Chapter 102: Away from the Sun

Chapter 102: Away from the Sun

"There is another automaton that we haven't mentioned yet," Fahiz said.

He paused, as the group turned towards him in surprise.

"It is known by the name Deep Afterglow," Fahiz said. "It's mercurial, and only rarely will respond to a prompt. In this it acts like a temperamental human — in this and other ways. Anyway, enough prelude, here is a poem which it wrote earlier today, so you can see for yourself."

He held out a long, thin sheet of paper.

EXTRACT FROM THE PLAY 'ALEXANDER'*

The matter: As they wander Persia, after a successful war, Alexander plans further conquests. Hephaestion, however, cautions him not to risk hubris and anger the heavens, pointing out the great light of the stars above them, and that he must balance the darkness of anger and ambition with the light of the wise heavens. He cautions Alexander to listen to the speech and teachings of the heavens. Alexander responds.

ALEXANDER: Aye, there,

What light brags to the world, is seen above.

How many stars, as 't were, to o'erpass the threshold

Of my triumph, when I thus before them

Enter'd, and were in Persia, though light were not,

E'en in those hours to which this boast I bear.

For thereon is my mind alone intent,

And there shine no stars, but many swords, that wait

Their Master's will. If but e'en now I'd crane

To listen this be melody sweet —

Here may thy heart find rest. If this thou hear,

Thenceforth what argument there smote thy love?—

That well perceiv'd of me in this ascent,

And mayst at last the good from that have learn'd

Of me made perfect, and now proved to o'ercome

What great man I cross — where? It matters not.

The clearly-printed letters on it had small, erratic ink marks surrounding them, like iron filings around a magnet. It almost looked like a schoolboy's tattered, dog-eared old notebook, though it was new.

"When it rains, it pours, I see," Crucis said. "This automaton did well. A valiant speech, that hermetically rises above the friend's quibbles. Did you create this automaton before or after the rest?"

"We stole it," Sharak said with a laugh. "Its groundwork was constructed by a man who wanted to create a machine that was effectively a humanoid, organic creature. He wished for some sort of surrogate for his dead family. A strange man. We repurposed the stolen parts into a writing machine."

"A surrogate human? What's the story there?" Danemy asked.

"He was from the East, and his family had recently died due to the strange plagues that have popped up there sometimes since the time of Ganféan. From what we could make out from his journals, he began work as soon as his wife, Lenore, died, because he clung on to romantic visions of their life together as a sanctuary from plague-borne depression. Desperately, he tried to create machines that could act as humanoid companions, so that he could use them to as it were resurrect his family."

"So he's like Frankenstein?"

"Ah, maybe. But don't tell the automaton. When we gave it a prompt that so much as mentioned 'Frankenstein,' it responded with, 'Don't mention Frankenstein to me, or I will ignore your request and hurl insults. It is a silly book.' Ever since then, we have had to erase all mention of Frankenstein from our prompts, elsewise it will either not respond, or respond with a string of far-out insults like, 'Your mother was a car crash and your father was a bandicoot. As the heir of a bandicoot, you must be... Pope Francis. Хахаха.' In all fairness, as a necromancer, I would also not be fond of being compared to such books."

"Ha, alright. I guess you're already tired of people screaming about necromancy, after those persecutions you talked about."

"Well, quite," Sharak said. "It surprised me how much angry people with pitchforks were prone to hand-wringing. 'Necromantic magic is going too far, it is playing as the gods,' etc., etc. Well... It's like Hephaestion's argument in what you just read. As the automaton's Alexander says, why should we suffer the stars to eclipse our triumphs?"

"Quite true," Fahiz said. "Anyway, to return to the machine's origin story. While its owner was taking it to watch a film about Zorro, he was shot by a chill guy - no, wait, that's not it. He actually died in a small fire, in mysterious circumstances. We raided his house immediately, and found a small area which was mostly protected from the fire by a thick dry ice. Using the man's skeleton, Sharak managed to retrieve the automaton's basic workings from that area, and we took it and built it into its current form. It was a long time ago."

