Shattered Moonstone

Chapter 2

              How long has it been? Me pondered, groggily. Although Eryl asked if it would like to “rest” for the duration of its healing, it quickly found out it would not be “resting” by definition. It took nearly 2 mind numbing years for it to learn how to sleep, or as close to sleep as a bodiless mass of Aether could get. 

              It glanced at the infernal clock that dimly lit its otherwise peaceful void space. Only a year and a half to go? I wonder how little sparkle… Amethyst is its name now isn’t it? 

              During its dormant state a lot of changes had taken place, for one its Aether body had shrunk, and began to take a more humanoid shape. The Inutil box had informed it that this was because of a set of skills it acquired while helping the small soul, Aether condensing, and Soul shaping. The second being a more advanced form of Soul resonance.

              It had learned a lot now that it had access to the Inutil box inside of the void. In the beginning the box just sat there, floating in the void with the ever-present timer counting down on it, however after only a month of sitting silently it began to talk to the box, much to its surprise it answered. allowing it to access the information database, it was able to learn a lot about the world outside of the void. Which is good, it did not know how long it had been in the void originally, but now that it had a point of reference to keep track of time it was… stressful to say the least.

              “Hey Intuil box, how's the weather today?” Me asked sarcastically as it stretched its colorless limbs, even though its body had become more humanoid in the last few years it took on no distinct shape, it had two arms that it noted as being abnormally long, two legs that were in it's opinion proportional to its body, one head that took considerable getting use to once it found out how eyes worked. Aside from the basic shape it was androgynous. 

              Intuil made no notion of answering it’s question, it continued just ticking down the seconds as the soul began its after resting procedure.

              “Wonder what's different today” Me had taken to checking its body daily, making note of any changes. “Intuil box, run “what did Me grow today?” prompt” 

              It had taken to Sleeping once a day once it learned that's what creatures on this world did; so once the timer gets down the last 5 hours of a day it shuts down its mental faculties entering a comatose state for 5-9 hours. It has not been able to fine tune it any shorter than that, it could however increase the time indefinitely it seemed, if it rests for too long however it misses any big changes in its form, like the time it rested for a little over a year and grew a second leg (it thought the first one was a tail).

Intuil flashed a disappointed yellow before pulling up a list.

What did Me grow today?

Time remaining; 9y8m3w6d: Quote “holy hell is this an arm? When did I grow an arm? Intuit make a note called "what did me grow today?" note one arm like appendage.”

Edit: Time remaining; 9y8m3w4d: quote “it might be a tail? Intuil what's the difference between a tail and an arm?”

Time remaining; 8y11m2w4d: quote “turns out it was an arm, i have begun to grow… fingers? How many fingers should I have?”

Time remaining; 8y5m3w2d: quote “a second arm has begun to grow; first arm now has five nub-like fingers on it.”

Time remaining; 7y11m3w6d: quote “second arm grew much faster than the first, already has fingers, began growing another one, this one is definitely a tail given its location to the arms.”

Time remaining; 7y9m2w4d: quote “my “body” has begun to slim down, that or Inutil has been growing in size… you have not been getting bigger have you stupid box?”

Time remaining; 6y5m1w5d: quote “stupid box let me sleep for over a year! Turns out it wasn't a tail but a leg, which I now have two of, toes are strange. Intuil make note, ask Eryl why do people have toes?”

Time remaining; 6y4m3w4d: quote “Eryl said toes are used for balance.”

Time remaining; 5y9m3w6d: quote “I grew a head! It's a bit strange trying to only look through my head instead of my whole body, but Eryl says that's how Human’s work. Am I Human?”

Time remaining; 4y5m2w6d: quote: “wow i am really bad at keeping notes, what's with these huge gaps? didn’t i say i was going to do this daily, hey stupid box remind me to do this every day!”

Error: data lost due to damage to terminal. Main system, designation Eryl, has recovered what it could from the remnants of Terminal, designation Intuil 6, only a partial recovery was possible. 

