Uncountable millennia passed, a thousand? A thousand thousand? It is not known. But then again, it might as well have been a blink for the seven. One Great, four subordinate to the First and two who had yet to grow into their domains. Then there were two more. One was radiant, cheery the brightest essence in the void. The other was subdued, but nonetheless, formidable in his own way. He was the most elusive as he shied away from his overly enthusiastic sister. Of the four godlings, she was the purest of hearts, perhaps second only to her great Benevolence. Claritas and Vesper were their names. Claritas the Bright and Vesper the Tenebrous. Unlike their elder sisters, these two’s essences were of a Form whose essences were stark contrasts of one another. But nevertheless, where there was one, the other was sure to follow.

Excerpt from The Book of Realms: The Age of Elder Gods, Church of Thea.

“ Elder Volemhir,” Arthur groaned drowsily for the second time. The old elf had gone on a tirade about how young ones had no respect for their elders these days. It wasn’t as if Arthur was the one who’d hailed him at the fourth quart in the morning. Time, at least the damn thing could tell time. However, everything was in sylvani characters; until it hit him that the blueprint had been the old elf’s telecry.

‘Huh? Ripped him a good one,’ Arthur murmured much to himself than anyone else. After extricating the sleeping synth from his hand, he’d finally gotten up and dragged himself to a seat so he could hear what the elder had to say. However, he couldn’t help taking a glimpse of his new Psiphone every time he had to keep it at arms length because the elder was shouting.

“ What time is it? It's four in the morning for Pete's sake.” Arthur said, scouring his ear to assuage the ringing therein. “ Don’t chronomancers sleep?”

“ Hoh, a studious student as always Arthur Sturmdrache while being a nightowl is commendable—

‘Ugh, I forgot that for a genius he can be such a scatterbrain sometimes. That or he loves to hear himself talk’

—a healthy mind requires adequate sleep. Mayhap I should send you one of my horologyres. The new ones are about to come out…”

“Uh, Elder Volemhir! Unity of Mind?”

“ [Unity of Mind]” Arthur heard the skill executed. “ Ah, gratitude…” . Even at an arm’s length away, there was no loss of fidelity , as if the elder was speaking in the lab with him. And that was above the din of the banging on lift doors, which drew Arthur’s attention.

‘Is that Nora coming to check on me?’ Arthur thought. ‘She could have just ported in,’ Arthur sighed as he walked towards the doors. Nora had to have been leveraging all of her vampiric strength to make her knocks heard through the thick metal.

Arthur tested the Psiphone’s reception through his pocket to check if sound still got through by replying with mmhs and ahas as the elder continued talking about some other sylvani event or another. Then using both arms he pulled the lift doors apart—he stumbled back pinching his nose.

The smell rolling over him in billowing waves was foul; it made his eyes water. It smelt like a subterranean swamp where things had died and yet that was not the worst of it.

“[Thunderbolt]!, [Thunderbolt]!”

Arthur backpedaled, almost tripping over his own feet as he spammed his magic towards the two monstrosities covered in slimy gunk. They stood eight feet tall,olive green and gangly appendages trailing from their heads. Monsters had gotten in through the lift shaft! The suffocating miasma was long forgotten as Arthur tried to push them back.

“ Arthur…boy! What in Aeris’ breath is going on there!—”

It was chaotic, the monsters seemed to have no notion of fear at the point blank spells. Actually, the spells were grounded through the thick doors; magical or mundane, dwarf-steel was a good lightning arrestor.

“ Swamp things!” Arthur blurted out, steadying his hands as he realized to his horror, he was doing nothing to stop their advance. So he switched spells.

“ What in the name of Three are you talking about boy? Is that an undocumented monster? I did warn you about the rift gates didn’t I? Where are you? Never mind, Ah, where is that Scroll of Greater Teleport when you need one—?!”

“[Air Cannon]!,” he yelled. He didn't really need to, spell matrixes did not have a vocal activation component. It was much from the chagrin more than anything. A concentrated blast of air punched into their torsos, punting them through whence they’d come from. They fell back into the lift shaft and took their miasma with them. Arthur gasped for breath;

“ What in the blue was that?” Arthur heaved hands on his knees. It wasn’t on account of exhaustion, rather, the smell had almost smothered him. Thankfully, the blast of air from [Air Cannon] took care of that too.

