pf-spectre

[pf-spectre]

Chapter 4: Rome’s Downfall

“I mean, What the hell! We worked so long just to get the prototype working at all, and now some thieves think they can just have it?”

The east side of Brastin wasn't busy this morning. It was the weekend, which meant that the street market was all set up. Many vendors jumped on the opportunity for new, cheap and stylish outfits to fit the coming ice age the city folk were convinced was upon them. Bargaining could be heard left and right and the numerous scents coming from the food trucks all mixed into one, enticing any passerby to spend a few bucks on a snack.

Neil and Graham had been walking around aimlessly, trying to get their heads wrapped around this situation, all in their own way.

“Those designs took SO many iterations! And you sure you don't have anything but those lousy outdated model files backed up?” Neil continued from his previous statement. If you had managed to get a look under his tinted glasses you would've seen the visible eye bags permanently giving him a tired look, despite his obvious best effort of a third energy drink of the day in his right hand.

Graham pulled at his cigarette and exhaled some smoke before shaking his head.

“Put it all on the flash drive. You should feel lucky we have a working prototype we can build at all” He glared down at Neil. “I might remember a few crucial details too if you give me the time”

Neil looked around nervously, his hands trembling just the slightest bit as they passed yet another winter coat vendor trying to sell them the ‘future of fashion’.

“Well that really depends on what Andromeda has planned for us. Imagine if she canns the whole project! We'd be doomed!”

The men were informed the previous night that their so dearly important passion project had been stolen. The security cameras didn't get any faces and the few identifying markers could belong to anybody in the city. Their supervisor, Andromeda Rose had informed them that she would like to meet up with them in a certain cafe and discuss further plans, as she rooted for their success despite their not so-efficient work ethic.

Graham looked at the cloudy sky, breathing slowly. “I've got a life back in Pinewell too. With a house and everything. You're the one in trouble if that happens” He said calmly.

Neil scoffed.

He checked the address Andromeda had sent him on his phone and looked around.

“The cafe should be somewhere down that street, I think. We have everything prepared just in case, right? Gotta maximise our chances” He made sure, and Graham nodded, drawing attention to his messenger bag in which he kept his laptop before quickly putting out his cigarette at a nearby trash can.

A small bell rang with the opened door of the small cafe located in a street corner. The smell of coffee and baked goods hit the two men in the face. Not many people sat inside, surprisingly, and pop music could be heard quietly playing through the confines of the room.

Sitting at one of the tables was a middle-aged woman. Her curly black hair with just a few white streaks running through it was tied up in a fluffy pony tail near the top of her head. Her sharp ears were adorned with earrings, where one half was golden and the other had three pieces of shaped clay dangling down in a chain, almost reaching to her shoulders. She was stirring a latte with a fancy stirring spoon as she noticed the men entering the cafe. She waved them over and offered them seats.

“I hope you two don't mind, but I already ordered you something as well”

The men noticed the two extra coffees infront of them. They had had significant time to cool down to a drinkable state.

“Oh, er, of course no!” Neil smiled, one corner of his mouth twitched a little.

“Great.” Dr. Andromeda Rose, General Spectre Researcher and supervisor for the Synthetic Spectre Project noted, before continuing:

“Now you boys know about the situation you find yourself to be in at the moment, right?” Her face showed genuine concern.

“I've managed to convince the guys at the upper levels of your progress, so you will receive funding for a few more months, but if you don't find that device you had been working with before or manage to build a functioning replica, I won't be able to help you either.” She explained calmly to the men before asking “have you managed to recover anything?”

Graham calmly pulled out his laptop out of the bag and logged in. He typed around for a few seconds before turning the screen around to Andromeda, it displaying earlier prototype blueprints and notes to their mechanical components.

“This is the best we could hand over at the moment, but I had more in mind for later too with a mechanical approach to synthesising the energy.” He explained as Andromeda took a sip before leaning closer to the computer screen, examining what was placed in front of her.

“And you can't forget-” Neil chimed in, “the experience we had gained before with our experiments is still in our minds. We could get some new, although less cleanly built prototypes out very soon! Give us a week at most” he chuckled rather nervously. As Graham had been explaining he somehow managed to chug his entire drink, and Graham was just about to start on his.

