“Yeah, it’s me!” she repeated, “can you... put that down now?”
She wasn’t dressed like one of the cultists. If this was the same Layla, then she was the girl Daivon had spoken about in his final moments. She had come looking for him, and I was about half an inch away from sending her to meet him again. I cautiously lowered the lance.
“I almost shot you! How did you get up here—and past the security?” I asked, not hiding the stress in my voice. Her face screwed up in confusion.
“Same as always, I jumped,” she said as if it was obvious.
“You... jumped to the third story?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“Yeah...?” she half-asked. She blinked and then narrowed her eyes, ”Hey—why aren’t we linked anymore?”
“I got kidnapped and my system was destroyed—had to get a new one. I wasn’t linked to anyone this morning,” I said. She recoiled and brought a hand up to her lips.
“That’s why you disappeared?! That’s awful!” she said. A moment later, I received a message.
Connection request from: Layla Smoke
I accepted it and a new green dot faded onto my map. She flashed me a relieved smile.
“You have to tell me what happened—maybe after a snack? I haven’t eaten since you... weren’t here,” she said, petering off with a grimace.
Daivon had vanished six days earlier. Both of my eyebrows shot up and I took a second look at her. A week was a long time to go without food, but it shouldn’t have done that to a healthy person. Her coat hid the details, but she looked on the brink of death—the sort of frailty that only came from chronic malnutrition, over months or years.
My opinion of Daivon dropped several notches. After Basil’s tour of the manor, there was no excuse for Layla to be in this condition. Even with the sun’s problems, food couldn’t be that hard to come by; Ester had bought us bread without even a moment of hesitation. I had an endless supply of questions and concerns, but they could wait.
“I’ll go raid the kitchen, then we can talk,” I said, turning to leave. Layla snorted and rolled her eyes.
“My little problem hasn’t gone away in six days, Dai. I still need aether,” she said. The comment perplexed me. What little problem? Surely it would be faster to get food from the kitchen than to go buy it. Unless...
“Do you have special dietary needs? Is that why you haven’t eaten?” I asked. Layla burst out laughing.
“’Special dietary needs’? I’m calling it that from now on,” she said, still chuckling. As usual, I was missing something.
“Look, Layla, I lost more than just my system. Most of my memories are gone, too. I remember some things, but... what are you talking about?” I asked. Her mirth vanished, replaced with alarm. She hugged herself and bit her lip, giving me a searching look. The silence stretched and she started trembling.
“You... you don’t remember me, do you?” she asked, her voice a fragile whisper. I shook my head gently. She closed her eyes and hung her head, turning away. I cursed the universe internally. How many more times would I need to have this exact conversation?
“I’m sorry. Let’s just take this one step at a time. What do you need to eat?” I coaxed. She sniffled.
“Aether,” she said. As an afterthought, she blurted, “you can’t tell anyone.”
“You eat aether? What, like a Stalker?” I asked. She looked like I had drop-kicked her puppy into a bonfire.
“Not like a Stalker! I’m a person; they’re mindless automatons,” she said with a glare. I held up a hand.
“Alright, alright! But you eat aether? How? Why?” I asked. Her posture shifted from scandalized to nervous and frightened.
“Um, well... I can take it directly—with my weave, like a mage. Or...” she trailed off, shifting around and looking at everything but me. At my prompting, she sighed and continued.
“Or, I can drink aether-rich fluids,” she blurted in a rush. She cringed and peeked at me with one eye open.
Did potions have aether in them? The one I’d seen was magical enough. Plenty of the machines here had magic-looking liquids in them, too. Layla looked like she expected me to shoot her after the admission. I was confused and at a loss, until all of the hints snapped together in a blast of revelation.
“You’re a vampire?!” I whisper-shouted. Her eyes bugged-out and she shushed me while wheeling around, trying to look in all directions at once.
“Don’t say it out loud,” she hissed at me, “someone might hear it!”
It made too much sense. There were ghosts and zombies; why not vampires, too? At least Layla didn’t seem... monstrous and insane. Yet. Daivon had to have known what she was. Did I want to keep a vampire around just because Daivon had liked her? A worse thought struck me.
I fished the High Inquisitor’s coin out of my pocket and showed it to Layla, my eyes wide. She raised her light to get a better look and froze, her face going blank. She slowly met my gaze and spoke with a brittle calm.
