Fortuna Verto

07-Adopting Reality

The two girls finally reached civilization by around midnight, passing through the barrier into warm air once again. After that, it was only a short walk further to the commercial district which held their destination.

Rosa was stunned by the sight, but she was not surprised. She was already aware, this was simply the modern day of the Terran Mythos. Actually, that wasn't even true either anymore, the Terran Mythos were filled with tales of a mythical place called Earth, and this was no Earth. This was simply a world Earth had reached since the Mythos. Such a Mythos had led to these towering buildings of light and metal. The design was unique enough, a lot more box-style than what she was used to, but it at least looked organized enough. Several buildings looked almost identical to one another, a feeling to her that might make such streets easier to get lost in than she knew, but maybe there was more to it than that. The actual instrumentation involved stayed absolutely foreign to her, but she knew to expect that. In all accounts, actually, much of the basics behind instrumentation seemed to be simply repeated. The lights, holos, those were decorating everything everywhere, including bringing enough light to the streets to make the whole place glow like day. Coming to terms with the state of such oddities wrung out all of their novelty, this was just what this world was like.

Kori continued leading the way, winding through the back alleys of the streets, very obviously trying to avoid the crowds. Rosa could tell this was a path Kori had travelled several times in the past, moving forward with certainty in their path. Rosa didn't have any hesitation either in her movements, not even when their path suddenly passed into one of the boxed towers, the doors opening and closing for them on their approach. Kori kept leading the way to a very central door in a boxed hall, a holo appearing before her again that was waiting for her instructions. A short wait later, the door opened to a small room, Kori already heading inside and Rosa still hot on her heels. The interior already looked like a holo, it had the same subtle glow, though this specific holo blocked her from seeing anything beyond it. Everything went absolutely silent then, not even her own motions making a sound as the room briefly shook.. and then the doors opened once again to reveal a very different sight from before. Kori stepped ahead towards a fairly large holo banner, clearly trying to make the place stand out a bit more. Passing another entrance, Rosa found herself in a reasonably colourful office, holos flickering across the walls to show a variety of different outfits. A woman was sitting at a desk, already looking their way as they entered.

"Kori, nice to see you again. I hope the night has treated you well enough. What might I help you with?" "Sophie, you won't believe how this night has gone. I'm sorry to interrupt you while you're working, but it's really important." Kori went over to Sophie to discuss everything, while Rosa decided to just look around. This was their destination, after all, she would be free to look around. Mostly, she already knew how the conversation was going to begin, such did not matter to her. Rosa was a woman of business herself, even if she was horrible at promoting it, and this clearly looked like someone else's workshop. Considering the promotions adorning the walls, this would be a business related to fashion, one that thus clearly knew how to promote their work. She wasn't the greatest of fashion freaks, let alone in position to evaluate local fashions, but the products looked pretty enough. In a way, these holos were just working like some kind of illusions. Sure, illusions might have a fairly strange elemental composition, but she suspected such details might not apply here.

The holo then presented her with a display, though she couldn't understand what it was trying to tell her. The visuals were simple enough, the interface rather intuitive, but the sprawl within meant nothing to her. She took into consideration the meaning behind the design, what sort of purpose this would ideally serve, especially based on what she could figure out. Certainly this was an overview of the product being shown to her, and such would ideally come with some supporting details, the bubbles being an interface to represent controls. Wait, so this sprawl of patterns was actually writing? Unfortunately, they might have a bit of shared language to work with, but their writing form was completely different. It was actually interesting how this writing was formed at least, more like individual icons than a single cascading interlinked line, it clearly had its own elegant artistic form. Thinking about the matter though, the Terran Mythos generally originated from a myth formed about a thousand years ago, which was also the time of the Instrumentation Era.