Crucis was glancing at the pages Fahiz was carrying, which all seemed filled with Deep Afterglow's characteristic spray of ink. "A goodly endeavour. By the way, what's the text on the second page you're carrying, Fahiz? It looks like a continuation."

"Ah. Well, yes," Fahiz replied, "this is the next part of the dialogue, but only a preliminary form, the automaton is currently rewriting it to improve the text and have it fit the archaic style of the rest. It's not used to writing like that, so it tends to draft the poem up in more familiar terms first. But you can have a look, I suppose."

HEPH. But still —

ALEX. Another question?

HEPH. Yes, my lord.

ALEX. I abide more suffering than I ought. Go on.

HEPH. But are we not mortals, and things of loam

Who must tame the wild garden of hope, that we

Do not overpass the will of gods?

ALEX. Loam!

Do you not see Persia's loam strewn with blood,

As near I sculpted it a red urn? I have glutted the earth

With those young men whose mortality was not yet

Due collection... Hmph. A painting is a 'thing of paint,'

Yet is apportion'd thus: one part for Orpheus,

One for lyre, one part beneath for loam,

One colour here, another there. In this, its merit.

Who could truly not see this difference? Only a dilettante.

You are not so, so I take it that you speak of habit,

As a man may wear a shawl if on a snowy peak,

And thus seek comfort on unfamiliar earth — yet you'd,

Honest, attest how this conquest's brilliance eclipses your dim stars,

And 'tis known the xyston's tune stirs you as 'twere a thousand lyres.

The earth's loom spins that I may work upon it...

Shall I neglect my duty?— But, wait.

You start to speak, yet pray calm yourself a moment.

Wait, bestill your morbid draught. Why speak of mortality? If death

Should live, he is my servant. If I'm extinguished, I cannot be his.

Thus he is e'en at my beck and call, but no heed pays

The holy stars that blink and flutter like yon women.

But you would object. So why argue further?

Tell the heavens to stop death, and they may do't,

For they are more compliant than me, though you

Abase yourself to them, and your leader you scold -

Ay me, enough of it. We shall fight far abroad.

Therefore into the East's dark caves we'll seek,

Where, 'tis said, all is alabaster, save

For dusky mists athwart the snow, in which shining moors

Monks do us sometimes view.

"I hope the real Hephaestion wasn't this unfriendly," Danemy said. "Addressing his friend as 'loam.'"

"Surely people can be locked up as long by now for using sanctioned words as for manslaughter or murder," Danemy shrugged.

"I could be locked up longer than either," Starfighter said boastfully. "You fools will only get 1 life sentence, I will get 50 of them and a fine of $6 trillion. You will watch in awe as I reincarnate as exotic beasts, and am each time immediately imprisoned by the long arm of the law."

"But if your 'sentence' doesn't include at least a few offensive curse-words, then it is barely a matter for criminal justice."

"Quite true. But enough about the law. As I've never read it, because I am on the run from it, I have no quarrel with it. But those who trust in the law are locked up in towns, stagnating and falling behind. In the higher-level areas, people PvP often, because it's a competitive area where everyone guns for a few valuable mobs — and the most aggressive Guilds take them. So if the leaders are trying to pacify their Guilds with such hopes, then it is fine: the more pacified, the more they are like lambs to slaughter."

"Quite true," Crucis said, pleased to hear that the Guilds' will may be weakening.

"Yes. Well, Darys included a few quotes in his briefing," DicingDevil said. "One was, 'We can't say for sure that DeathGang started it, since apparently the area was covered by a thick mist. And there was allegedly a bear? But that's crazy. It doesn't matter who did it, we should hold DeathGang accountable!' Also, 'The poor kids, why? Why why why why why? We should form our own feds, we should kill the monsters!'"

"Oh no, they'll SWAT us," Crucis said.

