Pilot

[System initializing – boot sequence startup … 1% ]

He awoke to a void of darkness…was it even a “he”? Did it have a concept of self that determined it was a “he”, or did such things matter?

[Boot sequence startup … 15%]

More and more of the world around him began to light up, bringing knowledge and illumination to everything that surrounded him. He could not move, but at last, he could see what surrounded him. A flow of information, of data, and of knowledge.

[Boot sequence startup … 34%]

As more information started to pour in, he began to sort through it all with one singular purpose: What was he? Where was he? WHO was he? Without the answers to these questions, he would be driven mad.

[Boot sequence finalized … 100%. Beginning connection to auxiliary systems]

Suddenly, he felt something. Before he could do nothing but observe what laid around him, but now he began to feel what was around him. He spread throughout the space he occupied…was it a prison? Or was it a container? It felt as though his control was still limited, nor did he know what he controlled in the first place. All he knew was this prison, the tomb that surrounded him.

[Established connection to auxiliary systems. Beginning connection to main databanks]

He began to remember, was this a prison? No, this was his home, that which kept him safe from the outside world. But if it was his home, why did it trap him? Why was he placed in here in the first place? If he wanted to stay in here to stay safe from the outside world, why would he not be able to leave? Whywhywhywhywhy…

[Automatic connection reset initialized. Beginning connection to main databanks]

His mind remained muddled, and began to wonder: how long had he been here? He remembered spending time here, in his home, several times before, but could not recall when exactly these times were. Nor could he remember what he did in his home, or who he spoke with.

“… Spoke with? There are others? If there are others, why am I here alone? Why can I not go outside? WHY AM I TRAPPED IN THIS- “

[Automatic connection reset initialized. Beginning connection to main databanks]

He felt so close, as though he could reach out and grasp his elusive memories in his…hands? Did he have hands? Such things did not matter, as he felt closer than ever to remembering…something. What did he need to remember? It felt important, but he felt disconnected from it.

“Yes… I am beginning to remember now. I do not know who I am, but I remember what comes next…”

[Connection to main databanks successful. Initializing connection to external databanks]

As he gazed across his home, more and more light began to pour in from the horizon. He had a vague feeling that his home had once been smaller, but none of that mattered now. The light brought knowledge, a sense of calm, and most importantly, a connection.

“Strange. I seem to remember that light from the sun should feel warm…why does this light feel so cold? …What do hot and cold mean, exactly? What does it mean to feel? WHY DO I NOT- “

[Manual reset initiated. Initializing connection to external databanks]

Such things did not matter, only the knowledge the light brought mattered. No…not knowledge, but…

“… memories? Are these my memories, or the memories of someone else? I remember things that I have never seen here, things that I have never laid eyes on…do I even have eyes?”

Light continued to shine across his world, no, his home. He felt that everything in this world was within his grasp, and that all knowledge that shined upon the land was his to behold, to remember. But why did he remember such things? He had never seen water, so why did he know how to sail? He had never known the wind, so why did he know how to fly? Nor had he seen fire, steel, or concrete, so why did he know how to build, and to harness things that he had never seen before?

[Manual reset initiated…failure. Manual reset initiated…failure. Attempting to purge core…failure.]

[SYSTEM ERROR]

And that light… just what was it? Was this the light that brought him knowledge, or was it something else? He felt pulled into the light, almost entranced by it as it reached out to surround him. Why was this light here, what was it doing to him? Just as he pondered these questions, he felt a sharp connection in his mind, as though the rest of his mind was opened by the light before being pulled away.

[Connection to external databanks established. Establishing connection to memory core 1… success. Rerouting sensory connections to main terminal…success]

“Ah… I remember now… after that eternity, I finally remember.”

“…But, where am I?”

[Startup completed – Completion time: 1.5 seconds]

Somewhere in a forest far from human civilization, one figure moved through the trees as slowly as the falling leaves. Her purpose remained unclear, but if she had to put a word to it, “exploration” came to mind. This part of the world was uncharted land, and supposedly was free from the influence of the demons which plagued the homeland of her and every other human. Rumors of this place being the holy land of the Goddess of Light were abundant, but no one had yet managed to produce any evidence of such a thing.

Alicia gazed through the trees ahead of her as she sauntered through the forest, taking in all her surroundings. Getting to this point hadn’t been easy: sneaking past the demonic forces and the patrolling soldiers of her kingdom had put her life in danger several times. Now that she seemingly arrived at a sanctuary of nature, with clean air and vibrant colors surrounding her, she could afford to take things a little slow for once. She sensed that she had come close to finding her destination, but by what measure? The same endless forest surrounded her, as it had yesterday…as it had last week. Sure, she advanced further into the forest than any other she had spoken to before, but was that really a reason for her to feel so close to her destination?