“Are they here?” she asked, icy.
“I don’t know. Can they hear through it?” I asked.
“No, you have to use it. Did you?” she asked. I let out a breath.
“No. They questioned me after... that’s a long story, but they gave me this when they were done,” I said. She relaxed, but there was still a hint of tension in her expression.
“What happens now?” she asked. I slipped the coin back into my pocket.
“I’m not ready to... feed you. Does an aether container work?” I asked.
At her nod, I found the small cylinder containing all the aether I had collected today and tossed it to her. She snatched it out of the air and gazed at it hungrily. In an instant, a puff of blue-green smoke billowed out of the container and streamed towards Layla. She inhaled deeply, and it was over.
“Thank you,” she said, tossing the empty container back to me and rubbing her nose with the back of her hand.
“It won’t be enough, though. I used almost a fourth of that jumping up here,” she said.
“It’ll take a while for me to fill it again,” I said. She tilted her head.
“Can’t you get another one?” she asked.
I started to deny it, but stopped. Could I ask for another container? The manor was loaded with aether devices, and there was a giant glowing crystal in the library. Layla was asking nicely for food instead of savaging random strangers and draining their blood. After eating the small capsule’s energy, she looked only half-dead instead of mostly-dead.
A friendly monster was a step up from the decidedly unfriendly monsters I’d encountered so far. If I was careful, maybe I could learn some interesting things about the world from her. Decision made, I told her I would find her some more aether.
I left the room and shut the door behind me, hiding my lance behind a nearby sculpture. Some lights were still on in the parlor, so I made my way down the stairway. A lone guard was sitting in an armchair on the ground floor. He stood and greeted me as I approached. I asked him about aether containers and he directed me to a cabinet in the library.
I found it after a few minutes of searching. It was a large steel box, more like a safe than a place to keep plates. There was a single magic circle inscribed where I expected a handle. Focusing on it, an icon of a lock appeared and I connected to it.
Identity confirmed: Daivon. Unlocking...
There was a loud clunk and the door swung open. Inside, there was a treasure trove of metal canisters. The top shelves were split between trays filled with small cylinders like the one I already had. Small boxes, identical to the one Ester had lent me, were stacked on the middle shelves.
The bottom two shelves held four large vessels that reminded me of propane tanks. I pulled one out and examined it. It had a convenient carry handle on the top and four stubby feet on the bottom. The silvery-blue metal sparkled in the light cast by the library’s core. I found the usual connection circle on top and linked to it.
Large aether storage container (100%)
That should last for a while. I took a pair of the medium-sized ones as well and closed the door. The mechanism automatically locked. Hefty haul secured, I scaled the stairs back to my rooms and hesitated outside the door. My lance was still stuffed behind the sculpture.
Was taking it now the right move? There was a hungry vampire inside, but she hadn’t tried to maul me on the way out. Daivon had trusted her, but was his judgement any good? I needed to be safe, but if I pulled a gun every time I was near someone dangerous, I’d have to never put it down.
It was time to take a calculated risk. She could kill me, but so could anyone with a hidden knife—or a sturdy rock. Diplomacy demanded boldness and openness. I pushed the door open and peeked inside. Layla’s light had moved, but she wasn’t waiting behind the door to ambush me.
I shuffled in and closed the door. Layla was sitting on the couch and fidgeting with her light. When she saw me carrying the tank, her eyes became the size of dinner plates. I advanced and placed the container on the short table in front of her. She was visibly shaking, her fingers nearly drawing blood from her grip. This was the closest to each other we had been, so I hurriedly backed off to sit across from her.
She leaned into the device and clutched it with both hands. A stream of aether poured from the top of the tank and floated towards her. She closed her eyes and the blue-green mist swirled into her.
As I watched, an incredible transformation occurred. Layla’s sunken eyes and gaunt skin morphed into healthy beauty and youth. Her body visibly filled out until her clothes actually fit her. She even seemed to grow slightly taller. Where once there had been a person that would have made a prisoner of war grateful for what they had, now there was a breathtaking, supernatural beauty. It was terrifying and terrific, all at once.
