'Awaken'. I mentally commanded myself, I sat up and yawned for a while before moving on with my day.
A good night's rest.
I believe this is the first time I've ever had one in… Eons. Usually I]m interrupted or have a bad dream but today seems pretty damn good! I slept well, had a nice coffee and ate some pre-packaged cereal, and on top of that my dreams weren't terrible!
I'm feeling great today, like my old self again!
Heh, well, I might as well get started on some work today.
Opening the door to my room, I spotted Thoth sitting across from the door in the hallway… sitting with his legs crossed, he was busily drinking a box of juice when I spotted him. "Oh! Avery, you are finally up!"
"Ah… Good morning Thoth." I replied.
Thoth got up and finished his juice, tossing the canister in the garbage receptacle nearby. "How did you sleep?"
"Pretty well actually." I smirked, "I suppose today's going to be a good day."
"That's good to hear!" Thoth happily walked towards me… I noticed he looks a little different than yesterday, he seems almost… nah, just my imagination. "Well, Avery, I'll be your escort for today. What would you like to do?"
"Escort?" I laughed, "I guess, but what about Eset? Aren't you assigned to her?"
"Ah, well… She decided to change herself into a Combat Model and join the war efforts directly… so, Scarab assigned me to just help you out with basic stuff!"
"Oh, how interesting." I said with enthusiasm, "Well, is there anything I can do to assist the base?"
Thoth's eyes seemed to have loading screens within them for a moment, until he projected a large hologram from them and displayed a large amount of interesting requests. "This is the mission board we have, all these are S-Class difficulties… something I believe is befitting your strength."
"I see you know me well." I smiled.
"I think everyone knows something about you, Avery. After all you've done, I can't imagine anything else."
"I see, now… what's this mission? 'Capture Rouge Greater Angel'."
"Ah, let's uh… not do that one." Thoth asked, frightened at the mission which in addition to having an S-Class marking also had Skull marks on it.
"C'mon, it sounds fun!" I joked, "It's not like they are THAT strong."
"Your body is definitely not ready! I remember watching it melt yesterday when you made that Node, what if you overexert yourself!?!" Thoth complained. "Let's take an easier mission, not one that has twelve skulls!"
"I assume the skulls mean a higher difficulty?" I smiled.
"Yes, so let's take a normal S-Grade mission at the very most!"
"What, are you not confident in my strength?"
"Fine," He relented. "Take it if you will, but I will not be able to accompany you. It's too dangerous for an information unit to be going out into Angel territory."
I suppose I will then. After clicking 'Accept' on the small prompt, I saw a small device come out from Thoth's pocket… It was a tiny box, one that continued to project the mission details in that hologram, looking at the screen it portrayed a little more… It was registered in my name.
"Oh, right. This is the remote connection device Commander wanted to give to you, it'll keep you in contact with us as long as you are alive." Thoth sighed, seeming to be a little let down by my decision to take the mission.
- Like a cellphone then.
- I suppose it's just a really advanced one.
'So it allows me to remotely speak to people, keep track of my mission data, and… what else? Purple, is there any other functionality you can detect in this device?' I projected to my souls
- I have a name you know.
'Oh, yeah. Justice told me about that, but I must have forgotten. What are all of your names that you have given yourself?' I mentally replied.
- I go by 'Ambition'.
- I'm 'Hope'!
- I go by 'Ideal'.
- 'Virtue' is what I call myself.
- Name's 'Justice', partner.
- I've been named 'Truth' by the others.
'Good to know, I'll remember that.'
It's... almost too difficult to tell who is who between them when they all talk at once, shit... I'll need a solution for that soon.
"Thoth, before I head out, can you give me a map of the base? I see the pod has mapping functionality." I asked kindly while pulling up a small digital map.
"Oh, yeah, of course." He said, touching my pod with his finger and transferring small glyphs of light between the two.
What an interesting process… Automata have gotten quite advanced I see.
I looked at the map of the base, and noted down the various interesting places. The command center was, as in the name, the center of the structure. The hallways I lived in were dubbed 'Inner Housing', which I believe means designated homes for higher-ups.
The hallways looped on each other in a large donut-shaped pathway, with small passageways connecting to other hallway loops. Large circular rooms were placed in the cardinal directions after the second loop, labeled 'Storage', 'Cafeteria' , 'Restoration Point' and 'Transportation Hall' respectively to their functions. Afterwards, even more loops of hallways surrounded the building.
Between each of the loops, there were apparently invisible barriers or something similar collecting energy passing through including both Light and Magic. Something interesting about the design of the station was the large hallways dotted in black, which were marked with a 'Unknown.' upon the map.
My theory is that the Node edited the structure of the base slightly, and these new areas weren't mapped out yet. Instinctively though, I felt a small pull towards one of the unknown rooms.
"I'll see you later then, Thoth, have a good day!" I happily stated as I began walking off. Thoth waved as I left before he entered my room.
The hallways were as dull as always, though new colors seemed to have emerged since I've added the Node. Decorations also plaster the walls, it's at least interesting now… it's much better than the suppressive and cold atmosphere it left off last time.
- Hey, Dragon. Are you sure you want to check out the other rooms by yourself first? I'm getting a bad feeling about it…
'Why's that?' I politely asked.
- I'm not sure. I can sense something but it's like the signals are… ciphered.
'Ask the other souls if they detect anything as well, and send their responses to me.' I told the red soul.
- It's like a ghost house there…
- What a gross feeling, ugh… like walking through a spider web.
- Or a centipede crawling up your back!
- I agree, it gives a horrible chill too… ice cold.
- Eh? I don't see that at all.
- What do you sense then?
- Something… familiar. But, I don't really have that many memories from when I was alive so it must be something from Avery.
- I think I figured it out, Avery.
'Hm? Pray tell?' I answered.
- I need you to not go into those new rooms for a while, and inform Scarab not to let you near them as well until I approve.
- Eh? Who makes you final authority-?
- My ability allows me to know these kinds of things, okay?! It will be better in the long run if we prevent him from going there right now.
- What, some sort of future seein' ability?' Is that whatcha' got?
I- 'm… not going to say. Just trust me on this!
'I see. Well, I didn't really intend to enter these blotted halls in the first place, but I suppose I'll avoid it now.' I mentally transmitted to the souls.
I… do actually know what's already in there. Corpses. The souls were right, I shouldn't enter there. I don't think I can't emotionally handle seeing their disfigured bodies. Even imaging it I want to puke, scream, and cry… I'm blocking out the emotions best I can, but… it hurts.
I don't want to think about this any longer, let's just… continue on towards the transportation hall. If I gain enough power to revive… no, WHEN I gain enough power to revive you all… I will. That I solemnly swear to you all!
- So… you knew then.
'Right, you can read my mind...' I answered purple.
- And Hope can read your memories… We know what you are going through.
- We'll… work hard, for your sake!
- And… theirs…
'It's not your responsibility. Do not worry.' I replied.
- Avery, we share these emotions you have. All of our souls are connected, we can sense when one of us is mad or happy… or sad, and it affects us as well. We feel the exact same way, so how can we not assist?
- She's right. This is all of our responsibility now.
'I suppose you are right.'
- Then let's head off together, shall we?
- Yeah! It can't be that hard to bring them back, right? I mean, we all brought you back! If we need just a little bit more strength, then let's work hard to get it!
…
"Yeah. Let's go." I affirmed myself, at least partially.