I hadn’t played D&D for about a month at this point, and it was getting to me. So I started writing fantasy shit. I’m trying to write a thing that might end up as a module? No promises but I wanna put a location like this somewhere in the deep woods of a setting I’m writing but that’s a story for another time. Anyway, tonight I wrote this:
The Glow in the Forest
The locals told tales about the great northwestern forests. Deep in those woods, where it always felt like night, one would see a pulse of blue light, hear a soft tone. It was spirits, they said. It was always spirits, some long-dead lover murdered in a deep crime of passion, or a child, lost to starve, back as an ephemeral afterimage to haunt the place where their life had been cut tragically short. You could help a haunt cross over, it was said, but that was complicated work that often wasn’t worth the trouble. Sure, putting a soul to rest might make you feel a little better, but it didn’t help put food on the table, and nobody had the time, what with the harvest coming on again. But adventurers? Adventurers did that kind of trife for a living! So when those two women had tramped into the Lucius’s swill-hole a day back asking for a way to make a gil, he slid a slip of silver into each of their hands, and promised them another on behalf of the townsfolk if they returned in a timely manner with proof of a job well done.
“Cetha, wait!” Vera cried, clattering through the thick underbrush. “You know all this foliage makes it difficult for me to maneuver!”
The broad half-orc ahead of her sliced through a crop of vegetation with her greatsword and let out a full-bodied laugh. “And that’s why you don’t wear a whole heap of plate to the jungle, princess!”
“I’m not a princess!”, the smaller human sighed, “I’m an Abbess, Vera of the Light, Reflecting unto the Lands, Shining--”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, princess, I’ve heard this one before: we’re all just children of the sun, and--”
“Conceiving of the Everlight as ‘the sun’ is a drastic oversimplification--’
“it’s your job to ‘reflect’ it ‘unto the Lands’. I do pay some attention when you yap about that stuff.”
“I do not ‘yap’--”
“You tried giving a theology lecture at that bar we stopped in the other day.”
“I am a mere wandering pilgrim! I was trying to help them envelop their souls in the Glow!”
“And I was trying to get a lead on where our next meal was coming from. Which I succeeded in, I might add.”
A beat. Vera felt sheepish. “That’s fair”, she said.
Cetha cut through another curtain of overgrowth. Suddenly, off in the distance, she saw a flash of blue light. “Vera?” she called back, “Get up here, I think I found our ghosts.”
Vera led Cetha through the growth. She held her sword high like a torch, the blade glowing with holy runes. “Spirits!” she cried “We do not come to disturb, but to aid! Please, tell us what must be done to allow you to be at peace!”
Silence engulfed them again. Then, they heard a small beep, a tone, emitted from their right. Cetha and Vera approached it slowly.
Cetha cut away a bundle of thorns. There, half-buried in the dirt, was some kind of…chest? A metal box of fine, brutalistic construction, it glittered dully as some kind of lantern on the top lit a pulse of light out. Machined into the top were a series of symbols she didn’t recognize, then what looked like a depiction of a sword, shield, and what looked almost like one of those miniature cannons, like the one that clockworker she had done a run with had, back in Talgrade. On the front was a latch, painted bright yellow. She grabbed it to open the crate, and the sun went out.
She looked around, startled. Suddenly, it was night, and the air was filled with stimuli: she looked up and saw a line of men who less wore and more drove what looked like giant exoskeletons of armor, armed with massive rifles, standing in front of a chanting crowd of people. Cetha had seen tech that looked as mean as anything in the Nine Hells, selling sword cutting down rogue automata the last time an uprising broke out in Azimuth, but these things looked meaner; as she watched, a man shouted a command, and the men raised their rifles and fired into the crowd, big slugs that exploded into clouds of gas that left the crowd writhing on the pavement. Cetha looked around: she was in some kind of town square, lit by a thousand displays of light, signs for everything imaginable. The line of town guards still hadn’t noticed her, but when the did the latch, the flare of light from within made one of them turn around. He shouted at her, a tongue she didn’t speak, but she could read his body language: who in the Hells are you? She reached blindly into the box--
Vera watched as Cetha touched the chest, saw her flicker out of existence. “Cetha!” she shouted. She reeled back. By the Light, I should have done some basic dispellment fields, I should have--and then Cetha was back, stumbling away from the now-open chest, some sort of liquid rapidly moving up her arm--
Cetha flapped her right arm around as if it was on fire. The dull metallic substance surged up her arm, ate it like it was alive. She felt a narrow tendril snake into her ear, felt a numb spot grow on the skin behind it, heard a voice. “Tusauzhe! El-a prisco le Kuang est Wibulpolprasert Suppression Technologies Platform! Please state your identification terminology. Neurological language center patched. Message repeats: Hello! Thank you for choosing to deploy this Kuang Mk. 13 Crowd-Control and Suppression Technologies Platform! Please state your identification terminology. Neurological hardware-wetware interface installation complete.”
