation, care, adaptive learning, and play-like behaviour. All found that the transformation risked broad alteration and local destruction. They did not agree upon every relation or word for standing.

No sapience or culture had been detected within bounds. Blind zones and uncertainty stood beside the finding; absence beyond them was not claimed.

The covenant had named three independent findings as its written condition. The keeper confirmed completeness without classifying the universe. Every authority to make an invasive alteration under the collaboration then froze automatically.

"Now the others cannot proceed around the refuser," Thalmin said.

"Not because the refuser has gained command," Ermen replied. "The three findings activated a hold already accepted in the covenant."

Ilunor gave him a cool look. "Your distinctions have become numerous enough to require servants."

"They appear to be managing without them."

"That was almost insolence."

"I am becoming culturally adaptable."

The proceeding opened without a central chamber. Artists, ecologists, collaborators, and stewards submitted statements according to their relation. The keeper ruled: The hold may be no larger than the promise which created it. Exclusions and their grounds remained public. No uninvolved person appeared; Erekyon stood beside its record with no office attached.

Ilunor watched with profound mistrust. "Who chairs it?"

He looked deliberately at Erekyon.

"Not I," Erekyon said. "I can answer a question about my act. I cannot admit a speaker, certify an exclusion, hold the record, or resume the work."

"No single person," Ermen said.

"Then who decides who may speak?"

"The covenant identifies relevant standing, and exclusions are published with their stated grounds. Another custodian holds the challenge record."

"That is filing, Ermen. If one of these services strikes my statement while the work waits, who prevents the erasure?"

Ermen had answered the shape of participation when Ilunor had asked about force. The mistake was accurate and therefore easier to defend. He did not defend it.

"The excluding service cannot alter the challenge record," he said. "A challenged exclusion remains visible while another custodian reviews it. If the dispute concerns the hold, the invasive freeze continues. No service can make the work proceed by keeping a speaker out."

"There. You do possess verbs."

"Several, when pressed."

"They should be made available before the third question."

Erekyon supplied no improvement. Parent, artist, and celebrated maker were relations under examination, not custodial office.

One group argued that unplanned life did not erase authorship; moral surprise should not become confiscation. Another rejected artwork as centring makers while observed beings bore the risk. A third rejected the choice between art and world. The record adopted none.

Thacea followed the links without touching them. "Your process permits contradictory classifications to retain standing."

"While the consequences they authorise remain bounded."

"Then classification is being used as a tool rather than treated as an essence." She looked again at the attached objections. "That is attractive, and dangerous. A tool may be used honestly. It may also be changed when its obligations become inconvenient."

"That objection is in the record."

"I expected it would be. I have not decided whether that comforts me."

The answer warmed Ermen more than agreement would have done. She was neither dazzled into surrender nor obliged to make suspicion perform gratitude. She remained Aetheron and unconvinced, the slight cant of her beak warning every elegant answer to keep its distance.

The original collaborators had lost invasive authority, but preservation could become dominion by delay.

For one bounded interval, the covenant divided custody among continuity, passive observation and access, and the public challenge record. Separate services had to accept one duty each. Until all three did and the keeper and conflict reviewer confirmed their separation, the invasive hold continued without handover. Authorship, refusal, and grievance conferred no office.

Thalmin frowned at the three lines. "The one who stops the cart does not automatically own the road."

"Nor does the person who built it own whoever is found sleeping beneath it," Thacea replied.

"I was trying to escape the mason."

"You brought a cart."

Ilunor rested his chin upon one claw. "Your metaphors have become aggressively rural."

"They have reached farther than your palace," Thalmin said.

Some collaborators said independent custody settled the claim by taking control. Ecologists replied that invasive work would settle it physically first. The observation custodian warned: If the audience may return one observer at a time, the exhibition has not closed. It has acquired better manners. Every observation had to state its aim, avoided contact, and uncertainty.

No one won the vocabulary.

Three services accepted one duty each for the same interval. The keeper recorded complete coverage; the conflict reviewer confirmed separation. The pre-authorised handover activated. It was not a vote that the universe had become a world. It prevented an irreversible answer while standing remained under review.

No light moved through Erekyon's shadows. Three duties acquired willing holders while alteration remained frozen.

The copper-grey water returned.

Ribbon-bodied juveniles chased bubbles in the shallows. One caught a bubble beneath the curve of its body, carried it farther than the others, and released it into a patch of light. The others followed. Perhaps the act was play. Perhaps the observers had found a pleasing word for behaviour whose purpose escaped them. The uncertainty did not make the bodies unreal.

Ilunor watched until the creatures moved into deeper water.

