~~Cyan~~

  Once Maggie is gone, I’m left to my own devices. For a moment I watch the tunnel where she came from, ensuring she’s fully out of sight. I don’t know why I do it, I guess I feel a little more comfortable in solitude.

  With the Materials section of the Compendium explored, I suppose it would make sense to explore the only other available option. Still not sure what Emmisaries or Research are, and despite my begging a few minutes ago, the Guide insists I’m not ready for that info so I don’t need to learn it yet. That leaves only Magic to read about, I guess.

  “Let me guess. Water, Earth, Fire, and Air?” There’s no response from the Compendium or the Guide and I guess they’re probably not going to give me a concrete answer on that. “Gotta figure it out on my own, eh?”

  A thought that has been festering in my brain pulls itself to the surface, and I have to voice it, to get the answer to questions. Just like always, my curiosity overcomes any sense of propriety. “You know, I do have a few questions for you, Guide.” With a tap, I minimise the Compendium and open up the Message App (or at least that’s how I’ve been thinking of it). “I promise I’m not going to try to weasel more info about the magic from you, although I really want to.. No, what I want to ask you is much more about me specifically. Well, me and the gal.”

  “For one thing… Are we the same person? She looks…” I trail off, not wanting to voice the thought in my head.

  “Annoyingly, it makes sense.” I look at my hands, missing a few of the scars from my early adulthood, but still bearing the marks of my childhood. Seeing the scars, and the absence of them, brings to mind memories that were previously locked behind the fog that obscures my memories of my former life. Missing is the lump of scarred flesh on my left wrist where a careless university student had spilled freshly brewed tea while rushing to class. Still present are the raised line across my right knuckles where I’d burnt my hand reaching into a toaster oven and the pock-marks from chicken pox that my mother had been unable to convince me not to scratch. It was an odd thing. “So I’ve lost the marks of who I was after I left my parent’s home, but not the scars of my childhood… not exactly what I hoped for with the new beginning.” Another thought crosses my mind. Some of the pieces click into place. The feeling of familiarity in choosing a name, the fact that looking at Maggie felt like looking in a mirror, the fact that, although comfortable, my face felt slightly unfamiliar. It all makes sense, like a switch clicking into place. “I wasn’t born, uh… like this, was I?”

  I feel a sense of relief, and my foggy memories become just a little less foggy. “Why can’t I remember large portions of my life? Things that should be clear memories to me, like the faces of my siblings, they’re all… foggy.”

  It’s not much of an answer, but I can sense it’s all I’m getting from the Guide. I tilt my head in confusion at the second message, but shrug and follow my ‘other half’ out through the tunnel and to the outside. She sits in tall grass, staring up at the sky with an almost blank look on her face, deep in thought. “Hey, Maggie, you okay?”

  She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even turn to look at me, instead gesturing vageuly up. I follow her gaze, beholding the stars above. My first instinct is to search for familiar constellations, but despite my intimate knowledge of the sky (from both northern and southern perspectives), I can’t find any. “Huh… the stars are all wrong.”

  “Really? The first thing I noticed was the three moons.”

  “Three what?” I frantically search the sky, spotting each moon in turn. First the one that looks like Luna, then red, then blue. “Hoooolyyyy shit,” I draw out the word, shaking my head in wonder. “Of course there are three. What else? Incredible.”

  Magenta gets to her feet. “Yeah. It makes it pretty clear that wherever this is, it’s not Earth.”

  “Yeah… it’s not even remotely close to Earth.”

  Maggie is silent, and when I glance over to look at her again she’s looking at me with an inquisitive expression. “You said the stars are wrong?”

  After a momentary pause, I catch up to my own thoughts and nod. “Yeah, uh, the usual constellations aren’t there. The Map says we’re facing due East from this door, so if we were in the Northern Hemisphere, we’d be able to turn left (towards the North) and look over to see stuff like the Big and Little Dipper, and more importantly the North Star. If we were in the southern hemisphere the opposite would be true. Turn right to see the Southern Cross, which is just as much of a sign-post for navigating. That was the indication we’re not on Earth, or on some kind of alternate Earth where the stars are still similar. Of course the moons are a better giveaway that it’s not Earth. As for not being anywhere near it at all… eh… the Milky Way does not look like that.”

  I gesture widely upwards, pointing out how the stars seem to bunch up on the axis of whatever galaxy we’re in. But instead of one continuous band, it splits in half partway across the sky, resulting in what almost looks like a ‘y’.

  “It’s branched… weird.”

  We stand there for a while longer. Maggie seems to be interested in the Moons, while I’m tracing out the brightest stars in my head and trying to figure out what kind of constellations the people of this planet might keep track of and give stories to.

  After a bit, I spin to get a better look at a different area of the sky and I properly behold the archway from the outside. The entrance to the Dungeon. It’s fascinating. Examining it both visually and through touch I come to a few conclusions. It seems to be made of a pale grey stone, likely sandstone but I’m not a rock expert so I’m not 100% sure. The front of it is covered in lightly glowing runes in a script I don’t recognise, but the sides are smooth. Speaking of the sides, the footprint of the archway is roughly square, and circling it reveals a smooth back, no Dungeon. I’m able to fully circle the thing, and when I come back to the front and step inside, I feel a laugh building in my chest, and given the chance to make a reference to one of my favourite shows, I don’t resist. “It’s bigger on the inside. It’s a TARDIS!”

  I feel the pressure of eyes on me and I turn slowly to face Maggie, who is sitting on the ground again, but more importantly is staring at me, the corner of her mouth twitching into a smile. “I mentally compared it to the Wardrobe to Narnia. TARDIS, that’s from Doctor Who, right?”

