Nym’s brain stopped working for a second, then started working far too fast. The statue knew who he was, which meant his cover was blown, that he had exactly however many seconds before it reported back to whoever owned the place he was standing in before some ascendant found him. His options were to fight or run. Given everything else he’d found and the absurd levels of magical power on display, he doubted he could so much as scratch the statue.
At the same time, he already knew that running was futile. He hadn’t been able to escape prior to being pulled into the needle, or whatever it had done. Maybe if he was lucky, it had transferred him out of the basin and he could flee. Quickly, Nym wove a teleportation spell together, only for it to fizzle out again.
“Are you alright, Exarch?” the statue asked. “Your heart rate has risen tremendously in the last few seconds.”
“I… I don’t know,” Nym said. If he couldn’t leave, the next best option was to fish for information. “Can you tell me where I am? And how do you know me?”
“Certainly. This is the Region Six Biocreation Research and Production Lab. I was created with the intrinsic knowledge of fourteen ascendants involved with the lab, including you as the highest-ranking member of the team.”
“Wait, are you saying this is… my lab?”
“You could make that statement with some degree of accuracy, but I suspect some of your colleagues might disagree.”
“Oh. And, I’m sorry, not to be rude, but who are you?”
“My name is Naera. I am an artificially constructed research assistant, one of fifty-seven that service this lab.”
Nym’s eyes widened. “Are… are there any other ascendants here right now?”
“You are the first to visit in the last forty thousand cycles.”
He started trying to do the mental math in his head, then gave up and asked, “How long is that?”
Naera gave a prompt, if somewhat depressing answer, “Roughly one hundred ten years.”
“And you’ve just been keeping this place operational by yourselves all this time?”
“Yes, though without an ascendant around to direct the research, we have accomplished very little beyond maintaining any ongoing projects. Would you like to review the progress on those projects?”
“No, I’m good. Thank you.” Nym’s mind was working furiously now, trying to figure out the best way to flip this from disaster to opportunity. “So, no one’s been here in over a century, and nobody knows I am here right now?”
“That is correct, Exarch.”
“Can you make sure none of the other ascendants find out that I’m here?”
“If that is your wish.”
“It is,” Nym said firmly. It seemed extremely unlikely that any other ascendants would show up, assuming he trusted Naera. He didn’t really have much choice about that, considering that he couldn’t actually exit on his own yet. Figuring out how to bypass whatever security measures were holding him in the lab needed to be his top priority, but maybe he could get his hands on some ascendant secrets while he was there.
“Very well. Is there anything else I can assist you with today?”
“I would like to look around,” Nym said. “Can you walk with me, so I can ask questions as they come up?”
“Of course, Exarch. Assisting you is my primary purpose,” Naera said.
That was kind of sad. There were other statues standing around, motionless, watching the seconds turn into days and days into years, just waiting for someone who’d long since ceased caring about their existence to come back and have a use for them again. It made for a melancholy mood as he followed Naera down a hallway.
She started giving Nym a brief explanation for each section of the lab as they walked. “This is a storage area that houses genetic samples when they’re not in use being modified or combined,” Naera said, pointing at one door. She gestured to another, “And here is where the infusion apparatus is set up.”
“The what?” Nym asked.
“The infusion apparatus. It allows the researcher to graft spell patterns to new creatures at a genetic level so that they may be passed down to future offspring.”
Nym immediately thought about the snow wolves and their mysterious Creator. It seemed very likely that the first of their species was born right here in this lab. He might even have been the one to make them. “Do you have records of all the species created?” he asked.
“The data archives are this way,” Naera said. “Would you like to visit them?”
“Yes.”
They changed direction, though Naera kept listing off what each room they passed was used for. Some of them were simple research and experimentation chambers, appropriately warded or otherwise protected to contain the experiments and prevent accidents from damaging the entire lab. Others were a bit more esoteric. He had no idea what a cascading temporal probability spiral even was, let alone why it needed its own special room to contain it.
The data archives weren’t anything like Nym was expecting. He’d pictured books, maybe some maps, some graphs or charts, a lot of desks and stored writing supplies. He was expecting preservation runes sprinkled liberally around the place. Instead, there was a single pedestal in the center of an otherwise featureless room. It was square cut, about five feet tall, and capped with a floating glass ball about two feet wide.
The inside of that ball was a mesmerizing series of lights moving in seemingly random directions. Nym stared at for a minute, just watching the ball, until Naera cleared her throat and said, “Is there a problem, Exarch?”
“I- no, I’m fine. I was just appreciating this.” He waved his hand at the glass ball. Then he looked around and said, “How do I get the information out of it?”
Naera blinked and looked down at Nym. “The protocols have not changed. Just form a data conduit to the repository it will help you find whatever you’re looking for.”
