Leo 'I, Orchestrator' Skyfang had woken up a few days ago after some random incident and found a 4 digit code in his possession. As a member of the King's Guard, what he knew contrasted with the reality of the world.
Skeleton Keys were now Nano-Suits. What was originally unique and exclusive to each person were as cheap and plentiful as cabbage. There were several hundred Skeleton Keys in existence and this echelon of experts dominated the world.
Now everybody had a copy of these Skeleton Keys. What mattered was creativity and versatility. They still existed. Source blueprints upon which the Nano-Suits were built. Only two had ever been found.
The blueprints were so vast that only some of their features were copied over. They were the Brawler and the Sharpshooter. The Brawler was more functionally complete then the Sharpshooter so it could physically manifest traits. The Sharpshooter was a broken, busted machine, functionally no different from body armor and a gun.
The original host of the suit he found himself in found 6 Skeleton Keys and left behind a memory imprint. The Brawler, The Sharpshooter, The Sprinter, The Composer, The Gambler, and The Counter. There was also another Skeleton Key left behind by an unknown individual but it had a status saying 'undefined'.
He slipped into the suit at an unknown point.
Traits were frameworks now, with each having its own system. Warriors and feats. Magicians and Spells. Rogues and Methods. It actually made sense the more he thought about it.
The Nano-Suit was officially called 'ACE' by its commissioner, because the emperor was inspired by mythological tales of supernatural beings possessing incredible talent for reality manipulation!
Smithed by Witches and Wizards, apparently, ACE was built to synergize with all Skeleton Keys and Traits and required a fated person to wear it.
It would only appear to the right person.
But was he the right person?
His name was Leo Skyfang and he was only a page to a real Knight.
(Haaaaaaaaahahahaha. What an interesting memory)
'I'm also Leo Skyfang. What a fucking concidence. Well, I originally used to be called I, Orchestrator but that's irrelevant!'
So which memory is true. Mines or this ancient one? Fuck it. The ancient one sounds better. Let's go with that one. ACE sounds fucking fantastic. I want to fight one. I wish I had more choices, but at least I can pick.
—
In an unknown location outside of time, space, and existence completely void of light and anything else that made sense.
"Something caused a paradigm shift just now"
"Only a handful of scenarios are possible. Which one was it?"
"That's the problem. It doesn't say"
"What???"
"Goddamn"
"What should we do?"
"Keep monitoring the events. I need to look up what this means"
—
Skyfang had 6 Skeleton Keys in his hands. The Brawler, the Sharpshooter, The Sprinter, The Composer, The Gambler, and The Counter. The Composer was the most interesting one. It could direct music. Pointless, but maybe it had its use? They were all digital troves of information that were translated into sub-functionalities in his Nano-Suit.
Right now, he was on the hunt for another Skeleton Key. He was hoping it would be The Scientist for some reason. The marker was pointing at a location South-East.
He rotated while scanning the horizon. It was similar to the Psychofiends. Just smoke and blood. The Rogue saw platoons of Psychofiends and ordinary Beastmen. The Magician simply threw an army of fireballs at them and the Sprinter ran away laughing in madness as the freaks tried to figure out where the attacks were coming from.
Skyfang continued sprinting and laughing as he ran South-East. Hundreds of Psychofiends and Dozens of Beastmen died not knowing how. An hour later, he had arrived at his destination.
The building had been burned down to the basement. What he was looking for was buried even deeper. The Rogue tried to spy but was unable to see past the metal. The Warrior used his formidable strength to dig out a hole and tossed the basement away. There was a trapdoor leading underground which Skyfang stepped towards without hesitation.
About a foot into the hole, traps had been sprung. Poison darts, blades, and flashbangs bombarded him. The Sprinter easily evaded everything before stepping into the trapdoor.
Even more traps bombarded him but the Brawler simply overpowered everything. There was not a thing in the house that could penetrate nano-fiber so he was perfectly safe.
He had high hopes with the level of danger that seemed to be present. As he got further and further down, the Nano-Suit was producing higher 'dings', but he was largely unharmed.
Finally, it stopped.
He guessed that the trap was meant to kill almost everybody that was relevant. WMRs wouldn't be interested in this place and civilians didn't have the ability to survive the traps.
His guess was right as the room beneath the trap door was free of any traps. He walked through a lot of rooms before realizing this.
He was disappointed by the low stock of medical equipment but became excited because of all the math equations, chemical tubes, and physics experiments.
It had to be The Geek. Didn't know what the Skeleton Key was about, but was confident in that much.
He found a computer with a locked screen. Thought hard about everything he had seen. Typed in a word. The screen beeped before showing its home screen. Hundreds of folders, all resized to fit the screen. Each folder had a hundred other folders and it turned into an endless maze.
He just navigated back to the root directly before typing in Skeleton Key. No results popped up. Then he typed The Geek. No results popped up. Crazy. Just 1 result. Bingo. It was a program that could interface with the supernatural. The file name was called Crazy but the keywords in the executable were filled up with 'The Geek'.
It was a research experiment to learn more about the phenomena known as 'Warriors, Magicians, and Rogues'.
It later deviated to trying to create a method to utilize those phenomena. Geek was a Skeleton Key meant to be the fruits of that labor but it had to be built first. He downloaded the source code and watched in amazement as the lines that were being downloaded vanished. He tried to recall the words but came up blank. He looked at the video feed on his Nano-Suit but it showed a blank screen.
After he downloaded the entire source code, the computer even exploded. He found himself sucked into a dreamscape as he learned about The Geek.
—
Skeleton Keys were not created, at least not man-made. They were generated when a work had reached such a high level of creativity that it became a life of its own. Named after the individual pursuing the highest limits of their work, the Key Master was usually a brilliant individual who would not survive a year beyond their creation. This was because there had to be a balance. Only someone who controlled that balance could overturn their fate.
Skeleton Keys could be copied, but whoever shared the code would die within the year. So basically, the world lost an unfathomable genius for every Skeleton Key created.
—
Skyfang was contemplating on the implications of what he had learned. Nano-Suits became Skeleton Keys while Traits became Frameworks. A Paradigm Shift had clearly happened but what triggered it? He made a choice but he didn't know where the choice had originated from.
He was suddenly curious about who these brilliant minds were and rushed North-East.
—
Refugees were running away from Psychofiends. Dozens of them were dying by the second and it seemed like all of them were next. They ran into the occasional Operator but that person died with question. The DAO's weren't any better.
Very few groups encountered Covert Ops Soldiers who pushed back the Psychofiends but it was like they had no regard for their life as they continued rushing.
Reinforcements would always push the tide back but the endless sea of Psychofiends pushed back.
"Fuck. What the hell are the scientists doing? We're losing men but they lose nothing"
"Idiot. Do you want to research this? They're trying to find out how to catch fucking shadows"
"So what are we supposed to do?"
"We're trying. Do you want to sit back and just get slaughtered?"
"Goddamnit. Charge forward and make sure every hit is a clean one"
It was like this all over the battlefield. Operators and Soldiers would curse the slow progress but at the same time realize it was an impossible situation.
—
In one of many research labs around the world.
"Any progress yet?"
"No"
"What do we have?"
"They die, turn into shadows, and then disappear"
"I was asking a scientist"
"Based on the photos we've taken, the shadows have the exact same characteristics as regular shadows. An absence of light"
"And we don't have any idea how to capture the absence of light"
"Exactly. The absence of light means there is nothing to analyze"
"So how are the Beastmen doing it?"
"Blood magic?"