DarkLight

Part 22: Alexandria's Power

He was swimming in a warm sea below the night sky. He could see the universe above-the swirling galaxies made of millions of trillions of stars. He could see that they were all connected to each other, the life force of the universe binding all things together-the force which he manipulated every time he used his arcane abilities. Two galaxies neared each other, catching one another in their own gravitational pulls. The arms of the galaies moved towards each other as Soran floated on the warm sea of this strange place. The arms almost touched, slowing to a crawl when finally....

“Soran”. The galaxies began to fade.

“Soran, please respond”. The water seemed much less wet, he could feel something below him.

“Soran Lex, this is Eresmai Tower. Please respond”. He opened his eyes. He was in his new room in Eresmai. The room was within a medium-sized building off of the smaller Fourth Plate (The ‘Upper Plate’ as it was known to those in the city) and it reminded Soran vaguely of his old room. A simple double bed took up the vast majority of the space, with a Bathroom behind it. Unlike his previous room, however, this accomodation had a doorway into a comfortably-sized kitching come living area, containing a door which lead to a small balcony with impressive views over the city. He was slightly overwhealmed when he first saw the room, but Kisa explained that the Skry treat people as people, and not as a number like Utopia does.

“Soran Lex. Please respond urgently” a tinny voice nagged at him. He sat up in his bed, rubbing his forhead in a vain attempt to shift the headache. They’d been slowly getting better in the two weeks since Kisa had forced him into using his abilities-but his practicing was paying off.

“I’m here” He replied to the voice, he sounded gruff-but then again it was three am-there abouts anyway.

“Please report to the Control Room immedietly. Master Kisa requests your presence for an urgent matter”.

An urgent matter? At three a.m!?

“Uh, ok...” Soran replied-clearly still half asleep.

“Roger that. An escourt will be outside your door in five minutes”.

***

The elevator door slid open to reveal the Eresmai Control Room-the central hub of the Skry city and reminded Soran ironically of the Utopian headquarters. The room took up an entire floor of the central spire and was surrounded by a single glass window which gve a panoramic view of the entire city-allowing a tactically adventagous position in the city. There were four masive pillars in each corner of the circular room which supported the weight of the rest of the tower above, making the tower structurally sound.

In the centre of the room was a large hologram of Eresmai highlighting various areas and systems running through the city and giving various readings on them. Power systems, water purification and the all important shield generation systems. Five rows of desks surrounded this central display following the circular contours of the room, each containing a terminal with access to the Eresmai maintraim computer system. Even at 3am there were around fifteen Skry dotted around the fifty or so desks in the room-the night shift no doubt, diligently keeping the city running.

Lord Kisa was deep in conversation with one of the Night Shift Orderlies. He glanced at Soran as he saw him approach and waved away the Orderly to carry on the conversation at another time.

“I apologize for the early hour, Soran” 

“Thats ok, I don’t sleep well anyway” Soran replied, deciding not to inform Kisa of his strange dreams-they were noone else’s business. Kisa smiled.

“I wish that this could have waited till a later date, but I had to show you something”. Kisa motioned Soran towards one of the closer desks over which a small wire-frame hologram of Utopia City and the Undercity was displayed. A blinking red light indicated a location in one of the northern-most sections of the Undercity.

“We believe that she has found her” Kisa explained. Soran looked perplexed.

“Found who?”

“Sorceress Alexandria”. Soran’s blank look said it all, so Kisa continued.

“Sorceress Alexandria was a Skry Artisan, a sort of Scientist studying and experimenting on the Arcane Abilities. She was born around 1200 years ago and was one of the brightest Skry minds” Soran was getting restless with this history lesson.

“Should this mean something to me?” 

“Apologies Soran. Sorceress Alexandria started to study the genetic makeup of the Skry. She studied for hundreds of years-a large fraction of her life even by our standards. Her research pushed her into the fringes of society and turn her into a recluse, her life was consumed by her work. In the end she discovered that she could alter her genetic makeup to allow herself to channel the Arcane Energies even more, gaining a greater understanding of the abilities and by proxy becoming more powerful. She built a machine to allow herself to do this. Her lab was deep beneath our city so that she would not be disturbed and that she could use the heat of the planet to power her machine”. Kisa glanced once more at the blinking light.

“When she activated her machine it caused severe tremors on the surface and the military was sent down to her lab to stop her, but it was too late. Alexandria’s experiment had only partially succeeded, something had gone wrong-but it was enough to change her irriversibly. She existed in a state between energy and corporealism, unable to be truely hurt, but the biggest change was in her mind. Alexandria had lost all sense of individuality and empathy, only viewing existance in terms of energy and the universe as a whole. She saw our existance as an intefierance in her plans for all of creation and saw all other life as a nuisance-insects if you will. The platoon sent to her lab was wiped from existance by a mere thought as the tremors increased. In the end I entered the Lab with Rammachandra and Lady Sephram, as the rulers of the Skry nation and the most powerful of us all. Using our combined might we were able to imprison her in enchanted crystal and create a sphere around the lab and her, shielding her power from the rest of the world and sinking it even deeper into the planet”.

“So you’re saying that she’s still there, all these hundreds of years later? And Rammachandra’s found her?”. 

“Yes. Rammachandra has always had an unhealthy interest in the Sorceress’ power and research. If she has found her then it can’t be a good sign for any of us. We need you, as a former member of the Utopian Military and a person with in-depth knowledge of the city, to infiltrate their operation and find out what is happening”.

“Kisa-I’ve only been training for a few weeks” Soran replied, he was getting nervous now. How could he do this while he didn’t truely understand his own existance? Kisa smirked.

“Soran, you were born ready”.