Neil continued speaking as he grabbed a messy notebook which was filled with paperclips, loose papers and sticky notes hanging out of it.

“I've got a few notes on the biological standpoint of it as well, although I'm not sure if you'd be able to read it, it's still good to prove it exists right?”

He opened on one of the more recent pages, the hand writing on them proving to be illegible. The anatomical drawings and sketches of various ways the mechanisms and a human body would react in conjunction were spot-on though, with each vein portrayed almost with complete accuracy.

“The writing is just labelling and exact explanations, but this is basically the same thing I was going to give you, but a bit more in my style ya know? So we have a working hypothesis and some basic tests on the function already done as well! Although some of these might not be up to date, and I don't remember which ones…” Neil admitted.

“Oh my…” Andromeda mumbled as she tried to look over the pages he was trying to show.

“I should've taken up biology, but this seemed like it could change more in a short amount of time, you know?” Neil added on before taking the notebook out of her hands just as she was reading the pages. Andromeda got a tiny bit startled by him doing so before she pulled herself together again and cleared her throat quietly.

The group of scientists continued chatting about other topics such as the weather conditions and private lives. Andromeda revealed that she had been thinking about getting a pet to combat her loneliness at home, and Graham, a former pet owner himself, gave her some advice. Though, in the end, Andromeda still couldn't settle on the idea. Shame, isn't it?

“As long as you can give me any results showing progress as soon as possible, you should be fine. I will keep you updated on what the guys in the upper seats are saying, but asides from that you can just hope what you had turns back up.” She reminded the men as she paid for them and they packed to go back out and make their way back to wherever they would plan on going next.

“Got your hat! Idiot!” The teenage boy shouted before making his way into an alleyway, almost without being seen.

“Hey! Give that back, meanie!” Lin shouted after him, her voice shaky as if she was nearing tears. She was holding her cursed, crystal-covered arm in place.

“Damn it, Dima, can we not do this in a crowded area?” A third person shouted. They were the oldest.

The group ran through the crowds near the Brastin plaza with great haste. They had had a mission before, but it almost looks like one of them might have been stalling…

“-but you said it could show different characteristics from the traditional spectre? That part could definitely be explored more if that's the case, why didn't you mention that sooner!” Andromeda chuckled, covering her mouth a little. Her ears always pointed downwards when she did that, Neil noticed.

The scientists had been standing still, continuing their conversation before they would eventually part ways. Their respective cars were parked on different streets, but they still had things to discuss.

All of a sudden, someone blazed past Andromeda. She barely caught a glimpse of them aside from their curly black hair and worn out black denim jacket. They were carrying something in their hands, resembling a hat of some so-

Somebody else ran basically head-first into her, the force almost making her trip over!

Once Andromeda had caught herself, she turned around to face the kid who had done this, who frantically was trying to get her hair back in order around her ears and regain her balance.

“Ehhhh- I'm so sorry!!”

The girl looked up at the woman, her hands shaking and her raccoon ears laid back.

A third person showed up, considerably older but still visibly a minor. They looked around to where that first guy ran with an angry expression.

Andromeda kneeled down, trying to make eye contact with the kid and speaking calmly.

“Is everything okay? Can you see and hear me? How many fingers am I holding up?” She tried to go through the usual steps to see if somebody is even really conscious, or what she remembered them to be before Graham stepped forward, talking to the oldest.

“Are you with her? Is there any parent or caretaker you can reach quickly?” He asked in his usual monotone manner.

“Well-” the oldest looked around again, their cat ears up and alert. “It's kind of complicated? They're not quite near…”

The boy came back with a cocky smirk, dangling the hat in his hands before the oldest snatched it from his hands aggressively.

“Where are we even right now? Brastin? Yeah, their parents are practically on the other side of the country.” He laughed.

“So no home either?” Graham checked. The others shook their heads.

“WE CAN PROBABLY TAKE THEM IN. Somehow.” Neil barged into the conversation with a hopeful glint in his eyes. “I mean, Andromeda, you've got space, right? And we COULD use some help with applying the new prototypes. Imagine the presentation!”