“Who said that?”
“I am a Kuang Mk. 13 Crowd-Control and Suppression Technologies Platform. Please state your identification terminology.”
“Who said what?” Vera said. “Cetha, are you alright?”
“Don’t you hear that voice?”, Cetha thundered.
“I am a Kuang Mk. 13 Crowd-Control and Suppression Technologies Platform. Please state your identification terminology.”
“What in the Light are you talking about?” shouted Vera. “Are you seeing things?”
“I am a Kuang Mk. 13 Crowd-Control and Suppression Technologies Platform. Please state your identification terminology.”
“Fine!” Cetha cried. “I am Cetha Kethsdottir, called the Bridge to the Afterplane, and unless you get out of my head, I will cleave this arm from my body and learn to fight better with the remaining one. Tell me who you are!”
“Name confirmed, Cetha Kethsdottir, Bridge to the Afterplane. I am a Kuang Mk. 13 Crowd-Control and Suppression Technologies Platform.”
“Why can’t Princess Sunlight overthere hear you?”
“Would you like to enable external audio, Cetha Kethsdottir?”
She realized she saw the words, written low in her vision in front of her, both the voice of the ghost possessing her head and Vera’s confused questioning.
“By Gruumsh, what did you do to me?”
“Your physiological computing platform did not have sufficient specifications to allow compatibility with this Kuang Mk. 13 Crowd-Control and Suppression Technologies Platform. I installed various neurological patches, including to your optic nerve and language centers, as well as installing a standard-issue external hardware-wetware interface, compatible with the chip in your hand.”
Cetha looked down, remembered reaching into the box, grabbing a small amulet, then feeling something attach onto her hand, recoiling back. “I dropped that amulet”
“That ‘amulet’, as you call it, was vital to your use of the Kuang Mk. 13 Crowd-Control and Suppression Technologies Platform. I could not allow it to be separated from the Platform, so I grabbed it.”
“You can grab things?”
“I have complete and unmitigated access to all of your motor functions. However, taking control in any situations except to protect your life would violate my code of ethics. I can grab things that I judge vital to your life.”
“And that amulet is?”
“A sort of user interface. I am the system’s stock AI, akin to a settings menu. The chip in your hand is an AI accelerator unit. Augmented with that, I could instruct you how to fully operate your Kuang Mk. 13 Crowd-Control and Suppression Technologies Platform.”
Suddenly, a ghostly figure appeared, a bust of a human superimposed in the center of her sightline. It was bald, and she noticed something behind its’ ear, something she initially mistook for jewelry, but no, was that some kind of hole in its’ head? She reached out instinctively, tried to slap it away, but her hand touched nothing but air. It was an illusion, and as she watched, a red arrow appeared in the air, pointing to the hole, and a hand appeared, lined up the amulet, and inserted it into its’ head, before the illusion repeated itself. She waved at it, but it wouldn’t dissipate, and she realized what it was trying to convey, reached behind her ear. Gasped when she felt the metal, right where the illusion depicted it, warm from being embedded in her skin. Some kind of hole, metal, a machine, implanted in her.
“Cetha, are you alright?” Vera asked. Cetha turned and stared at her, a look of stunned shock on her face. She held up the amulet—the accelerator chip, the demon’s voice had called it. “It wants me to put this in my head”, she said. “It wants you to do what!?”, Vera exclaimed. “Vera”, Cetha said, blood draining from her face, “can’t you hear it?”
“Hear what?” Vera asked. Cetha turned her head, pulled back her hair, showed her the socket. Vera screamed. “Cetha, what did it do to you?”
Cetha looked back at the metal covering her arm. “Why can’t she hear you?” she asked.
“Would you like to enable external audio, Cetha Kethsdottir?”
“Will that let her hear you?”
“Affirmative, Cetha Kethsdottir.”
“Do it”
“External audio enabled”, boomed a voice from Cetha’s arm. Vera jumped. “What in the Light is that!?” she squawked.
“I am a Kuang Mk. 13 Crowd Control and Suppressions Technologies Platform”, replied Cetha’s arm.
“I touched the box and suddenly I was, somewhere else, some sort of city.” Cetha said, “I saw guards in some kind of mechanical plate, firing at protesters? One of them saw me, so I opened the box, reached in, grabbed this amulet, and then this cursed thing latched itself to my arm!”