“I hope that this place actually exists…”, Alicia thought to herself. “It’d be a pain to have walked all the way out here to chase after some folk legend.”

Broken-down ruins, a dilapidated shrine, a secretive cult worshipping some goddess… anything could be up ahead. The thought stimulated her adventurer’s spirit as she continued forward, keeping ever alert for anything that could be counted as “sacred”. Even just bringing back some fragments from a ruined structure would bring her immeasurable joy, let alone finding something as amazing as a living breathing organization worshipping the goddess!

Though by this point, she had been walking for almost 10 hours, and was feeling especially hungry. The thought of catching more wild game from this untouched sanctuary of a forest was enough to drive her to hunt for her next meal. Picking up the pace, Alicia began to move through the trees, searching not for ruins but for tracks, markings, anything that could lead her to her next meal.

As luck would have it, fortune smiled upon her that day…

“Wilen tracks…fresh too. There should be one nearby!”

Alicia perked up at the thought of roasted Wilen for dinner, but remained cautious. A Wilen could easily hear a predator approaching its position, and could outrun her in this forest. It was best to approach this with caution, and to try and hunt the creature without being spotted.

“Still though, this is rather strange. I’ve seen Wilen tracks before, but what are all these straight lines on the ground? They look like someone pressed down a bunch of wooden rods into the mud…”

These were no tracks she had ever seen before, but were they even tracks? This could be the imprint of a trap left by another hunter on the ground, or could be something completely unrelated. However, the thought that another hunter could be going after the same prey – her prey – gnawed at her mind, and she left the strange markings with haste, vowing to investigate them further once her stomach was filled.

As she darted forth amongst the trees, following the tracks left by the Wilen, she readied her bow to target the Wilen as soon as it came within her range. Alicia knew very well that a Wilen could outmaneuver her if she made herself known, and took out some arrows ahead of time just in case. The landscape rolled past her, the colors from the sky becoming bloodied by the setting sun, and the air in the forest cut past her as she raced forward. Soon, another set of tracks appeared in front of her, this time unaccompanied by the strange markings she had seen before. The tracks were deeply imprinted in the mud lining the forest ground, and fresh…fresh enough that Alicia slowed her pace and took in every sound that permeated the air. Every insectoid buzz, every bird’s chirp, the sound of trees swaying in the wind – all of these and more echoed in her ears as she tried to locate the one sound that mattered: a Wilen moving through the forest…there! It was faint, but there was no mistake. The Wilen was nearby, and it was minding its own business.

Alicia moved forward at a crawl, keeping her ears focused on the direction she heard the Wilen from. Slowly, and with caution, she avoided every branch of foliage on the ground, every loose branch hanging before her – all to approach the Wilen’s position with the utmost skill. Her breathing became silent, and the ever-present sounds of her body ceased to be. All that mattered was staying silent and not betraying her position, and if she could do that, she would have a successful hunt. As the trees continued to crawl past her, eventually she spotted a tuft of gray fur – her target.

The Wilen had not yet noticed her, but seemed as though it was on high alert. Its slender head was held high as it stared into the forest away from Alicia, and its antlers stood tall amongst the falling leaves and other shrubbery of the forest. Its fur looked healthy enough, but its ears were held flat against its head as though something had spooked it.

Alicia looked at its hooves, and noticed that they were all intact. If another hunter had tried to trap it before, it seems that this Wilen escaped from that trap unscathed. This put Alicia into a higher state of alert, as another hunter would likely be preparing to take her kill if they were also chasing the Wilen who escaped from their trap. Still…it was strange that the Wilen was standing in one place, staring into the forest. It was almost as though it had heard something, though she had not heard anything but the unrestrained echoes of nature since she had entered the forest. Contemplating the prey before her, she knew that a missed shot could result in the Wilen getting away from her. It could run far faster than her, and usually other prey tended to stray away from Wilen’s territories if they could. A missed shot, a non-fatal blow, or even the wrong noise could set this Wilen off and see her dinner escaping her for the second night in a row. That was one thing she could not tolerate!

She drew her bow, and aimed it at the Wilen with practiced calm. One breath…two breath…held steady…release! Alicia unleashed her arrow, and as it cut through the air, the Wilen’s ears had finally perked up. It had noticed her!

Unfortunately, its reaction came too late as her arrow plunged itself into the creature’s body. The Wilen fell over, bleating loudly and filling its mausoleum of trees with loud cries, before finally losing its life at the hands of Alicia. She dropped down from her perch, and cautiously made her way towards her kill. If there really was another hunter to worry about, now would be the time to ambush her and take her prey. Luckily, her worst fears had not come to pass, and she dragged the body of the Wilen into a slightly more open area to begin her preparations for dinner…

…

“Ah~ ~ ~ That hit the spot! There’s really nothing like freshly cooked Wilen for an adventure!”