Andromeda smiled softly at the idea, ignoring the second part. “I could probably make some room for a few weeks, you're right”

The boy looked at the oldest with a smirk. “THAT’S how you do this. I told you I have a plan B”

“You told me we were going to sleep on the streets if plan A doesn't work out.” They responded.

“So you need the housing for a while? Would you like to stay with us a bit?” Andromeda asked, to which the others nodded.

“Then come with me, and you two-” she pointed at the other scientists. “Get your work in order.”

previous

[pf-spectre]

Chapter 3.5 Godly Intervention

Tic, toc, tic, toc.

The clock inside the Blood God’s head kept on going.

Tic, toc

He made his way through the thick grass and vines around the place, taking some effort to really look around himself to see if he had missed her around here somewhere. The tall treetops didn't let much light in. That made it easier on his eyes.

Tic, toc, tic, toc

He considered it a clever choice to have synchronised this sound in his head with universal time. What started as a way for him to stay adjusted to time passing when he newly became a god, became a nifty trick to keep his mind from drifting too far away.

He started passing different gravestones, all corroded and grown over to perfection, as some would say. One in particular stood out to the young god, his eyes instinctively darted to it. He carefully moved over to it, making sure to silently wish every person laying underneath him a pleasant rest, until he reached the one that caught his attention.

He put his hand on the stone and felt it for a solid moment, before wiping away the Moss and revealing the name of the person.

The god seemed to sit in silence for a long time, staring at the name with his subtly glowing thin red eyes, until the clock in his head became apparent again.

“hmm..” he quietly said. “sure, that’ll work”

Jackson, the current blood god, stood up again and bowed slightly before continuing on his path through more bushes and trees. Though it seemed like he would not have to search for much longer. His ears twitched ever so slightly.

“I can see you.”

His voice was quiet, but it rang through the whole forest. A little nasally, you can give him that, as he hadn't talked much in decades.

“Took you a bit”

In front of him, slowly, the tree bark started moving. It cracked, and cracked, and the leaves moved back. The last bit of dirt fell off, and the pieces of bark became skin of a similar dark, saturated colour. one arm emerged, from that, then a torso and a pair of legs, covered by clothing the colour of fresh river clay. One arm grew into place, its muscles defined by vine clusters and held together by pure gold rings.

The now humanoid figure’s head emerged, first as a bulge in the wood, now with defined features. Wood fibers lightened and formed into long, thin, white braids which covered her eyes and reached down to the earth.

The goddess of Earth smiled.

Jackson's neutral expression didn't change.

“We were both called down here, you know why better than me” He pointed out. His long scarf, the colour of fresh blood slowly floated around him, unscathed by the thorns and sharp branches on his path, just like the rest of his clothing. He slowly breathed, the cracks in his face apparent in the low light.

“You don’t know what’s going on with your own people, do you? With your head in the stars and all” The goddess started stretching the limbs of her new form, her wooden insides slowly settling into a more flesh-like form.

“Around Brastin, Norrain, the climate has been drastically shifting to be colder and colder” She explained.

“And? What's my part in this, I don't control the weather”

“Well, first off, the cold is your whole thing in a way…” She waved her hand around, pointing out the heavy winter gear Jackson was wearing in the middle of the summer.

“And I suspect somebody specific has to do with this change. You search in the city, you tell me who’s responsible.”

“Well, Ms. Attitude, I’m sorry, but since when have I been the one to run errands for you?” Jackson was slowly getting warmed up in speech again.

“Oh, go to hell, I’ll still be out here trying to collect information in case I’m wrong” She clapped back.

“Look at you, using human tongue like it’s what you were made for, maybe i should retire and let you have the job” He spoke in a very condescending tone and smiled.

“fine. We’ll meet again soon, with updates.” He started using the tips of his boots to draw a rune circle around him.

“If i find any, of course” The blood god’s expression darkened as the upper side of his face got covered in shadows and his smile became a grin. He gave the circle a light tap with his boot and his figure got transported away, leaving behind only a thin screen of dark smoke.

previous

[pf-spectre]

Chapter 3: Being broken doesn't make it one.