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  The chuckle finally escaped my chest and I let out my emotions, laughing and nodding, then shaking my head and sinking down to sit beside her, nodding again. “Yeah. Doctor Who. Wardrobe works too though. Guess in regards to holding something far greater within, they really are similar.”

  I consider briefly the joyous idea of a TARDIS disguised as a Wardrobe, then do my best to calm down. “So, you don’t know Doctor Who?”

  “Well, I mean… collective consciousness of a social group and all that. My little brothers were obsessed with it for a while, but I never really got into all that… um… sciency stuff.”

  Huh. Now that she’s brought it up, I remember the twins. I remember it was me who got the twins interested in Doctor Who after one of my classmates had introduced me to it. Watching shows was one of the few social activities I could really engage with. The memory threatens to lead me down a sad train of thought, so I abandon it to another idea. “Hey, I wonder… how do we get more Materials? I’m sure there’s a lot we can do with soil, roots, and earthworms if we’re creative, but… yanno… I don’t want that to be our only option?”

  Magenta stares into the middle distance for a few moments before shrugging. “Maybe we can ask the Guide?”

  It’s as good an idea as anything, so I turn to the little phone screen floating beside me. “So, any answer for that question?”

  “Wait, ‘Young Sapients’? You mean, children?”

  “Huh. Neat. So, any animal, plant, or other thing that just so happens to enter the Dungeon and isn’t already filled up with something else’s Mana can be claimed by us or infused with our Mana, then we can use it as a template to make more?”

  “Awesome.” I reach down and wrap my hand around a handful of grass, then pull up. My hand comes up empty, and I try again, finding that my hands seem to phase right through the plants. My brain short-circuits at this interaction.

  “Mouse!” Magenta calls, catching my attention and pointing down before I can question the odd behaviour of the grass. I look, and can see a mouse sitting inside her foot like it’s stuck in the terrain.

  The mouse seems entirely unfazed by the situation as it stuffs a seed into its mouth then continues on its way, ambling away. Oh! Guide said the System could give us info on stuff if we used the Camera function. Before the mouse disappears entirely, I activate the Camera and take a picture.

  The mouse scampers off, but I have my picture. It’s mostly just a blur and a tail, but it’s something. And I get some neat info too. “But we can’t touch it and it can’t see us, so how are we supposed to lure it into the Dungeon where we can claim it. Er. Her.”

  Maggie furrows her brow, then steps into the Dungeon and taps the ground a few feet inside. “Resource Node - Earthworm.”

  There’s a slight shimmer that passes over the ground where she taps, and several squishy earthworms begin to emerge from the soil. They wriggle about, some returning into the soil to dig around for goodies. Maggie tentatively taps one and her finger phases through it the same way my hand passed through the grass, causing a sigh of disappointment from both of us.

  I join her, remembering what the Guide said about how to shape the world. Intent is everything. If you desire something to happen, just will it into existence and, if you have enough Mana to do it, it’ll happen. I furrow my brow and point to one of the worms. “Just… uh… go towards the entrance and flop around.”

  There’s a long pause, then I see motes of Mana float into the worm. It wriggles, then begins to make its way slowly but surely towards the entrance. We watch in anticipation until it finally reaches the entrance then just lays there, twitching occasionally.

  Then the mouse returns! I can tell it’s the same mouse because one of her front paws is white. She examines the worm from outside, then slowly makes her way into the Dungeon and bites down on it. I notice two things. The smaller thing is that I feel a small amount of Mana trickle into my Core from the small interaction of the mouse killing the earthworm.

  The second, far more significant thing is that the moment her paws pass through the doorway, I feel a change in the ambient Mana. I can’t say that the Mana “wants” to flow into the mouse, since Mana doesn’t have desires. There’s a pull though. As though the mouse contains an airless vacuum and the Mana is air that is compelled by the laws of physics to fill that void. She begins to munch happily on the earthworm. I exchange a glance with Maggie, and we both put effort into the next bit.

  “Infuse Six Whiskers with Mana.”

  We feel the question filling our Mana as it slowly gathers, swirling slowly like a whirlpool around the mouse.

  Resource, Critter, or Monster?

  We speak in unison, instinctively knowing what we want. What we need. “Monster.”

  The Map for Lvl 1 pops up, showing a small floating room that’s not connected to anything else.

  I tap the wall of the Core Room and a small dotted line appears.

  Finally, it happens.

  The mouse begins to glow, a swirling cocoon of magenta and cyan light surrounding her as she rises into the air. The light completely covers the body of the mouse, and I can feel her being questioned by that very same system. Will she accept us as her new home?

  Suddenly, the flood-gates open and that greedy vacuum sucks up all the Mana it can get. She’s accepted our offer, for herself as well as for her unborn pups. Mana floods into the mouse, and the swirling cocoon of light spreads outward, growing as the creature within has her body altered by our undirected magic. Then she is gently lowered to the ground, the light dissipating.

  We feel slightly drained when the task is complete, but Six Whiskers looks up at us with a sparkle in her eyes that makes it all worth it. She knows we're here. She can see us. She's also about twice as big as she was before, with soft-looking paws, bigger teeth, and a very fat belly. Well, her belly was pretty big before, but it looks even more pregnant now.

  She squeaks, and somehow I can understand her words. Ciao, Capos!

  "She talks?!" I jump for joy and grab Maggie by the shoulders. "She talks!!"

  She shrugs away, turning to talk to our new monster, but I’m too distracted by the Guide popping up to pay too much attention to the interaction.

  “But the Earthworms don’t?” It’s not really a question, more asking for confirmation - and maybe more info if I’m lucky.

  “Whoa. Yeah, thanks for the info. That’s really helpful.” I look up to find an empty hallway, but I can hear Maggie and the mouse talking in the Core Room. I should probably see what's going on over there. I quickly turn to catch up.