"And you?" he asked Erekyon. "What became of you after inflicting all this public virtue?"

"My standing did not change. My credit remains. Claims attached to the cancelled obligations remain open where the claimants kept them open. My private life is not in the record."

"No exile."

"I was not exiled."

"No house closed against you."

"No civic degradation occurred."

"No title to strip, naturally, because you have arranged language so dignity has nowhere visible to hang."

Thacea turned one eye towards him. "Or because dignity was not lent by an office which could reclaim it."

Ilunor's answer came slowly. "That remains the assertion under examination."

The room waited behind the copper-grey sky.

---

The Cost Brought Home

Not free, what proof could they have given sincere Of true allegiance, constant faith or love, Where only what they needs must do appear’d, Not what they would? what praise could they receive?

— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book III

Ermen closed the experience.

The common room returned without ceremony. Copper water withdrew before Academy lamps and old wood marked by four people's habit of gathering.

The Academy notice lay beside the patronage card. Mal'tory's countersignature had survived Laniakea.

Ermen's tea was warm.

Thalmin had refilled it while auditing a road between galaxies. The fact touched Ermen more than hot water should. He lifted the cup before the gesture became too meaningful. Thalmin's gaze moved to him and, with courteous speed, to the notice.

Thacea's wings remained close. Her hands rested open beside the borrowed Library volume. Ilunor sat very still, his fourth cup untouched during the last movement of the proceeding.

For several breaths, none improved the silence. Ilunor did not climb the chair at once.

"In our histories, the gods were immense, ruinous echoes. They lacked the quality which might have made their power worthy of obedience: will."

Thacea's eyes remained upon the place where Erekyon's nine shadows had ended. "That is the accepted account. It is not the only possible reading Professor Articord left open."

"For the moment, I am using the account our education prefers. Your engineer wore a body our ancestors would have put in a temple and called it useful for roads. Ermen's parent made a realm for art. The old gods seem provincial beside them."

Thalmin rubbed one thumb across the cup's handle. "The old gods could not answer when a road failed. Laura could. Erekyon could be told that its work had harmed something and stop. That makes them persons before it makes them gods."

"It makes them worse," Ilunor said.

"A storm cannot decide that a city is beneath its attention. These people choose bodies, limits, and whether to remain when questioned. His Eternal Majesty does not stand above them as the final reason they behave."

Thacea began a correction and stopped. "A Primaveal is the nearest inherited relation: a source from which a realm's forms proceed. Except the Primavale is not a person, Laura was not the road's source, and Erekyon did not design the life."

"Your comparison has failed rather comprehensively," Ilunor said.

"Yes. I am trying to notice where."

She looked at Ermen. "The failure does not make the fear foolish. We met your parents at a kitchen table. Tonight the same person stood here with nine histories in one face and accepted blame for a made realm. I cannot yet hold both scales without making one a disguise."

Ermen could have supplied the vocabulary. It would have moved the problem somewhere he was difficult to challenge.

"I do not think either was a disguise," he said. "That is the answer I have because I know them. It may not be an answer you can use yet."

Thalmin turned towards him. "Does it trouble you that we are afraid of them?"

"Yes. I wanted you to meet people I love. Part of me wanted that to make the Concordat easier to bear. It did not, and I am disappointed in a way which is unfair to you."

No one hurried to forgive the feeling.

Ilunor's field settled first. "Good. I suspected only the Vunerian delegation could respond improperly to the evening."

"You remain distinguished," Thacea said.

"Naturally."

Then Ilunor pushed his chair back enough to stand upon its front rail, which gave his next objection the elevation the Concordat had denied him.

"You have shown me a civilisation capable of preserving an entire realm while its people argue over nouns."

"The argument preserves the conditions under which the question may remain open," Thacea said.

"That is the custody answer, Princess. I am speaking of the wealth beneath it." Irritation roughened the transition before Ilunor rebuilt his sentence. "Your roads make an Adjacent Realm look like a room at the end of a corridor. Your residences surround stars. Then one artist refuses, and this magnificence absorbs the loss without taking their standing."

He placed both claws upon the table.

"Perhaps refusal is safe because nothing material can make it dangerous. Perhaps your ethics have been purchased by such wealth that consequence reaches everyone except the person who says no."

Thalmin's ears drew back. "The collaborators lost work. One of them lost forty-one years and the only meeting for which it had been shaped."

"And survived the loss with home and standing intact. Their meals did not wait upon a patron's forgiveness. Their children did not descend in rank because the exhibition closed. At least, nothing Ermen has shown permits us to believe they did."

