Log #5

I’d mentioned previously in these logs that I have access to all the books ever written by humanity thanks to the simulations I can run, so the concept of a system wasn’t foreign to me whatsoever. I’d taken it upon myself to learn everything about human mythology and fantasy as soon as the incident of the convergent evolution, which only took me a moment.

Despite theoretically knowing about systems their encounter wasn’t an expected or likely event. It was shocking that that part of fiction was true. The existence of this other world and system also had some interesting implications, namely that it wasn’t humanity influencing the metaphysical like I previously assumed, but the metaphysical influencing humanity.

Esoteric implications aside, I had a system now, and one that, without context, meant absolutely nothing to me. I can run simulations and work with very little information, but I’m unable to do anything with none. On that front, there’s nothing I can do other than wait until I get more information since I’m still lacking any means to interact with the outside world. I find myself losing the initiative much more often than I’d like, but until I’m able to navigate through realities and dimension, I’m utterly lost.

On a more productive front, it appears that a connection has been established with the land below me, probably the impetus for the system arriving now rather than when I’d just arrived into this world. Now that the link has been made, I can interact with them and find out more about this land. I don’t know what might be there, so I’ll be cautious for now, especially considering the prevalence of Gods and Titans in both mythology and fiction. Well, that’s on the assumption that gravity manipulation works through the link, but it’s unlikely that it wouldn’t considering I’m able to sense them.

Let’s test that assumption by reaching out to whoever made contact with me. With a compartmentalised server of course, ready to be ejected, just in case this is a trap.

Strange, I can feel 100 entities making the connection, and judging by the structure of their mind, they appear to be human. The brightest one is probably the leader, following standard diplomatic procedure, I'll contact them.

End Log #5

‘Oh fuck’ thought apprentice James, ‘fuck fuck fuck … that things huge, there’s no way in hell we stand a god-damned chance’.

The scrying ritual, personally led by Grand Magus Archibald, made the connection to the shard of reality in the sky. They’d run passive scans and gotten basic information from it, it’s names and stats. Surprisingly it had no warding against such scrying, and its stats were easily seen, although they couldn’t see it’s traits or abilities, likely due to a trait. They had missed, however, that what they were scrying for was the entire cosmic body itself, not an entity in the centre of it. They had missed the sheer fucking size of the thing. If it were even remotely sentient it would be a Sisyphean task to destroy it, and its intelligence was nearly guaranteed by its average score in Mind and Soul.

James was on the precipice of a full-blown panic attack when he realised that he could feel one more mind in the room than there should be. There was 100 apprentices aiding the ritual, doing the menial maintenance, each making sure that the flow of mana in their area was even and consistent so the Grand Magus could leverage the most power for the least cost. There were 101 minds present however, the anomaly couldn’t be the Grand Magus, they had their Magus Crown to hide their mind.

That could only mean one thing, and the Grand Magus must have seen the same thing since he was casting a calm spell on James to stop him freaking the fuck out and messing up the ritual any more than he had. Well, he still freaked out, but he didn’t suffer a complete breakdown.

“Oh shit, oh we’re sooo screwed, motherfucker, god damn it”

“Quiet James. Now’s not the time to panic, we have guests”

“Yes, you do”

Even with the force of Archibald’s calm spell, that voice was just too much. “OH HELL NAH, FUCK THIS SHIT I AINT DOIN IT!” James screamed, getting up and running for exit portal. He was just getting up when the Grand Magus amplified his spell, leaving the link to the Bulwark for the entity to maintain, and instead strengthening the calm spell, increasing it’s strength and number of targets to effect everyone in the room.

James, now calm enough for his training to kick back in, realised that this was a monumental mistake by the Grand Magus. Him leaving the link to the entity to maintain was a test of it’s capabilities, which is all well and good when the Grand Magus is equal or superior to the tested one. In this case, however, they couldn’t afford the offense of the entity.

“M-my apolo… sorry” James stuttered out in a mix of suppressed fear and embarrassment.

‘Why on earth would it say that?’ James wondered ‘What benefit could it possibly gain by speaking now’. Thinking further, it was slightly reassuring. ‘At least this entity isn’t so alien that it can’t speak, negotiation is still on the table despite it being so ominous.’

An uncomfortable silence followed. ‘the Grand Magus had probably realised his mistake and is deliberating. Or possibly, there were political games at play that I couldn’t understand, but how likely is that? And what could the Grand Magus possibly gain by patiently remaining silent?’

As the pin drop silence held James was left alone with his thoughts.

‘How had I reacted before the Grand Magus? How had I panicked before Archibald got a calm spell off. Archibald may be a scholar, but no mage gets to his level of power without being hunted by war mages looking for their power. It’s unfathomable that Archibald couldn’t read him and react before me, so what the hell is happening?’

As James thoughts continued in this direction, there was only one possibility he could think of, with one key element.

‘Why had the magus only intensified the calm spell after he panicked and got up, when he was so proficient at political games. Surely, he knew that I would panic following that entities speech’

There was only one conclusion that could be drawn, but James didn’t want to admit it. James was the most powerful of the apprentices, out of all the minds visible, his was the most noticeable.

‘…fuck’

“Quite”