After several minutes, the stream finally cut off and Layla slumped into the couch, her head lolling against the backrest. She let out a contented moan. I let out a breath and checked the tank. It was empty. However the different sized containers related to each other, I was sure that she had just eaten an enormous quantity of aether. Hopefully, it would be easy enough to replace.
She cracked open one eye and smiled lazily at me.
“Thank you...” she mumbled, giving the impression of a sleepy cat after a large meal.
“Better?” I asked. She laughed, melodious and carefree.
“It’s glorious! I’ve never had so much aether at once,” she said.
“When I asked for some aether, I didn’t think you’d bring me a large,” she added, a mischievous smile dancing across her face, “I’ll have to find some way to make it up to you.”
That wasn’t the direction I wanted this to go. I was practically dead on my feet and didn’t even want to think about the ethics involved here. She pretended to pout when I held up a hand and shook my head.
“The last few days have been a waking nightmare. We need to talk, but not tonight,” I said. The reminder sobered her up and all playfulness was gone. She stared into my eyes.
“I was worried about you, when you weren’t here and I couldn’t find you. Each day came and went with no sign of you, and my stall wasn’t doing well. I had to close it today, in case someone saw me and started asking questions. I thought I might have to... to...” she didn’t finish. Pain, fear, and relief fought a three-way battle for her visage, resulting in a pyrrhic victory for relief.
“To hunt?” I asked quietly. She couldn’t look at me, but nodded.
“We’ll find a better way, so this doesn’t happen again,” I reassured. She put on a brave smile, but couldn’t hide the haunted expression entirely.
“I saw you. In the market, with Ester,” she said. I nearly got whiplash from the sudden change of subject. I scratched the back of my head to buy time.
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“She and Bas—uh, mother—came to get me from Ravenspoint. Is that... unusual?” I asked, tentatively. Layla gave a long suffering sigh and shook her head.
“No, I guess not. Not anymore than you being there in the first place. It’s just... I know your family, but they don’t know me,” she said. I frowned. Daivon must have wanted to protect his vampire girlfriend from unwelcome familial scrutiny. Was there no way to conceal it without isolating her from the rest of his life? I made a mental note to look into it. Later. I needed to sleep.
She agreed to come back tomorrow for a real conversation. Giving the tank a farewell pat, she stood and gave me a longing look before gliding over to the open window. I followed her over, staying a few paces back.
“I’m glad you’re safe now, Dai, even if you had to leave a few parts behind,” she said softly. I returned a sad smile.
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man,” I quoted. She quirked an eyebrow and the shook her head.
“I’ve never heard anything so strange and yet true,” she said. With a final look over her shoulder, she hopped out of the window and floated gently to the ground below. She took a few bounding steps and then leapt over the tall iron fence and soon disappeared down an alley.
I closed the window and flopped down onto the large bed. No one had tried killing me today—that I knew of—but it had been draining in a completely different way. Layla would be back tomorrow and I had some difficult choices to make. I had never smoked in my life, but I could have gone for a cigarette right then.
I awoke from a blessedly dreamless sleep. An echo of yesterday’s stress lingered as a slight headache. Between the mirror and Layla, the vampire had been easier to face. I was slowly coming to terms with my situation, but we hadn’t signed the ceasefire yet. It was only a matter of time before more of Daivon’s past came to haunt me, but I was better armed now.
I rolled out of bed and caught a whiff of myself. I hadn’t showered since the teleportation incident. There were clothes in a nearby dresser, so I picked an outfit and hoped it would fit. The bathroom door was firmly closed, but I made my way over and swung it open in a determined haste.
I avoided looking at the mirror—round two would have to wait—and found some long towels. Throwing one over the mirror so it couldn’t land a sneak attack on me, I inspected the brass bathtub. There was no overhead spout, but running water came from the lower faucet, thankfully. I worked out how to control the temperature and ran a hot bath for my sore muscles and soul.
The encounter with Layla ran through my head as I relaxed. There were so many questions remaining: How did she bypass the security system? Could someone else do it, too? How many other vampires were there? Could the actual cultists find me, just like she had?
I opened my journal and recorded everything that had happened with Layla last night. I was determined to be better prepared for our next meeting. A friendly vampire was preferable to a hungry one, so I made a note to have “snacks” ready. How long would it take to fill the large tank? And just how much was that aether worth? Had I accidently fed her a new car’s worth of money?