The distant street lights were amplified into a subtle glow in the reflection of the crystal Wren was holding. His thumb slowly glid across the ever so slightly visible cracks in the stone, every little bump felt taunting to him. Like a personal insult which he couldn’t help but take.

He heard vague rattling behind him, a face mirroring in the stone. He looked up ever so slightly into the distance, his brown eyes almost completely covered by his ginger hair as he got lost in thought. The other figures cold hand was placed on his homemade shoulder pad, adorned with long black feathers of a crow. Or a raven. He couldn't really tell the difference while collecting.

“Well, Vanja, what do we do now? I don't really know how to read these plans” He held a couple of physical blueprints in front of him, blueprints of a machine which is meant to collect energy, especially spectre from its surroundings and concentrate it into a new power. That new power would supposedly bring some kind of good to the world, and make him a respected figure in the world.

Wren looked at Vanja, the figure behind him vaguely. she had extremely long, wavy black hair under which it was hard to see her actual face. Most of her skin was covered in very light clothing and she wore a necklace with a pendant similar to Wren’s, shaped like an upside-down heart. Or maybe she just wore it the wrong way, it was hard to say.

“I mean, this machine looks huge! The stuff we managed to snatch is just a part of it, and I can already barely carry it. Just imagine the rest! Where would we store all that without it being obvious?”

Vanja blinked at him once.

“I doubt that the sewers are a good place, dude… it's so dirty in there”

Silence.

Wren looked around, asking himself if he might have missed something before Vanja started walking forward walking somewhere, deeper into the alleyway. She brushed her hand across Wren’s neck, although with how hard he shivered he might have been convinced that it went right through. He quickly gathered the supplies and followed.

“You're really weakened right now, you told me that yourself, so I don't really think that you should be doing this, you know?” He watched as she effortlessly moved a manhole cover.

He peered down and gulped before forcing himself down the ladder behind his companion, blueprints in hand.

“Didn’t we get some kind of prototype as well? I don’t think you had it and my hands are already-” He stepped down to the ground, a solid pathway with no water, a mere connection between two tunnels. A small contraption already stood there, almost resembling the scribbles and printed images in his hands. If you just went by the notes next to the images, it was even really accurate! At least what wren could read of it.

He took a second to take this in. Then another. And another. He shivered, a minute had probably passed already.

“Ah.”

He didn't really know what to say.

“So half of the job can be considered done?”

Vanja nodded. Wren was a little surprised that he had been able to make out expressions and actions from her when all he had been able to see the week he had known her was her eyes. They didn't meet up much when the sun was out, but even then her face was always shrouded in shadows in just the right way that he couldn't make out her features.

“It’s weak now, I get it. Do you think that if we turned it on and let it run for a while, that it can do you at least some good? With your, er, spectre condition thing and all?” He put his hands on the considerably sized machine and felt the stinging cold from the metal. Wren took his hands off of the machine again.

“And then eventually we can gather more parts and stuff, and get it more energy” He looked around, squinting his eyes trying to find an outlet or a plug of some sort. Surprisingly, he found one. He picked up the cable peeking out from the prototype and tugged it over to the outlet. Wren hesitated.

“And we won’t get caught, right? I- I mean there’s no way the cops will let me get out of this one too!”

Vanja just glanced at him silently, not moving whatsoever.

“Practically invisible? I guess that’s a way to say this hiding spot is a little discrete…” Wren winced a little as he inserted the plug into the outlet, bracing himself for an explosion or a shock of some sort.

The plug went in smoothly.

And Wren started hearing subtle mechanical whirring behind him.

He turned around breathing heavily in relief.

“It works! Or at least it didn't explode! Hahaha!” He laughed and scuttled over to the tiny control panel on the machine, comparing it to the notes. He noticed fairly quickly that this one was built out of an antique video game controller with what appears to be a DIY-Electronics Kit LCD display loosely attached at the front,

Excited, he started setting it up, pressing all kinds of different button combinations. The configuration seemed to genuinely intrigue him and he happened to show lots of knowledge on the scientific side of spectre, which was currently very crucial with this prototype.

Vanja watched in surprise as the machine slowly got up and running. She put her gloved hand over her Amulett. While Wren’s was currently, against his knowledge getting dimmer and its cracks deepened, hers gained a new faint glow that it lacked before.