Nym wasn’t sure what a data conduit was, but he was good at making regular conduits. He reached out mentally, the same way he would if he was trying to connect to another layer of reality, except focused on the glass sphere. Something reached back and grasped at his fumbling attempt. It completed the connection and Nym found himself somewhere else.
It looked just like that empty white void he’d entered when Niramyn’s recorded image had explained what was going on, except that this time, the sphere was floating in front of him. “Hello, Exarch Niramyn. Would you like to link your assistant in to this session?” a voice with no apparent source said.
“Yes?”
“Very well.”
Naera appeared next to the sphere. She glanced at it briefly, then turned to face Nym. “What are you looking for, Exarch?”
“A species of wolves made within the last three hundred years or so. They would have spell patterns related to reshaping snow and surviving in cold weather climates.”
Dozens of papers appeared in mid air and filled Nym’s view. There were complex spell constructs, charts measuring population levels over the year, detailed notes about modifications made, and more, all in his face and overwhelming him. Nym split his attention, sending one part of his mind to analyzing the data while the other focused on Naera and the sphere.
“We made this then?” he asked.
“Yes. There have been four generations, with approximately forty years between each generation.”
“That seems like a long time,” Nym said. “Most animals only have a few years between generations, don’t they?”
“Naturally occurring ones, yes. Most of the researchers working here decided to err on the side of longer reproductive cycles given the edge their creations would have with intrinsic spell patterns to assist them. There are a few creations that have much faster cycles, and of course there are many animal species we have data on that remain unmodified that reproduce within a year or two of being born.”
“You have data on other species too? Interesting. We’ll come back to that in a second,” Nym said. “These snow wolves, they’re supposed to pass the spell patterns down to new generations, right? Why didn’t that work?”
“This was an experimental project to see if the spell patterns could grow and become stronger with each successive generation. It was deemed a failure, as the new patterns the offspring exhibited were often defective in some way, with only incidental cases even maintaining a fraction of the parents’ abilities.”
Nym winced. That lined up pretty well with what he’d been told when he’d talked with the matriarch. “Is there any way to… fix them?”
“That depends on what you would like to fix. It would be simplest to create a new species that is functionally identical without all the experimental components.”
“No, no. That’s no good,” Nym said. “I mean I want to help the ones that are already out there.”
“That is considerably more difficult, but not impossible.”
“Not impossible is good. So how do we do it?”
“The method with the highest probability of success would be to modify their temporal presence so that the initial research specimens released into the wild never had the experimental patterns instilled in them. They would need to be modified further as a sort of sleeper condition to avoid cascading temporal anomalies, set to trigger from a pulse signal released from this lab.”
Nym understood most of that, he thought. The idea of just reaching back through time and mucking with stuff was a bit over his head though. Unless the lab could do it at his direction, and without any direct intervention from him, it probably wasn’t a viable solution. There was only one way to find out.
“Do you need me to do anything besides authorize this?” he asked.
“We could technically do it with the remaining arcana stores, though it would drain our reserves to dangerous levels. However, the final pulse may be an issue if you wish to preserve the anonymity of your visit. Even a targeted pulse to the test subjects would still be easily detectable.”
“That would be a problem,” Nym muttered. He supposed he could maybe have them do it after he left. Or if it was going to be all screwy with time anyway, it didn’t much matter when exactly it happened. “Okay, so maybe we’ll save that for later.”
“Understood. Is there anything else you’d like to review while we’re here?”
There was one other thing, now that he thought about it. It had been driven straight out of his mind with everything else going on, but there was an actual reason he was there. He’d traced the scarabs back to this area, kind of. If there was anywhere that could help him figure out exactly what was going on, it was an ascendant research facility.
“Do you have anything on blood burrower scarabs?” he asked. “There’s an outbreak of them right now that I’m trying to get cleared up.”
“Yes, of course. We have all the standard data on the species, quite a few historical outbreaks documented, and one ongoing experiment centered around them.”
“Oh, good. That should be- I’m sorry, did you say ongoing?”
“I did, yes. Would you like to review the experiment’s current status?”
“I think I would.”
New papers with new charts and graphs, illustrations and even some illusionary models of various talismans appeared around him. A number of maps, some of which showed places he recognized and all of which looked to be superbly crafted, showed outbreak zones with color gradients representing time to reflect the speed the infestation had spread.
A separate section, partitioned off from the historical information, showed the current ongoing experiment. Perhaps inevitably, the map was of the northlands, and he immediately recognized it. It was remarkably similar to the one he’d spent so many days painstakingly drawing out himself. The infestation he’d been trying to stop for weeks had originated from the ascendant research lab.