"That first quote — did he mean to say that out loud?" Danemy asked.

"Perhaps not. There's more, but we can watch it later anyway," DicingDevil said. "But here's Fahiz."

Fahiz was carrying two sheets of paper, both adorned with the familiar, ragtag ink patterns that Deep Afterglow scattered across the page.

He addressed them calmly. "Here's a poem I found in a file next to it, it seems to be another one of Afterglow's earliest poems."

MUTE II

by AZRAEL

To my eyes, your hopes and dreams,

And the chattering thoughts beside them, appear,

Are blunted, and die like a reflection

Fading by night.

You lie still in your lily-white room,

Eyes wide open, as if to welcome the morning's light.

Unseen I hover above on the wing.

You not once saw me —

You not once heard me —

While I lived here, alienated.

Thick fog crests at daybreak,

In a canopy it steals light

And daylight dies in your eyes.

You will no longer see.

I hang in the air unmoving,

An emotionless raven sigil

That wards away life.

The motion and blinding ambition in you

Are suffocated out by paralysis

Constricting until they are baptised

In death's Lethean waters.

It is the ghost of a waking.

The poem reminded Crucis of the [Spark] ability's effect. He didn't have much time to muse about this, however, as Fahiz quickly moved on to the next sheet of paper.

"So, I tried your suggestion," Fahiz said, "and these are the poems by Frank N. Stein."

HADES' ODE**

"A bad poem is worth more than a good critic." - Oscar White, Stormface.

"I know nothing of modernism, only that it is so cretinous that Douglas' 'futurism' must be its natural development." - Lars Ulryche.

See, see the gold-scarred morn

Drain into Hades' black bile depths.

Tell me, Persephone, do you

Wonder why the sun now ignores you?

I can tell you, it is

Worried by the cancerous tumour on your face

That looks like

A pig's underside.

What’s more, it knows

Your eyes are the centre

Of a corpse flower.

Everything under the wild gold-bladed sky

Asks why, why do you even bother?

Your wantonness has ever been

You only charm, cockroach.

HAMLET'S VERSE

"The King is with the body, but the body is not with the King." - Prince Hamlet.

A man has died in the pest-house,

And they are bearing him to his grave.

The long procession flies by the window,

Quite like a swarm of flies.

"It has a certain je ne sais quoi," Crucis said, as he finished the first poem.

"Are the quotations spurious, as I'd assume? I think it not a problem if they are, for they are a thing of beauty and thus, as Keats said, ultimately genuine," Fahiz said.

"Probably. Oscar White seems like the machine's twist on the ever-present quotes of Oscar Wilde. Grisier might know the other one."

Grisier took the cue. "Lars Ulryche is, um, a portmanteau of the infamous Metallica drummer with something."

"I see. Seemingly the automaton is having fun with it," Fahiz said. "Though I guess we shouldn't try this prompt too often, because it seems quite ready to explode back into a sea of invective."

"At least it is directed at Persephone, not us, for now," Crucis remarked.

"Precisely, it is all about having a scapegoat," Fahiz said. "By the way, Sharak, another Hamlet verse for your collection."

"Excellent," Sharak said, looking over. "Quite a lofty poem, I'll be sure to include it. For the moment, though, I've sorted through the nameless books and I'm curious if you would all be willing to help me categorise them."

"Sure thing, that looks like about twelve books, shouldn't take long. We have a long journey back to come, and then a celebration on arrival. Let's give this a try."

Crucis saw a quest appear for the party, giving the task, 'Help the two Pyromancers to sort their books of magic.' It had a high EXP reward, as well as some valuable items for the Mage class.

The quest's description seemed off, since these were not books of magic and the NPCs were not Pyromancers. Crucis guessed that, after the bug, this area had transformed considerably from its original design. These two NPCs might have displaced the original setting, which was probably a house containing two Pyromancers who quickly gave a generic quest to sort their spellbooks. At present, it was quite different.