The machine worked, just as its creators would have wanted it to.

An exposed rotor spun and spun and both heard the slow mechanical clicking of a different device inside get increasingly faster, until it almost sounded like a clock.

Tic

Toc

previous. // next

[pf-spectre]

And what do you see in the clouds?

[pf-spectre]

Chapter 2: The scientific name is Spectre

After making a breakthrough discovery for Spectre research, the lead force in this field, BTU moved two men to their own Laboratory and gave them funding to continue working on it.

They called their newfound invention “Synthetic Spectre” and pitched it as a technology to revolutionise the way the Force is used throughout the world, and opening it up to humans who would have never even dreamed of having any control over it.

It was perfect, and they were just about to finish off one of their newer prototypes, more powerful and more compact.

“Aaaand this weeks report is aaalll done.” The young researcher for BTU, the Brastin Technological University hit the left mouse button to print a few sheets of paper.

The young man, with mousy brown hair which he had hastily tied back and a stubble on his chin stood up from his rolling chair and stretched his back, cracking his knuckles in the process. His lab coat was very wrinkled and clearly in the wrong size. He scratched his collar and placed his hands into the pockets of the coat.

“Hey Grams, can you staple it together once it's done printing? I'll get the lab ready for the night”

He looked through his green tinted glasses over to Graham Thompson, his coworker, who had been sitting at his desk focused on the CAD software infront of him.

“Mhm. Lock up the tools properly this time.” He mumbled as he adjusted a blueprint design. His ginger hair was combed in a way where it would cover the small scar across his right eyebrow, and his round glasses somehow reflected the screen in front of him, obscuring his thin green eyes.

As the pages printed and Graham exported the newest design files onto a flash drive, Neil turned off the Individual power supply for each tool and locked the more expensive tools in their respective cabinet.

“I'll leave the prototype out, Andromeda said she'll pick it up later tonight for upper management to have a look” Neil shouted over to the other room as he carefully placed a circular build with an inner pattern resembling that of an aperture opening on the middle table of the lab.

“It's best we hand over the blueprints for our future plans too, still gotta get that approved don't we?” He added on, onto which Graham just nodded and gave a quiet “mhm.”

“Ohhh and we can't let her see all those cans, just imagine the hazard of having these in our workplace!” Neil then started picking up various cans from both their workspace and the lab ranging from sodas to caffeinated drinks. In that moment Graham was carefully stapling together the few but full pages of the report, making sure they were all right-side-up and aligned.

In just a moment with their teamwork and one (or two) trash bags, their workspace finally looked almost like that of two competent people. Almost simultaneously they left the last pieces that would be looked at during the weekend on one table and packed their work laptops into their bags before making their way across the long hallway leading to the elevator.

“Ya know, in our, what, four years of studying and working here I never really figured out why it's called spectre out of all things. It's basically magic, with all the different ways to use it and all, but we insist on the scientific name being spectre” Neil thought out loud as they stepped into the elevator, joining three other people on their journey downwards.

“I mean, who even decided on that name?”

“It was somewhere in our textbooks, I can't recall where, though”

“Oh so it was just some guy?? How weird”

They quickly reached the bottom floor of the building and exited into the parking garage, heading straight towards Neil's car. He unlocked it before getting into the drivers seat and haphazardly tossing his phone into the cup holder next to him.

“What are we thinking of for dinner?” He asked.

“We had some leftovers in the fridge, didn't we?” Graham responded as he closed the door behind him.

“I think our budget is blown for the next few days” In contrast to Neil's emotive way he spoke in a rather monotone fashion. He was fumbling around with his small multi tool keychain which he always kept on himself for emergencies.

As the two drove through the dense capital which was filled with skyscrapers of work buildings, restaurants, shops and apartments on the way to their own, the radio finished the song it had been playing and started playing the 5 PM news.

“[...] and for the weather, Brastin continues to defy all odds within eastern Norrain with its 51 degrees Fahrenheit. Seems like if our people want to have some warm time in the remainder of this August, they will have to visit the countryside! Talk about the effects of climate change, [...]”