Nym’s brain stopped working for a second, then started working far too fast. The statue knew who he was, which meant his cover was blown, that he had exactly however many seconds before it reported back to whoever owned the place he was standing in before some ascendant found him. His options were to fight or run. Given everything else he’d found and the absurd levels of magical power on display, he doubted he could so much as scratch the statue.
At the same time, he already knew that running was futile. He hadn’t been able to escape prior to being pulled into the needle, or whatever it had done. Maybe if he was lucky, it had transferred him out of the basin and he could flee. Quickly, Nym wove a teleportation spell together, only for it to fizzle out again.
“Are you alright, Exarch?” the statue asked. “Your heart rate has risen tremendously in the last few seconds.”
“I… I don’t know,” Nym said. If he couldn’t leave, the next best option was to fish for information. “Can you tell me where I am? And how do you know me?”
“Certainly. This is the Region Six Biocreation Research and Production Lab. I was created with the intrinsic knowledge of fourteen ascendants involved with the lab, including you as the highest-ranking member of the team.”
“Wait, are you saying this is… my lab?”
“You could make that statement with some degree of accuracy, but I suspect some of your colleagues might disagree.”
“Oh. And, I’m sorry, not to be rude, but who are you?”
“My name is Naera. I am an artificially constructed research assistant, one of fifty-seven that service this lab.”
Nym’s eyes widened. “Are… are there any other ascendants here right now?”
“You are the first to visit in the last forty thousand cycles.”
He started trying to do the mental math in his head, then gave up and asked, “How long is that?”
Naera gave a prompt, if somewhat depressing answer, “Roughly one hundred ten years.”
“And you’ve just been keeping this place operational by yourselves all this time?”
“Yes, though without an ascendant around to direct the research, we have accomplished very little beyond maintaining any ongoing projects. Would you like to review the progress on those projects?”
“No, I’m good. Thank you.” Nym’s mind was working furiously now, trying to figure out the best way to flip this from disaster to opportunity. “So, no one’s been here in over a century, and nobody knows I am here right now?”
“That is correct, Exarch.”
“Can you make sure none of the other ascendants find out that I’m here?”
“If that is your wish.”
“It is,” Nym said firmly. It seemed extremely unlikely that any other ascendants would show up, assuming he trusted Naera. He didn’t really have much choice about that, considering that he couldn’t actually exit on his own yet. Figuring out how to bypass whatever security measures were holding him in the lab needed to be his top priority, but maybe he could get his hands on some ascendant secrets while he was there.
“Very well. Is there anything else I can assist you with today?”
“I would like to look around,” Nym said. “Can you walk with me, so I can ask questions as they come up?”
“Of course, Exarch. Assisting you is my primary purpose,” Naera said.
That was kind of sad. There were other statues standing around, motionless, watching the seconds turn into days and days into years, just waiting for someone who’d long since ceased caring about their existence to come back and have a use for them again. It made for a melancholy mood as he followed Naera down a hallway.
She started giving Nym a brief explanation for each section of the lab as they walked. “This is a storage area that houses genetic samples when they’re not in use being modified or combined,” Naera said, pointing at one door. She gestured to another, “And here is where the infusion apparatus is set up.”
“The what?” Nym asked.
“The infusion apparatus. It allows the researcher to graft spell patterns to new creatures at a genetic level so that they may be passed down to future offspring.”
Nym immediately thought about the snow wolves and their mysterious Creator. It seemed very likely that the first of their species was born right here in this lab. He might even have been the one to make them. “Do you have records of all the species created?” he asked.
“The data archives are this way,” Naera said. “Would you like to visit them?”
“Yes.”
They changed direction, though Naera kept listing off what each room they passed was used for. Some of them were simple research and experimentation chambers, appropriately warded or otherwise protected to contain the experiments and prevent accidents from damaging the entire lab. Others were a bit more esoteric. He had no idea what a cascading temporal probability spiral even was, let alone why it needed its own special room to contain it.
The data archives weren’t anything like Nym was expecting. He’d pictured books, maybe some maps, some graphs or charts, a lot of desks and stored writing supplies. He was expecting preservation runes sprinkled liberally around the place. Instead, there was a single pedestal in the center of an otherwise featureless room. It was square cut, about five feet tall, and capped with a floating glass ball about two feet wide.
The inside of that ball was a mesmerizing series of lights moving in seemingly random directions. Nym stared at for a minute, just watching the ball, until Naera cleared her throat and said, “Is there a problem, Exarch?”
“I- no, I’m fine. I was just appreciating this.” He waved his hand at the glass ball. Then he looked around and said, “How do I get the information out of it?”
Naera blinked and looked down at Nym. “The protocols have not changed. Just form a data conduit to the repository it will help you find whatever you’re looking for.”