“Boy! Speak to me, what happened?” Volemhir called out again. Arthur's fight or flight high petered out, evaporating even as Eye of the Storm stabilized him.

The sound of a tone like a message being received brought his attention back to the Psiphone. He got out the almost transparent gadget he hadn't properly looked at. A palm size, crystalline artifact with metallic bezels stared back at him.

But his eyes were drawn, not to the icon of a [Far Speak] rune bobbing up and down as Volemhir tried to reach him, but the message which went like

"Dear Papa,

By the time you read this I might be asleep. Prithee let me slumber a while longer, a delicate process is happening while you read this. Oh, and do not be startled by the two golems who will come knocking in the morning...I have plans for them—”

Arthur drew himself up and grunted. “ Ah, feck it”

“Arthur…” Elder Volemhir spoke. “What just happened?”

It was a couple of par'quarts after the chaos had died down. Arthur had gone to check on the golems supposedly termed by his adopted daughter to be part of a plan. A plan which he had no inkling of when it had been made.

‘Probably when I was asleep.’ He grimaced. He was going to have words with the girl. Just because he'd agreed to her stay under his roof did not mean that she could do as she damn well pleased. There would be ground rules, if and when they awoke.

Intelligent entity or not. ‘Why couldn't I just have a normal girl who plays with frogs,’Arthur sighed. And for the record, he didn't trust her. He was above letting appearances fool him and once bitten—

”It's probably a tall tale, Elder Volemhir” Arthur pursed his lips. He thought of whether to tell the Elder what had transpired.

Surely, the elf would not bat an eye right? If he took his being a [Lost Worlder] like something that was to be expected, then Arthur supposed, the old elf could be expected to keep an open mind.

“I have all the time on Eryth my boy,” the elder snorted. “Or did you forget who you're talking to?”

Arthur could not help rolling his eyes. Whether the elder meant it as sarcasm or not he couldn't tell. Arthur stole a glance at the little synth whose eyelids were fluttering while she slept on a thrown together cot. He was at an impasse as he weighed whether to tell the elf or not.

‘No, bad idea.’ Arthur thought. ‘The things he knew were revealed to him under geas, before that, he was not under any obligation to help me. He even tried to pull a fast one with the telecry.’

That was rational, perhaps. That and the fact that he revised his notion that the elder would readily accept a synthetic being birthed from magic. The elder was already too powerful and he would not give him one more card to hold over his head.

“When did I start oversharing?” he murmured.

”What was that?” Elder Volemhir cut in.

”Ah, nothing. I just need to put my house in order.”

'Another tangent, huh? Does his skill have a short cooldown or something?'

”Did you read the letter my boy?”

‘When did we start becoming so overly familiar,’ Arthur scowled. ‘What are you my grandpa?’

“Yes, of course. Read it first thing the morning after…”

”And? Have you used it?”

‘While I fancy slapping a bunch of papers in someone's face to show them I can also bring some big guns, used wrongly it might just attract unwanted attention.’Arthur mulled. He was thinking about the correspondence the elder had sent through Szephia.

One of them was a Vouch of Identity that he could use like a passport of sorts, or an affidavit. While he didn't read the legalese, he knew authentic documents when he saw one.

“No Elder Volemhir, I would like to think of it as a means of last resort. ”

“Hmm, wise…now then, I want to hear how you managed to unravel the workings of my telecry so fast”

“Elder ,i think we should talk later...I have to secure the vicinity…” Arthur said. He was peering over the lift doors, into the shaft which disappeared into the darkness below. ‘Need to secure that area with lighting’ Arthur grimaced.

“Ah, that explains why you're unscryable….you must be in an underground dungeon huh? I hope you did not see it fit the tinker with my project in such a place…” Volemhir snorted. Arthur did another eye roll as he surveyed the rest of the shaft. ’Of course the elder had to have had his own designs on me. Insufferable’

The walls were too smooth and too slimy to make any fixtures. However, it was too dark to see if there were places a rope could find purchase on the lift above.

He pulled back into the lab and flicked the mage lights on. The slimy goop he'd been wary of stepping on turned out to be just mud. Meanwhile the hail from the elder had gone silent.

'Time to take stock,’ Arthur yawned.

’[Appraisal]!’, Arthur willed. For the first time in a long time he used the skill he'd worked day and night for. He was now a level 15 magicraft aercrafter, two level ups from his encounter with Elder Volemhir.