Neil's keys jingled around all funny as he unlocked the door into his small apartment. Living in the dead-smack middle of Brastin might be expensive, but he wouldn't pass up the opportunity to have his home be much closer to his work. He and Graham both placed their keys and ID Cards from their work into a glass tray on top of the shelf and took off their shoes. Neil yawned.

“I bet I still have a movie somewhere in here we haven't seen, or at least one we don't remember so clearly” He started looking through his admittedly extensive collection of CDs and cassette Tapes he spent years collecting.

Neil continued to ask about certain movies and exploring his collection as Graham started heating the leftovers of previous day’s takeout in a pan.

Once Neil had found the mechanism for bending Specter to one's will through small electrical current signals and practically creating it out of thin air, he immediately called his college friend Graham who had lived in a smaller town, Pinewell, for a year. For the duration of the project the two had decided to move in together in Neil’s place instead of having to rent an extra apartment while Graham still pays off his house.

“There, this one's a gem in my collection, I don't think I've shown it to you before, Grams! Look at it” Neil held up a CD with smudged sharpie writing. The actual Name of the movie was illegible, but he managed to make a good guess of its contents.

“With our recent progress we have every reason to celebrate, right? I can just imagine the press coverage, our faces will be on the front page of every newspaper! Think about it!” He simply continued talking as he bent over and inserted the CD into the player, ready to enjoy this source of background noise.

Neil sat down on the couch, tightly wrapped in a blanket with the remote in his hands ready to start the film. Graham joined him after a moment, eating from the freshly reheated leftovers on a plate. Though unlike his friend, he didn't really focus on the movie. His vision drifted around the room with boredom and his left leg shook slightly.

The night continued as calmly as it began, until in the middle of the motion picture Neil suddenly got a call.

Neil glanced at his phone in a confused manner. Nobody should be calling at this time, right? It was past eight, so everybody at work would have been home by now.

Except for one person.

“Hold on, I think I need to take this” Neil paused the playback and Graham just nodded with understanding. He had made himself black Tea and was holding the cup, using it to warm his hands and to fidget with the label stringed to the teabag.

Neil walked out into the neighbouring room and took the call.

“Yeah, Andersson here, what's the matter?”

“[...] No, Andromeda, the Project files are right where they always are at the end of the week. I don't see what you mean. On the middle table of the lab, which by the way, should be in top condition [...] Sure, check the security footage if you have to!”

The call went on for a few minutes longer with similar light arguing before an expression of shock, then confusion crossed Neil's face. He lowered his phone, putting the call on hold before looking over to Graham, swiftly catching his attention.

“We got robbed.”

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[pf-spectre]

Start of Log - The full collection

Meet the characters - TBA

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Main story - Found under main story tag

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

-

More chapters TBA

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[pf-spectre]

Chapter 1: Goodbyes

Three knocks on the door.

The dark, wooden room was lit by one almost covered window, letting in just a sliver of light. Infront of it hung an array of transparent crystals, fragmenting the light into plenty of rainbow rays across whatever was inside the room. The walls were covered in aged paintings, calligraphy pieces and diagrams. The carpet on the floor had a spell circle as its motif, to protect whoever may be laying in the bed of the room right now.

That person’s name was Lin.

Three more knocks, and an excited sounding muffled voice could be heard saying something through the door.

“Lin! Linny! Wake up! It's already 8, how can you be this sleepy!”

Lin’s best friend, Artemis.

“Uaaaargh-! Hold on, temmie!” The young girl, around the age of twelve got up from the bed and hastily adjusted her blanket to make the bed appear tidy. She changed into a loose buttoned blouse and some jeans she had laid out besides her bed the past evening.

Today is the day.

Lin scratched over her left arm as she stumbled, backing into the wall. She looked really disoriented for just a second, before her eyes managed to focus back on the light from outside and Artemis knocked once again.

“Dad really wants to see you as soon as possible, Linny! I don't know what's going on with him, but he seems sad so I wouldn't want to mess with him” She heard from behind the door.

Lin moved across the room and opened the door slightly, but seeing her best Friend’s face immediately made her feel more optimistic about the day. She reciprocated the smile as soon as she saw it.