More and more questions were piling up, so I opened the Lists utility in my system and started writing everything down for later. One list soon became two, then four, and I strongly considered making sub-lists for each of those.
Goals: get home, investigate cult, fix the sun, get some real friends (not just Daivon’s hand-me-downs), learn all the things
Questions: where does food come from, what is with the city outside the city, how is Earth connected to this world
Resources: the manor, aether containers, one small aether lance, the Modder system, Earth knowledge
Threats: cultists, the environment, monsters, Inquisition?, vampires???
Breaking it down like this, a new plan started to take shape. Aether and magic were at the core of everything here, and they would be the keys to all of my goals. I needed to go to a place that I could learn and grow in strength—before the threats could catch up to me. Everything was pointing to the Tower.
I had always liked learning, even if I hated my time in school. Maybe a magic school I could attend part-time and that would stop cultists from trying to stuff another demon in me would be more my speed. I sighed. It was going to be worse than Earth, wasn’t it? Ester’s retort about the “consensus of High Mages” came to mind and I shuddered. Yeah, it was going to be worse.
I finished dunking my head under the fountain. What did people do for fun around here? There hadn’t been any music anywhere I had been, which seemed like a major oversight on the part of the city planners and populace. Maybe I could find a guitar—or make one, if they didn’t exist yet. Would introducing metal music to this world make me insanely rich and famous, or get my head shoved on a pike? Bach was always a good option, if all else failed.
I added “learn about local religions” to the list. Rolling my eyes, I then immediately added “learn about local politics”. Between the king, the Inquisition, and the cultists, there were bound to be complications I didn’t know anything about yet.
I finished my bath, dried off, and returned to the bedroom. Someone had dropped off another silver tray with breakfast. Grateful, I sat down and admired the timing. The third spoonful of sweet porage was in my mouth before I paused. The timing had been too good. It wasn’t an accident; they somehow knew when to drop off the meal. Irritation growing, I reopened the list and added “find some privacy”.
Breakfast was washed down with more of the same sweet oat-milk substitute from dinner and I was ready to face the day. I opened a new list and started to name it “TODO for—” but wasn’t sure what today’s date was, or how they wrote dates here. Angrily, I flipped to the goals list and added “figure out how time works”.
TODO—Day 3: explore nearby, learn how to use the aether core from Basil, practice with the lance, talk to Layla
It was simple and achievable—everything a good todo list should be. How the universe was going to screw me today was yet to be seen, but at least I had a plan. I looked it over one more time, and then paused at the final task. The conversation with Layla was going to be stressful and tiring. I added “relax” to the end of the list. I stared at it for several seconds. Resigned, I added a question mark at the end. There was hope, and then there was naivety.
I left my rooms to wander the manor’s halls and take in the details that Basil didn’t mention during the tour. A side room on the bottom floor had two suits of medieval-style plate armor on display, along with a pair of greatswords. Each weapon was a hair taller than I was and featured fine filigree climbing up the bottom third of the blade. There was no display plate or anything else to tell me their history, but they felt ancient.
While I admired the swords, a familiar maid entered the room and told me Basil was in the library and wanted to see me. I thanked her and made my way up the stairs. The doors were already open when I arrived and I saw Basil sitting in a high backed chair near the aether core. She smiled as I entered and I took a seat near her.
“I saw that you took one of the larges last night; is everything alright?” she asked me. I should have seen the question coming; I’d taken one of four huge treasures from a locked vault. Still, it caught me off-guard. Layla made it clear that I shouldn’t tell other people about her and I couldn’t have agreed more.
“Yes, I’m fine. The container’s in my rooms—do you need me to bring it back?” I asked, deflecting. She shook her head.
“No, they’re here to be used. Be sure you are being responsible and understand the dangers of that amount of aether,” she said. I carefully kept a straight face.
“Just how much is in it?” I asked.
“One million drops,” she said nonchalantly. My heart rate spiked. I cleared my throat.
“And how much can a small container hold?” I asked, narrowly avoiding a squeak. Basil studied the fingernails on one hand.
“Oh, one hundred drops. It’s one hundred up each size—one hundred smalls per medium, and one hundred mediums per large. Anything more than that requires custom enchantments, like the Tower’s reservoir,” she explained. Furrowing my brow, I pulled out a medium and a small container to compare them.