Nym wasn’t sure what a data conduit was, but he was good at making regular conduits. He reached out mentally, the same way he would if he was trying to connect to another layer of reality, except focused on the glass sphere. Something reached back and grasped at his fumbling attempt. It completed the connection and Nym found himself somewhere else.
It looked just like that empty white void he’d entered when Niramyn’s recorded image had explained what was going on, except that this time, the sphere was floating in front of him. “Hello, Exarch Niramyn. Would you like to link your assistant in to this session?” a voice with no apparent source said.
“Yes?”
“Very well.”
Naera appeared next to the sphere. She glanced at it briefly, then turned to face Nym. “What are you looking for, Exarch?”
“A species of wolves made within the last three hundred years or so. They would have spell patterns related to reshaping snow and surviving in cold weather climates.”
Dozens of papers appeared in mid air and filled Nym’s view. There were complex spell constructs, charts measuring population levels over the year, detailed notes about modifications made, and more, all in his face and overwhelming him. Nym split his attention, sending one part of his mind to analyzing the data while the other focused on Naera and the sphere.
“We made this then?” he asked.
“Yes. There have been four generations, with approximately forty years between each generation.”
“That seems like a long time,” Nym said. “Most animals only have a few years between generations, don’t they?”
“Naturally occurring ones, yes. Most of the researchers working here decided to err on the side of longer reproductive cycles given the edge their creations would have with intrinsic spell patterns to assist them. There are a few creations that have much faster cycles, and of course there are many animal species we have data on that remain unmodified that reproduce within a year or two of being born.”
“You have data on other species too? Interesting. We’ll come back to that in a second,” Nym said. “These snow wolves, they’re supposed to pass the spell patterns down to new generations, right? Why didn’t that work?”
“This was an experimental project to see if the spell patterns could grow and become stronger with each successive generation. It was deemed a failure, as the new patterns the offspring exhibited were often defective in some way, with only incidental cases even maintaining a fraction of the parents’ abilities.”
Nym winced. That lined up pretty well with what he’d been told when he’d talked with the matriarch. “Is there any way to… fix them?”
“That depends on what you would like to fix. It would be simplest to create a new species that is functionally identical without all the experimental components.”
“No, no. That’s no good,” Nym said. “I mean I want to help the ones that are already out there.”
“That is considerably more difficult, but not impossible.”
“Not impossible is good. So how do we do it?”
“The method with the highest probability of success would be to modify their temporal presence so that the initial research specimens released into the wild never had the experimental patterns instilled in them. They would need to be modified further as a sort of sleeper condition to avoid cascading temporal anomalies, set to trigger from a pulse signal released from this lab.”
Nym understood most of that, he thought. The idea of just reaching back through time and mucking with stuff was a bit over his head though. Unless the lab could do it at his direction, and without any direct intervention from him, it probably wasn’t a viable solution. There was only one way to find out.
“Do you need me to do anything besides authorize this?” he asked.
“We could technically do it with the remaining arcana stores, though it would drain our reserves to dangerous levels. However, the final pulse may be an issue if you wish to preserve the anonymity of your visit. Even a targeted pulse to the test subjects would still be easily detectable.”
“That would be a problem,” Nym muttered. He supposed he could maybe have them do it after he left. Or if it was going to be all screwy with time anyway, it didn’t much matter when exactly it happened. “Okay, so maybe we’ll save that for later.”
“Understood. Is there anything else you’d like to review while we’re here?”
There was one other thing, now that he thought about it. It had been driven straight out of his mind with everything else going on, but there was an actual reason he was there. He’d traced the scarabs back to this area, kind of. If there was anywhere that could help him figure out exactly what was going on, it was an ascendant research facility.
“Do you have anything on blood burrower scarabs?” he asked. “There’s an outbreak of them right now that I’m trying to get cleared up.”
“Yes, of course. We have all the standard data on the species, quite a few historical outbreaks documented, and one ongoing experiment centered around them.”
“Oh, good. That should be- I’m sorry, did you say ongoing?”
“I did, yes. Would you like to review the experiment’s current status?”
“I think I would.”
New papers with new charts and graphs, illustrations and even some illusionary models of various talismans appeared around him. A number of maps, some of which showed places he recognized and all of which looked to be superbly crafted, showed outbreak zones with color gradients representing time to reflect the speed the infestation had spread.
A separate section, partitioned off from the historical information, showed the current ongoing experiment. Perhaps inevitably, the map was of the northlands, and he immediately recognized it. It was remarkably similar to the one he’d spent so many days painstakingly drawing out himself. The infestation he’d been trying to stop for weeks had originated from the ascendant research lab.