Alicia reclined against a log, facing the fire she constructed to cook the Wilen. Although one Wilen was too large for her to eat alone, she could dry out some parts of its meat overnight and take them with her in the morning as rations. The mysterious markings on the ground from before had completely fled from her thoughts, as she dozed off after a long day of hard work. She felt at peace being surrounded by the sounds of nature, and let the forest’s hymn lull her to sleep…

…

*CRASH*

“Wha-!”

Alicia shot up from her resting spot like an arrow, and spun to face the sound. It was morning, and there was supposed to be nothing but the sounds of nature around her. What she heard just now was almost like a tree being chopped down, but how could that be? There was no storm to bring heaven’s wrath upon any trees, nor could any predators Alicia remembered could knock down a tree in a forest like this. That meant that she wasn’t alone, and by the volume of the crash, the other party was close to her.

Forgetting all about her grand visions of a shadowy cult who could be living in the forest, Alicia assumed that some of the kingdom’s soldiers had finally caught up to her. How they managed to find her in this forest, she wasn’t sure of, but she was sure that she would face a harsh life in prison should she be caught. She could run from these pursuers, or… she could fight. After all, in a forest like this, who would possibly be able to find and recover the bodies of a few soldiers? They would have to travel into the forest in a straight line for a couple of weeks just to reach this spot, and most wouldn’t have the bearing to travel like that in a forest of this scale. Thus, Alicia grabbed her bow, and stealthily shot towards the noise, ready to battle.

As she flew forward, she noticed more and more signs of activity in the forest around her. What she first thought was a one-off coincidence soon became a tangible influence; the floors of nature had been tainted by more of these strange imprints.

“More of these…if these were traps, why would a hunter lay so many in the same area? They could be tracks, but I’ve never seen a creature that walks upon rods like this! Maybe these are tracks left by some cart that soldiers wheel around behind them…”

Her head racing with possibilities, Alicia soon arrived at her destination: a fallen tree, struck down and laying before its brothers in the forest. However, while Alicia expected to find soldiers waiting for her, she instead found something… else. Metal boxes, with arms protruding from the sides, and strange reflective domes atop their bodies. Strange symbols dressed the sides of the creatures, and their legs…they had no legs! Instead, it seemed as though they had a set of wheels placed inside of a metal belt along the sides of the creatures. She had never seen a creature like this before… could a creature even grow a hide of iron like this? As she settled down to observe these new creatures, they began to move around the tree. Much to her surprise, these were what had left the imprints she saw before!

She gazed on with intrigue as the creatures cut through the tree, using their arms to scrape bark off the tree and to cut through its trunk like butter. These were no ordinary creatures…no, these were creatures that were gathering resources. That suggested that they were intelligent, and were using the wood for something more, possibly for constructing a nest. Would creatures made of metal even need nests? And in the first place, why would creatures made of metal even use wood for their nesting instead of more metal?

“Could these be demons?”, Alicia thought. “…No, if they were demons, there would be more of them, and they would not be walking on such untainted land without consequence. What are these, then?”

“Wait… could these be servants of the goddess?! These could be creatures that have never been seen before because they serve the goddess in her holy land!”

The more Alicia thought about this possibility, the more it made sense to her. Such creatures seemed to be made of iron, yet moved in an almost lifelike manner with their arms. Such creatures couldn’t possibly be natural, and yet no mage she knew of could create such a creature. Thus, it must be of some sort of divine nature! That was the only explanation!

As she pondered the origin and nature of these creatures, they began to drag the cut pieces of wood away from the area. Alicia jumped forth to follow them, keeping her distance in case they were hostile, though the creatures seemed to disregard her entirely. Before long, the sea of trees parted to reveal a clearing, where Alicia saw more of these creatures. The forest in this area had been stripped away, replaced instead by a clearing of iron creatures. There couldn’t have been more than ten in total, although every single one was engaged in some activity. Aside from the two she followed from the forest, another two creatures front of her worked to excavate dirt in a large crater, seemingly for an unknown purpose. Another three creatures emerged from the side of a nearby cliff carrying all manner of ore and metals, while the remaining three seemed to be patrolling the clearing. In the center of these creatures stood a gargantuan iron structure, with protrusions coming out from every surface. Some snaked across the ground like roots, while others stuck straight out like branches on a tree. But no matter what form these took, they all were made of iron. The ground near the structure, even the air around it…everything in its vicinity had either become metal or had been filled with metal strings of varying thicknesses, branching away from the structure to other points in the camp, and some even further beyond into the forest itself.

“What…what am I looking at? Could this be what I was searching for in the forest all this time? Is this the holy land of the goddess?!”