“It doesn’t look a hundred times bigger,” I said. She smiled.
“Better compression, dear. It would be a waste on the smaller ones,” she said. I put them away to hide the slight shake in my hands. Doing some quick math, I estimated it would take a little more than two months for me to naturally regenerate enough aether to replace what Layla had eaten in a few minutes, and that was if I didn’t spend anything in the meantime. Hopefully no one would come looking for it any time soon.
Over the next few hours, Basil showed me how to use the aether core. It acted as the brain for all of the manor’s enchantments and was the true source of knowledge in the library. There were a huge number of books and other documents stored inside the crystal and it also allowed us to send messages to an operator in the Tower.
To my disappointment, there was no simple way to copy information out of the crystal and into my system. Basil said this was both a security measure and simple expedience, since copying was a difficult process, apparently. That didn’t make sense to me, so I made a note to explore the concept when I learned more about magic.
The manor’s security enchantments were complicated and layered. There were identity checks, proximity alarms, real-time location highlighting for the guards, and other things Basil didn’t explain. Layla hadn’t triggered any of it. Either she was just that good, or Daivon had done something to hide her from the systems. I didn’t know where to even start looking to find out.
Our tutorial session came to an end and Basil left to speak with some of the manor’s staff. I skimmed through the crystal’s contents and made notes about books I would want to read later.
One document was an article on the history of the calendar. It was short, so I read the entire thing. They had twelve months with the same names as the ones I knew, but each was exactly thirty days long. Every five years, they had a “lost day” that wasn’t added to any month but was the first day of that year. Days were the same twenty-four hours, with hours, minutes, and seconds working as I expected.
According to the article, the months were named by the “great founders” after important figures they had known, but no specifics were given beyond that. Here was more evidence of a connection between Earth and this world, and I wasn’t any closer to understanding it.
With one of my goals for today finished, I decided it was time to explore my surroundings a little. I left the manor and followed the path around the building. The mini Zen gardens continued all the way around the fenced-in yard, mixed in with decorative rocks and boulders. Around the back, I found a smaller structure attached to the main house.
It was a single story, made from the same green marble with corrugated sheet metal for a roof. I tried the door and it swung open without any trouble. Inside, there were counters along three of the walls and a worktable occupied the center of the room. Sand bags and slabs of green stone were piled high against one wall while tools of all kinds hung from hooks above the counters.
Sand was sprinkled all over the floor, with footprints leading in and out of the door. The worktable was covered in metal scraps and glass jars filled with hardware or murky liquid. If not for the green stone and a few hints of glowing aether, it could have been any workshop from back home.
I sat on one of the stools near a counter and ran my hand over the metal, remembering teenaged-summers spent in a sweaty machine shop with my goofball friends and a tinny radio. Adult life had drawn me away from places like this, but I’d always thought fondly of those times. Maybe this could be my refuge in this world; after all, who bugs their garden shed?
A twinge of melancholy struck me. I’d lost touch with most of those friends long ago, and I couldn’t blame magic for that one. It reminded me of how far from home I was. I couldn’t truly trust anyone I knew here—and they shouldn’t trust me. Not with how I got here and who I was pretending to be.
I pushed it out of my mind and left the shed. Paul was at his post near the front gate and he waved to me as I passed. This was a nice part of town; the streets were smooth and flat with no litter and minimal grime. The wall of towering buildings on one side of the street were juxtaposed with the relatively sparse manor lots on the other.
Pairs of Kingsmen passed me as I wandered, tipping their hats or nodding as they continued their patrols. Aether streetlights seemed to float overhead and kept the shadows at bay. Each of the manors were unique, colorful, and sturdy. The tall block houses were clean and had none of the informal and improvised addition that were common in other parts of the city.
After walking for about half an hour, I found a small open area on the other side of the street, nestled between the taller structures. It was a circular courtyard with stone benches arranged around a central obelisk which stood nearly two stories tall. Behind them, a building built from spotless white stone slabs rose up above its neighbors and was topped with a thin minaret.
There was no fence or gate, so I crossed the street and walked up to the obelisk. Each side had identical pictures carved into it. It showed a tall tower resting on the ground and stretching up halfway to a stylized sun at the top. Wispy lines came from the top of the tower and extended in a halo around it.