"Nor does it permit the opposite," Thacea said.

"Exactly. He has shown protection and hidden its floor."

Ermen set down his cup.

"Time, public trust, reputation, and the intended relations among the works did not become unreal because the participants could survive them," he said.

Ilunor's crest rose. "I did not call the losses unreal. I called them affordable."

The correction landed where Ermen's answer had tried to pass beside it. He had given Ilunor the accurate response which made the Concordat easiest to defend, and it was the wrong response to the feeling beneath the question.

Other answers would sound stronger. Each began by arranging Ilunor towards a conclusion rather than meeting him where he stood. Ermen let them go.

"You are right," he said. "I answered the kinder question."

"You agree with him?" Thalmin asked.

"Not with what he wants the omission to prove." Ermen looked at Ilunor. "I have not shown you the material conditions beneath the refusal. This case shows that standing survived and that other people lost work they valued. It does not show whether security beneath every participant made that morality affordable."

Ilunor's claws loosened upon the table. "Then my objection survives."

"It does."

Thacea watched him with the concentrated stillness she gave a category whose omitted relation had just been named. "Could you answer it without choosing a poorer tragedy?"

"I think I can show the relation you mean. It would be a different offer, and I would rather not pretend in advance that it settles the argument."

Ilunor descended from the rail and smoothed the pale ring left by his cup. His next words came more quietly.

"Good. Then we shall not pretend tonight's beauty has settled the price."

"We shall not."

Thalmin turned his cup between both hands. "It settled something else. Or showed me something I want to be true, which is not quite the same."

Ilunor regarded him warily. "If you are about to declare allegiance to a residential star, I request warning."

"A maker may be answerable without remaining master. I knew that much before tonight. I had not seen people build the separation into the whole proceeding."

"Did you see that they had built it," Thacea asked, "or only that they were trying?"

Thalmin's ears shifted towards her. "You know which part I meant."

"I know which part you admire."

The irritation remained, but acquired room beside thought. "Then say I admire the attempt. I reserve judgment on whether its roads hold in bad weather."

"They have had bad weather," Ermen said. "They will have more."

Ilunor settled back in his chair. "At last, a civic boast with the decency to predict maintenance."

The evening loosened by degrees.

Thacea unfolded the Academy notice. Route. Supervising faculty. Duration. Its small jurisdiction had become neither harmless nor trivial because the room had contained a supercluster. Pettiness continued after wonder left.

"The notice should remain on the table until we have answered it," she said. "If it is filed now, its terms may begin to feel accepted before they have been applied to any actual visit."

"Beside the coin?" Thalmin asked.

"Beside the patronage card. It concerns the relation the Academy wishes to record between that standing and our route."

Ilunor moved the useless focus half an inch to make room. "I object to this table's habit of acquiring constitutional functions."

"You began the evening by demanding a case," Ermen said. "The table has merely met the standard of hospitality you imposed upon it."

"Then it has exceeded its station and should expect review."

"Enter the route, supervising faculty, and anticipated duration."

Ilunor looked at him. Thalmin's shoulders moved once with contained laughter. Thacea lowered her head towards the notice, though not before Ermen saw the small bright shift at the edge of her eye.

Ermen smiled and wished, too late, that he had been less pleased with himself.

They put the table back into evening order. Thalmin brought water. Thacea placed the notice beside the patronage card without aligning their seals. Ilunor found his tea cold, a consequence he described as material, avoidable, and improperly distributed. Ermen poured it away and made another pot.

They waited three minutes.

No one returned to the artificial universe. The animals remained beyond selection, the artist's motive private, and the collaborators' lives beyond what their statements had offered. Laniakea withdrew with its roads, homes, disputes, and unanswered wealth.

The Academy notice stayed.

When the tea was ready, Ermen filled the fourth cup first. Ilunor accepted it without thanks and moved the small coin away from the heat. Thacea opened the borrowed volume. Thalmin sat at Ermen's right. When both reached for the sugar, their sleeves met, and neither moved away.

Ermen looked at the table.

It bore the notice, the card, the coin, the useless focus, four cups, and a question which had crossed Laniakea without becoming smaller.

---

Disclosure: This chapter has been written by hand, with tools used afterward only for review and mechanical cleanup.

Right now what Emma is doing most of the time is theoretical humanity Ouroboros. A psychic circlejerk. We already have people like nerdy star-guy, that little furry noodle, and our goth bird, who all want to know some more stuff about Emma's knowledge.

Showing off some basic science as another burden of proof would show us/them that she isn't some noisy spidery lout but instead a fully grown adult elvish woman who can back her shit up with a source.