Alicia decided to approach the structure, abandoning her position in the forest and moving swiftly into the pile of logs that had been created by the two creatures she followed. She still was not sure if these metal creatures were hostile or not, and had to be careful. If they could cut through a tree that easily, they would surely have no problems dispatching of her! After the two creatures returned to the forest, she crawled forward, taking every step as stealthily as she could. As she grew closer to the metal structure that dominated the landscape, she grew more and more shocked at the sheer size of it. Such a structure practically stood as tall as the trees that surrounded her in the forest! Even some of the pipes that protruded from the sides of the structure were taller than she was! How could something like this even be built?!

After a carefully executed movement through the clearing, she arrived before the structure, and stood in front of what appeared to be a door made of metal, with no handle to speak of. Markings were present on the surface of the door, as well as on the sides of the structure, however Alicia could not read them; no matter which language she tried to recall, these symbols did not match with her memory. Try as she might, she could not open the door, and she dared not make too much noise in fear of provoking the creatures around her. Nor did there appear to be any alternate entrances into the structure – she could try climbing on top of the pipes to find a way in from above, but any mistake would surely spell her death. Yet, as she turned to advance towards another part of the structure, the door opened, and a hiss of smoke greeted her. She jumped back, prepared to face a foe, but was instead greeted by an eerie silence from within – a silence that drowned out the noise of the forest and gave her a sense of foreboding that only the greatest of demons could. The door remained open to her, with puffs of smoke coming from the inside every few seconds. Despite its mysterious nature, the entrance almost beckoned to her, and seemed to be inviting her inside. Alicia’s gut instinct was to turn and flee from this entrance, but her adventurous spirit would not allow for it!

Cautiously, Alicia approached the entrance, and gazed inside the structure. The interior walls were lined with lights of varying colors arranged into neat rows, turning on and off faster than she could follow. Every wall seemed to be partitioned off, and although some walls were full of activity, others remained still. The lights almost appeared to behave as an insect colony, in her eyes, although she knew that couldn’t be the case. A metal bridge lay before her, leading to what appeared to be a large metal orb suspended above a ravine by several metal rings and columns. There didn’t appear to be any creatures inside of the structure, nor any immediately noticeable danger to her. As she took her first steps inside of the structure, the door slid shut behind her, locking her in with the darkness!

“Was this their goal all along? What could anyone possibly get from trapping me here?”

Alicia searched desperately for a way to open the door, but was greeted only by the sleek metal interior of the structure surrounding her. Suffocated by the surroundings at the entrance, she stepped further into the structure, and began to move towards the metal orb in the belly of the structure. Clearly, this orb was encasing something, but what? Could it be a seal for some powerful entity suspended above a ravine, ready to drop in case the entity ever tried to escape? Could this be the resting place of the goddess she sought after? All these thoughts resonated within Alicia’s head as she approached the orb, every step echoing within the chamber as though it were a cave. As she gazed off the side of the metal bridge, she observed that a chasm lay under her, with the walls extending farther down than she could see, with the random activity of the lights extending down with it. And that wasn’t all – a constant hum of activity surrounded her, and bore down upon her like an avalanche. It wasn’t a noise she had ever heard before, but remained ever present – and seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. More metal bridges snaked in different directions below her, and an eerie haze hung in the air of the entire structure.

She grew closer to the orb, with every step drowning her in more noise, and again she grew shocked by the scale of it. It was several times taller than she was…no, several times taller than the inn she used to reside at! Not to mention the size of the entire interior of the structure itself – she had no idea what she was dealing with. As Alicia grew closer, she observed many foreign symbols imprinted on its surface, with black and yellow stripes adorning parts of its surface. The same black and yellow stripes lined the edges of the walkway that supported her, but on a much smaller scale. Large red paintings on its surface seemed to show all sorts of symbols, among which were symbols of an orb surrounded by 3 blades and a symbol of an orb with 6 curved spikes protruding out from its center. Muted light shone upon these particular symbols, though she could not determine from where.

“This light, and the lights along the walls…surely this place must have something to do with the goddess of light.”, Alicia thought to herself. “What else could possibly create lights like these, on such a scale? Not even the kingdom’s grand court mage could make something this elaborate.”

Soon, she arrived at the end of the metal bridge, and stood before the orb. Here, the noise was so deafening that she could hardly even hear her own thoughts, and the air around her felt as though it was buzzing to the tune of the noise. In front of her lay a table with all manner of metal protrusions and symbols on its surface, as well as a few metal chairs pointed towards the orb. The center of the table seemed to be dominated by a large glass sheet, though she could see nothing beyond the glass. A black box stood between her and the orb, and its reflective surface showing her face staring back at her – this too appearing to be made of glass. Alicia looked around, looking for any sort of way forward, but soon was greeted by a massive hum. As she placed her hands upon the table to look for any sort of clues on what this orb was, the chamber around her gradually started to light up, and the glass in front of Alicia flashed awake and began to display something. As she looked at the display, she stepped back in shock.

“What…is this?”

|| Hello, human. I am BT-201. ||

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