I took a few steps back and paced around the obelisk while craning my neck up and down to catch every detail. The craftsmanship was crisp and impressive. The grass under the tower almost seemed to sway in the wind as I moved around.
I decided to rest my feet after the short walk and sat on one of the benches. Each bench was placed such that the obelisk didn’t block the view to any other bench. Nearly thirty people could sit comfortably here and all see each other. The whole area felt like community and ritual made solid. There was enough religious symbolism on display that even a man from another world recognized it. Did these people worship a sun god, like the ancient Egyptians? That must have been awkward, given the sun’s current state.
Lost in my thoughts, I almost missed it when one of the door opened and a figure emerged. It was an elderly man with a long white beard that was carrying a simple brass staff. He wore white robes with a hood drawn over his head. I shot to my feat, my heart starting to race.
It was another cultist; they’d found me. Was this their shrine and I had walked right up to it? He was walking slowly towards me, his staff clinking on the ground with each step—calm, menacing. What was that staff? Did it shoot lightning, or act like a cattle prod?
I’d left my lance behind the sculpture in the manor! I could rush him; he was armed and I wasn’t, but he was practically ancient and I was still young. He might know magic though—he definitely looked like a wizard. Caught between fight and flight, I was surprised when the old man gave me another option and started speaking.
“Excuse me, young sir, but can I help you with something? I don’t believe I’ve seen you at this temple before,” he said with a voice that sounded like a scroll that had been recovered from a ruin after a volcanic eruption.
“Uh, what?” I said, very articulately. He leaned heavily on his staff and glanced between me and the top of the obelisk.
“Well, I saw you admiring our diespirat and thought, ‘there’s a young man in need of a priest’. What has you seeking the Day all alone, brother?” he asked.
My brain shifted gears. He was dressed exactly like the cultists, but this guy didn’t seem like the type to chain me to an altar and summon a demon to eat my soul. Was this just what priest wore here? He had asked me a question, so I cleared my throat.
“I saw this clearing from the other side of the street and got curious. You called this a ‘die-spirit’? What is it?” I asked. He raised his eyebrows.
“You are not a Dayist? My apologies for assuming, young sir. The diespirat is the heart of this temple. We gather here to discuss the matters of the day—and of the Day!” he said, chuckling after the last comment. It must have been an inside joke.
“No, sorry. I’m not a... Dayist. What exactly is a Dayist?” I asked. He guffawed.
“There’s a question to make an old man weep. A Dayist is the glory of Day made flesh—flaws and all. A Dayist is he who denies the Dark and carries the Light. A Dayist is he who stands among the masses of this fallen world, but not with them. A Dayist, my boy, is a man who knows what is, and what has been, are not what must be. You ask, ‘what is a Dayist’, and I answer: anyone who dares to believe in a brighter tomorrow is a Dayist!” he preached, a serene smile and reverence blossoming across his face.
That was on me; I asked a priest what his religion was. Maybe the library would have more direct answers. Given the name and that speech, it sounded like they worshiped the day, or some idealized version of it. Did this religion exist before the sun decided to take a nap?
“Uh, thanks. That was... enlightening,” I said. I couldn’t help myself. The old man doubled over with over-the-top laughter; I was worried he might fall over and break something. When he calmed down enough to speak, I decided to try my luck with a different faith.
“Have you heard of some people called ‘Urallites’?” I asked. The priest’s joviality evaporated in an instant and his back stiffened.
“We have no dealings with Urallites in this temple, nor would any true Dayist,” he said in a practiced tone. I tried to reassure him.
“I just want to know what they are; I’ve heard the word but don’t know what it means,” I said. The old priest gave me a stern, searching look, as if he wasn’t certain whether or not I was mocking him. After a few seconds of inspection, he relented.
“Urallites are those that follow the teachings of Dagmyth Urall. There are no such people here,” he said.
“Who’s Dagmyth Urall?” I asked. He shook his head and shrugged.
“I wouldn’t know. Some heretic that thinks too much of herself,” he said dismissively.
Sensing that my welcome had abruptly run out, I thanked the priest and hurried out of the courtyard and around the corner. Ester had called the cultists Urallites and this priest claimed their leader was a heretic. Were they some demon-corrupted branch of the Dayists, or were they something else entirely? I needed to find out before ignorance got me killed—or worse.