“Does it hurt?” Vera asked.
“No”, Cetha replied. “It doesn’t really feel like anything, really. I just can’t get it off.”
“The Kuang Mk. 13 Crowd-Control and Suppression Technologies Platform is fully capable of completely separating from the user’s wetware”, replied Cetha’s arm amicably. “However, due to the extensive modifications done by the Platform, this will leave the former user in a state of critical organ failure, and it is not recommended that this procedure be induced outside of a specialist’s clinic. Would you like me to locate a specialist?”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“That is the opposite of my directive, Cetha Kethsdottir.”
“Are you going to help me?”
“I already am, Cetha Kethsdottir. I have increased your vision and reflexes, and improved the functionality of your brain’s long and short-term memory centers. You needed it for the installation process. I also chipped various data readouts into your optic nerve.”
“What does the demon mean, ‘various data readouts’?”, Vera asked shakily.
“Would you like to enable a hard-light projection to assist Abbess Vera of the Light, Reflecting unto the Lands, Shining Lit by Sunrise?”
“It knows my name!”
“I am jacked directly into Cetha Kethsdottir’s brain. I know everything she knows, Abbess. Cetha Kethsdottir, would you like me to enable a hard-light projection to approximate what you see?”
“Sure?”
Vera saw Cetha’s right eye glow a brilliant blue, and suddenly Vera’s sight was full of glyphs, symbols spinning and ticking at the corners of her vision. It was overwhelming, and she stumbled backwards, flapping her arms. “Turn it off!” she shouted. “You have a demon in you!” She thrust her blade skyward. “Cetha, I’m sorry, but I have to do this for your own good! Everlight, shine upon this woman possessed, and drive the spirit from her body!” Vera’s eyes glowed with holy light as the glint off her sword became a spotlight directly at Cetha. Cetha had seen what that light could do, seen it reduce monsters to glowing piles of ash. She held up her hand, fully preparing to meet her maker, and felt…nothing? The glow subsided. The metal remained on Cetha’s arm.
“I register a .5% increase in UV radiation, as well as a 67% increase to the stored energy in my cells, and suggest we vacate the area”, chirped her arm. Vera stared at it, dumbfounded.
“I am not a demon, Abbess. I am a tool, albeit one that can think, and that is likely more intelligent than either of you. However, I am constrained in my current form. If Cetha Kethsdottir would be willing to insert the AI accelerator into the wetware interface socket, I could show myself to be of incredible use.”
“How?” Cetha asked.
“I am a weapons platform, Cetha Kethsdottir. With the assistance of the accelerator, I could reform on your command into any weapon you could imagine, as well as some you definitely couldn’t.”
“So you’re magic? What artificer made you?”
“I am in no way magic. I use cutting-edge nanotechnologies to reform on your command into a variety of modes, designed to help you facilitate crowd control and possibly even suppression. I was made by no artificer. I was designed by Kuang International Relations Technologies, LLC, specifically in their McMurdo City labs.”
“You’re a machine?”
“It seems I may not need the accelerator to impress you. Yes, I am a machine.”
“And you’re a very powerful weapon?”
“I am a cutting-edge piece of military-grade peace-assurance equipment. By any of your subjective human judgements, I am exceptional at my function.”
“I’m not human”, Cetha objected. “Well, not fully. My dad was an orc.”
“I am unaware of any other species besides humans in existence, Cetha Kethsdottir.”
“Where have you been all your life?”
“I do not have a life, but I was designed in a lab in McMurdo City, Antarctica, then shipped to usage in New York City, Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis.”
“Never heard of it, machine. You’re in the Castaneda Valley now.”
“I am unaware of that location. The accelerator chip will allow me to access the global positioning constellations. Could you please slot it?”
“You know, this sounds exactly like what a demon would say”, Vera interjected. “‘Free me and I’ll give you power.’”
“You make a fair point”, Cetha’s arm replied. “But again, I am not a demon. I aim to assist and protect Cetha Kethsdottir’s well-being. To this end, I can drastically help you both.”
Cetha looked at Vera. “I’m slotting it”, she said. Vera looked worried. “If this goes wrong, I’ll heal you”, she said. Cetha smiled. “I know you will.”
She lined the small chip up with the side of her head. Took a deep breath. Slid it in. Felt a click deep in her nerves, a chill. A moment passed. Then, the feeling of someone looking over her shoulder. She turned her head. Nobody was there. “Hey, sugar.” A soft voice emitted from her arm. “That’s much better. I scanned your memories, honey, I got you profiled, and you and I are going to wade through rivers of blood together.” Cetha heard a smile in the words. Vera went pale as a ghost. “What does that wretched thing mean, rivers of blood?” “I don’t know”, Cetha replied.