‘Psiphone; Made by Arcis for Sturmdrache’ was the information fed to him via the skill. It felt like recalling a recent memory or preconscious thoughts. It was similar to the same way the dungeon shard worked but less intrusive, more...natural; like telepathy. Somehow, Arcis had also copied the obfuscation runes.

’Psiphone huh? Took the psi from telepsychic crystal and the phone from well–that's obvious’

Glass screen had become crystal. Where a home button was supposed to be was instead a symbol resembling a candelabra with three arms; the rune symbol psi Ψ which glowed blue. All non-metallic components had basically been stripped away. But that was only the surface level. Its innards made his head hurt from looking at them with [Appraisal].

If he could just tilt the Psiphone to the side, physical examination of the artifact showed compressed sylvani runecraft married into circuit pathways on the inside of the bezel. Too many miniaturized runes and traces blurred into each other. He couldn't tell where the magic started and the electronics ended. He sighed; it was too convenient. It wouldn’t work would it?

There was no button and no volume rockers either. The fingerprint scanner was gone as was the camera and everything on the back of the device. It was all a see through translucent crystal– it could no longer be called a Psiphone; neither was it a sylvani telecry.

But, for all its ingenuity, it was useless to him, unless he checked that everything was there. There was nothing to nitpick about its interface whatsoever.It was fluid despite its mesh of the arcane and the mundane, every sideways swipe elicited the scroll tone reminiscent of a certain gaming console.

Arthur wanted to delve into its insides. However, his hand wavered over the runic representation of memory, [Basic Rune Lore] clued him on it; that would have been what was most likely to be the phone gallery. It was a catch-22 situation. On one hand he wanted to be sure that everything was recovered, on the other, he didn't feel ready to face his past. What if he was a different person, in the videos, the conversations the pictures—

No before that, who did he leave behind? Would he live with the revelation that somehow somewhere he wasn't the only one on Eryth. Would he feel guilty if he was the only one who made it there without having their brains consumed by whatever phenomenon had dumped him there?

The biggest question was. How did he get there...and why did he lose his memories in the process? Arthur swallowed. It was like the Oasis all over again; hands clammy ,breath hitching, heart thumping throat dry as if he'd eaten sawdust—tongue stuck on the palette of his mouth–denial.

And then the whine that cut out all sound. Arthur stumbled, the Psiphone slipped from his hands. Even as he watched, time was frozen, the Psiphone fell in slow motion. Arthur shut his eyes closed, expecting to hear something—like what? Shattering of crystal? Crystals shattering? Was he mad? surely that was wishful thinking. Not even the sound of the gadget hitting the floor was heard.

Instead, he felt a tug on his trouser.

“Papa?” a voice split through his dazed awareness. It seemed to echo, small yet clear as a bell. It was like a break in the clouds during a storm. Arthur came to himself and squinted away the tears on the corner of his eyes as he turned to regard the synth girl.

‘When did she?’

”[Suggestion]” two voices seemed to overlap. The facial expression on Arcis was sincere, not the plastered facsimiles that one of the more critical persona used. Somehow, Arthur knew both entities that made up Arcis were in sync at that moment.

”Primacy of needs follows project Stormbreaker must take precedence. Psiphone does not require immediate attention, used core components of magillium casing and teschychon processing unit guarantee persistence of memories—”

The boundary between what was [Host-Mind] and [Spirit-Body] was thinning.

”Alright, I give, I give...haha,” Arthur chuckled despondently. “I hear you, it's indestructible huh?” he tousled his hair. Arthur looked towards the Stormbreaker's airframe, he wasn't even half-way there.

“You're right, there's no use moping when knowing about it won't change my situation. Assuming I know someone else came with me; assuming I have relations who may or may not have come along.

What then? Will I drop everything to get to them? You're damn right I will” Arthur exhaled. “And that right there...is our ticket to get wherever we want to go, whenever we want to go.”

“Mmh,” the synth girl nodded with a thoughtful hum. Then turning around she, her face lit up, “Ah, Papa did you see the help I bought?” Arthur cringed, not as much from the fact that he'd punted the golems down a hole but from the appellation. The endearing term made him seem and feel old–he was only 25 years old.

“Uhm, Arcis...how old are you again?” Arthur asked, with an uneasy grin. The corner of his mouth was twitching as he tried not to scowl.