Artemis had very pale skin, long black hair which she kept in a braid and her brown-ish eyes looked yellow in the sunlight. She had a similar outfit to Lin, but with a long black skirt and leggings. She wore the same pair of shoes as Lin was just putting on, with the difference that Lin’s were doodled all over with different pens and markers and clearly dirty from playing in the fields carelessly.

“Did he tell you anything about why?” Lin asked as she finally got outside and locked the door behind her.

“No, I really don't know!” Artemis replied and the two started walking along a path. On the sides of the paths were many small houses, made of one or two rooms and a bathroom. Everybody ate communally, so there was no need for single kitchens.

Formed out of different little stones below them was an ongoing stretching mosaic of various protection spell circles, arranged and connected to resemble star constellations in their form. Stepping on each one produced a slight glow which was only barely noticeable in the bright spring lighting.

“It's not your birthday, is it? He wouldn't be sad about your birthday!” Artemis suggested after a long pause.

“No, maybe it's something that happened to Ilos?” Lin replied.

“Eh,” Artemis made a so-and-so gesture with one of her hands, “what would you have to do with it?” To which Lin just shrugged.

“Dad and Ilos WERE out at night, but I really don't think that anything bad happened to them!” The young wizard looked up into the sky, her curious eyes looking over the sparse clouds She pointed to a specific one as they walked.

“That one looks like a cowboy hat”

The statement piqued Lin’s interest, making her look up as well. Squinting her rather sensitive eyes, she smiled in realization.

“It's being chased by its owner! The wind blew it away” She added onto the observation.

“That's silly, he should get a better fitting hat”

“Maybe it's very important for his hat collection to be complete!”

“He can use his cowboy lasso then, being a cowboy he should have one! They're probably given to you once you get the job”

“I bet he's a very clumsy one and left his lasso at home!”

A cold gust of wind flew by the two, shocking them for just a second, before Lin started laughing at an idea:

“Those storm clouds over there, that's like, an ice wall or something! And he's chasing the hat towards it”

Artemis thought about that one for a bit, before shaking her head.

“He's a cowboy, did the Wild West have ice?”

Lin took that into consideration.

“The cowboy ice age?”

Both of the girls started giggling at the silly idea.

They took a turn, now getting onto a stretch of big grassy field with a path through the middle, created just by the people walking through it every day. For big vehicles there were real roads, but most inhabitants of this small village preferred to walk the short way. An electrical line led through and showed everybody the way to the other side.

After a while Artemis started wondering.

“Do you think that'll happen?”

“What will? The cowboy?”

“No, the ice wall.” She noted curiously, scratching the base of her big braid.

“I mean, you've predicted stuff from clouds forming and star formations, you know? Maybe this is another thing”

Lin shrugged.

“I don't think much about it, I mean there’s nothing behind that chunk of rain clouds. What would that mean for the cowboy?”

“He dies, end”

“That's mean though, I don't think the poor cowboy deserved it. He was not forgetful on purpose” The girl pouted. Her raccoon-like ears pointed down.

Artemis picked a wheat straw from the many available on the field and put the base of it in her mouth to chew on. “We need to go back after the rain to see what happens to the man.”

“Yes!” Lin did an excited jump, flapping her hands a little.

The two soon reached a small plaza, many benches and tables surrounding a round water fountain, its base acting as a start to a huge spell. It ensured protection from outside influences from within, forming a Spectre globe around this part of the village.

This was the heart of Dimicea, where most festivities are held, the people can hang out and of course, the most important person currently in charge of communicating with the gods can announce the most recent news.

“Artemis, Lin, good to see you here so soon.”

That person was currently Azaire.

The girls heard a cane tapping against the brick ground after the voice spoke. Azaire was a stealthy Wizard, but for a while he hasn't been able to use those abilities to his advantage.

If you ignored the scars on his face which reached from his left cheek over one of his eyes, it was obvious that Artemis didn't take much after her mother. They had very similar hair, where his had only the upper half tied up in a ponytail which blended in with the lower half, and he had a short but prominent beard.

Azaire’s eyes might have had the same saturated brown-yellow colour as Artemis before, but nowadays that beautiful hue had been reduced to a faint-ish yellow, leaving even his pupils hard to distinguish from everything else in value.