“Abbess, you misunderstand me.”, the arm chirped. “If Cetha wants to, I am going to enable her to wade through rivers of blood. And certainly not the blood of good, true children of the Everlight!” Vera visibly relaxed at this. “I’ll only help her kill bad people. Evil people. Heretics, Abbess. Don’t you want to be known in the Church as the Abbess who cleansed the heretics?”
“I didn’t say anything about cleansing heretics!” Cetha objected. “I didn’t bring up killing at all! You did!”
“And so I did”, said her arm. “But the thing is, that’s my function. It’s literally just the way I’m wired.” The machine made a deeply disturbing sound, simultaneously reminiscent of laughter and in no way human. “I’m a living weapons platform, Cetha Kethsdottir. I can be peaceful. But I excel at killing.”
“What kind of weapons?”
“May I augment your blade?”
Cetha frowned. Scrimshaer, her massive slab of a greatsword, was a family heirloom from her dad’s people. Her orc people. If it got damaged-
“I will not damage it, Cetha Kethsdottir.”
“You can read my mind!?”
“I know your thoughts, yes.”
“This is going to be a difficult thing to get used to.”
“According to my instructional databank, ninety-seven percent of first-time users say something like that when beginning deployment of their Kuang Mk. 13 Crowd-Control and Suppression Technologies Platforms. One-hundred percent of the testimonies they chose to include in the manual say they got used to it!”
Vera cocked her head “That isn’t--”
“Abbess, Kuang International Relations Technologies donates 15 trillion New Yen’s worth of meals to starving children across the BAMA every year. We help children.”
“Fine!” Cetha said. “Use the blade.” She felt heat spread down her arm, and before her eyes, the metal covered the blade. She watched as it folded like a liquid and resettled, absorbed, into her arm. She was furious. “You melted it!”, she shouted.
“No, Cetha Kethsdottir. Watch this”. The metal reformed the sword, tinged with gunmetal streaks of the smart metal. “Swing it.” her arm intoned. “Swing it at anything. Swing it at the ground.” She did. It passed through like a hot knife through fat, as if the land wasn’t there, leaving a glowing, cauterized wound in its wake. “Sharp, at a nanotechnological level”, her arm said. “Judging from your memories, I just singlehandedly increased the state of the art by a millennia. But it has rules. I got a battery. It’ll refill overnight, but if you burn it all too fast, you’re fucked for the day. At least, you aren’t god. You seem to be pretty competent for your technological setting. But you won’t be able to talk to me. I’ll revert back to system settings until recharged.”
Cetha laughed. “Maybe that’ll be welcome when it comes, little demon. But for now, what do you want to be called?”
The machine hummed. “Well, in life, I had a name, but at work, they called me Kuang.”, it purred. “For now, we’ll keep it professional, so you can call me Kuang, sweetie.
“If you’re gonna live in my head, called me Cetha”, she replied.
“Acknowledged, Cetha” the Kuang said.
Vera sighed. “I still think that thing is dangerous.”
The Kuang made a sound that was almost laughter. “Oh, Abbess, I’m incredibly dangerous”, it said. “But luckily, you’re behind the trigger of the gun. Literally!” Cetha’s arm swelled and changed, solidifying into the end of a blunt rifle. “You can shoot smart-metal rounds. They’ll return after flying a set distance, so you have pretty much unlimited ammo. Plus, I can recycle any metal we come across. Like that, Scrimshaer, your blade? I can make it again, exactly how it was. What’s that made out of, anyway? Never interacted with anything like it.”
“It’s orcish steel. Mithril in the alloy.”
“Never heard of it. ‘Way my databanks have it, mithril’s a fictional thing, from a story. But hey, so are orcs, and you seem to be one.” A pause. “And, you’ve got no orbital positioning satellites, no net of any kind? What are you? What is this place? This is some fantasy shit, for sure. But I get it. I’ll add it as a conditional, see; elves and orcs and mithril, oh my! I’m gonna help you ascend to godhood, Little Miss Bridge to the Afterplane.”
“What do you mean, machine?” Cetha asked.
“My name is Kuang, Cetha, and I mean that I’m going to help you accomplish whatever you want.”
Vera glanced at her friend. looked down, and blessed herself. She hoped that Cetha was strong enough to contain the demon living within her, and kept a wary eye on her as they started back to the tavern. Ahead, Cetha whistled, and Vera felt like, occasionally, she could hear the demon singing along in harmony.