Arcis put a mouth to her lip and seemed to draw out another hum of contemplation,before she turned around to regard him. “Thirteen—”

Arthur's head whirled around so fast,his neck joint popped.

“Hundred…”

Arthur's grin dropped. ‘Did she just grow a few inches? Is that why she asked not to be disturbed because she was growing in her sleep?’ ”Aren't you like, 4 foot 7 ?” he asked deadpan.

”4 foot 11,”Arcis sulked, punching his knee

“Ow!”

“What happened to them?” Arthur inquired, looking sidelong at his shorter companion ...well, daughter. He had a grimace on his sleep weary face. Even after blasting the two shambling humanoids of rock with copious amounts of water magic, they still stank.

‘Yea, the lab needs air conditioning alright’

The golems chests had been caved in by a blunt blow, the tertherite crystals animating them reduced to shards too small to be powering their movements. They were dead golems and Arcis was using [Channeling] to feed them instructions and mana. Instead of pulling from her reserves though, she was bridging them to the tellusphere; not that she revealed it to her foster father. It was unmistakable to miss the tension between the duo.

“Unknown, ”Arcis shrugged. It was hard to imagine her being serious without the monotone voice.

“Right,” Arthur chewed his cheek. The lumbering 8 foot giants had mold growing at their joints. Cracks spiderwebbed from their chests where something had punched in and pulled out their tertherite crystals. Most of all, their digits were eroded to nubs; that they even managed to scale the wall of the lift shaft was incredible.

“We're not doing any fine work without thumbs,” Arthur sighed. “Heavy lifting it is then…”

“What else can you do?” Arthur asked with a one arched brow. His Psiphone...Psiphone, he'd taken to calling it that now; his Psiphone chimed.

[Message]: Matter Transmutation, you're holding it. But cannot transmute organic matter.

[Message]: Affinity Augmentation, does what it sounds like. Unfortunately, I cannot do magic with it.

[Message]: Farspeak, experimental. But I've copied down the matrix. Your logs indicate there was a successful Farspeak hail with one elder Volemhir. Also using the telepsychic link to communicate right now

[Messa–

Arthur flipped the Psiphone on the table and rubbed at his face.

‘Thats, practically cheating’

Yet the Psiphone continued vibrating and chiming several more times before it went silent.

“Alright, ground rules! ”Arthur turned around, and placed his hands on her shoulders... hesitatingly. Her eyes flitted to and from his hands and seemed to ask ‘really?’

Her sclera were still the most innocent, purest whites Arthur he’d ever seen. Her eyes were cerulean gemstones that seemed to have molten gold swirling in the irises. What kind of father wouldn't want to have such a beautiful daughter?

‘Correction, beautiful, deadly, blackmailing, virtually indestructible magic synth,’ Arthur thought.

“First, never...ever, and I insist never, tell someone about your abilities.,” Arthur started.

“ Why?” Arcis tilted her head to the side.

“ Please don’t be a hard head,”

“ But I have a hard head…”

“They will come for us,” Arthur threw up his hands in resignation. Arthur’s Psiphone suddenly chimed. Flipping it over the one thing that seemed to seek his attention was a new message with golden highlights. Just an ellipsis. He frowned,’ Huh?’

[Host-Mind]: Notice; this feature will be useful for covert communication. Define subjects designated ‘they’?”

“ Papa, who are they?” Arcis said. Arthur almost went cross-eyed.

“ Arcis,” Arthur moistened his lips as if about to tell a child going out into the world for the first time. “ There are people and powers far stronger than you or me out there?” he pointed upwards, towards the lab ceiling. Arcis understood his point. “ And they include dwarves,” he said with finality.

A chime from the Psiphone,

[Host-Mind]: Affirmative; dwarves have been designated as potentially hostile.]

Arthur released a breath. The synth was taking things too literally; the split personalities were not even worth mentioning. Arthur placed the Psiphone on the tabletop and cradled his head, a glimpse showed it was just about the 6th quart thereabouts. He was about to have a long day and the day hadn’t even broken.

“ Second and most important, do not ever tell anyone I am from Earth. Not Nora, not Elena, nobody. You understand? And watch who pays attention to you when you speak english.”

‘ Please don't ask me why’ Arthur inwardly swore as he crossed his fingers.

“ Got it papa,” Arcis smiled. There was no chime from the Psiphone this time. At least she got that down.