Nobody really knew what had happened to him to get him into this state, but everybody accepted it as a fortune to have him there to lead the tight-knit community. The same went for his daughter and her best friend.

“Temmie, sweetie, can I speak to Lin on my own for a moment? Breakfast preparations are ongoing” He patted his thigh with his left hand and a Creature of the night formed by his foot. It shifted around, settling into the physical form of an average sized dog, pitch black all over but in its yellow glowing eyes.

Artemis squinted at him for just a second before smiling. “Sure! Linnie, we'll play later, right?” She asked, just to make sure, and Lin nodded with a happy grin, her ears perking up. The wizardling leaned down slightly, calling her dog to her so that the two could play.

“Ilos is a cute pet, isn't he?”

Lin blinked at Azaire.

“I mean- er- he's a cutie! He's so adorable” she giggled, before the nervosity kicked in once again.

“Temmie said you needed to talk to me” She noted.

Azaire nodded.

“You're not like us. Do you remember how you landed here?” He asked her.

Lin looked to her left, her arm build out of cristaline chunks of red spectre, a curse that has followed her for her entire life. They shifted, broke, and rebuilt as she moved her fingers. The structure has been spreading her entire life, and has recently finished spreading across her upper arm. She usually tried to not touch it, the smoothness scared her.

She didn't say anything.

“I have been conversing with the gods ever since you were given to us, they told me that you're special.” He put his arm onto her shoulder, a soft smile across his face.

“They found a place for you, they told me you need to find your way there. The stars will show you the way”

Lin frowned, and a slight hint of fear lingered in her eyes.

“What about Temmie?”

“Artemis will stay here, she will become the next head of the village after she gets old enough, and somebody has to take care of Ilos” Azaire reassured her. That wasn't enough, though.

“But I don't want to go”

“I see a bright future for you, Lin.” Azaire always looked just slightly creepy when he was looking into the future, his eyes seeming even emptier than usual.

“And I'm sure you see it too, there's already unwell brooding in the world and you're the catalyst to start it.”

Lin didn't want to say anything, her eyes looking over at Artemis, who was playing fetch with Ilos.

“We will miss you, but it's for the greater good”

She didn't want to hear any ‘chosen one’ nonsense, Lin hated thinking about the future like that.

“We can arrange one backpack for you, you will go this evening at six.”

Lin just sighed in response and looked down before slowly making her way to Artemis, hoping to spend the last of her hours with her best friend.

…

“You're going? [...] I've got a gift I have been preparing, Dad told me about this, but I didn't think it'd be so soon!”

“Woahh it's got stars on it? Look at them! They dangle!”

…

And maybe one day they'd see each other again.

…

previous / next

[pf-spectre]

How long will I have to follow the stars?

It took millions of years for the first planets to form, for the first stars to be the eyes of the time goddess. The star dust would give her a body in the future, when she needs it, when there is life to model the body after. One planet in particular, is showing quite a bit of potential.

How much time will my destiny take?

Within almost the blink of an eye to the goddess, suddenly there was somebody else. The clouds above the active planet, earth, covered the small blades of grass sprouting from below the earth. That was life, a second direction to protect.

The animals that soon began inhabiting the earth were very intelligent. The time goddess, Aeon gave many of them small parts of her, so that they could bring change to the world, just as she would. And the young Earth Goddess, Celestia promised that she would make sure to protect any life.

At that time she could take the form of any living being. There was a piece missing, something to grant both her and Aeon a set physical form.

I wonder if anybody I used to know still misses me.

The humans proved to be the most intelligent of the animals, quickly evolving and forming speech and culture, ways of expressing their love to one another.

One small civilisation on a remote island figured that they had control over the small piece of the goddess that they possessed. Two ways of controlling those powers, split among the people who tended the gardens at day and guarded the village at night. Aeon gave them extra care, protection and power and Celestia erected huge walls of ice along their villages to keep them safe. If they ever wanted out, they could.

I don't want to wake up.

Children born blank, capable of holding the power, but unable to channel it.

I don't want to see the future like that.

There needs to be somebody to fill that last role.

This history, it's making me think of my future.

There needs to be another god.

I want to wake up.

Wake up.

Wake up.

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