Time remaining; 2y8m2w4d: quote “Stupid Eryl wouldn’t replace Intuil until I swore to not break another one. Maybe she should make a stronger box if she doesn't want me to break them! It makes all these notes useless! How am I supposed to figure out what's going on if I can't take notes?”

Time remaining; 2y8m2w2d: quote “So long story short, I look… human ish, I estimate at this point I am roughly 6 feet tall given the dimensions of Inutil, if the box is to be trusted; and I seem to be shrinking daily. Eryl has assured me I am not disappearing, but she makes dumb boxes, I have made what is called a “will” I leave everything to sparkle.”

“No further notes had been made.” Inutil scrolled as the being stood unmoving.

               After a long silence the being made a loud coughing noise despite having no lungs and uttered “You know what Inutil 7, why don't we just delete that entire file.” It looked down at its “body”, with an exaggerated head movement, noting it had stopped shrinking at just about 5 feet tall: still lacked any characteristics of gender, it was still as black as the void that housed it, strange jagged colored lines were strewn across it, a large hole of in its chest area. Eryl said the hole was the damage from forcing its Aether through the “prehistoric death contraption” it had made to save sparkle, but it was shrinking before it could fit a arm in it, now only 3 of its fingers would fit in the hole. 

               After inspecting itself, and being sure Inutil deleted the evidence of its attempt to notate its growth, and satisfied with the results, it went on about its day of… doing nothing. it had already bugged the Inutil screen for all the information it could, it knew the general state of the world.

               There were 7 “nations” in this world, 4 of which were controlled by humans, one was Elven, one was Beastkin, and the final was less of a nation and more of an amalgamation of different races. Elves were very exclusive and did not often leave their lands and mingle, Beastkin came in a variety of different types and sizes; could be found in every corner of the world, humans were… human arrogant and hostile to anything not human, and several other smaller races lived scattered about in the other nations. Of the 4 human nations 2 have openly declared war on anything not human and closed their borders, the other two have remained neutral for the time being. The Coalition of Ecrein, which used to be just a loose collection of towns and villages composed mostly of non-human races (not to be confused with the United Empire of Crown which is a human trading nation made of a bunch of small trading territories all under one queen).  Ecrein retaliated to this declaration of war and in turn declared humans evil and began attacking human nations at every turn leading to a very bloody and drawn out conflict that has been going on for years, with no noticeable headway either direction.

               The being however had very little interest in world politics instead focusing on magic.. after learning how to read this world's languages… all 5 of them, it had no way of knowing what language Sp... Amethyst would know. Inutil was very stingy with what it would and would not tell it, the rule of thumb seemed to be, anything that was considered “public” knowledge was ok, anything more specific about either a person or place however was not. It could ask who was the king of a human nation, but not what that said king's abilities were. Me could however dive very deep into magic because it was taught in every established nation and was easily accessible information.

               While studying soul magic from the elven nation, it absentmindedly practiced bending its fingers, stretching its arms out in spatic movements, and trying to curl them into the hand signs depicted in the writing. Then suddenly Inutil flickered, and a strange chill washed over the being.

               What was that? Me though dismissing the prickly sensation creeping up its back, is something… looking at me?

               “A being is trying to “inspect” X47, Me.” Inutil informed Me as the spell formations it was reading faded back into the timer. 

               “Inspect me? While I am in the void? How?” Me asked, tapping a finger on the screen. 

               “By using the display on Ametyst soul page one could look into the void and spot you.” A familiar female voice spoke in its head, “Given you and Amethyst's soul are currently linked together, her soul page displays your timer on it, linking it to this space.”

               Me scoffed using its hand to cover the timer. “Is it a pervert, peeking into another person's void who does that? Eryl, how do I look back?”

               “You could; in theory, do the same thing it is doing, look into the display and will yourself into it. But be warned this…” Eryls voice trailed off as Me was already rubbing its head on the Inutil screen.

               Will myself into the screen, into… the… screen. Me strained as it pushed its will, and head, into the screen, feeling the screen's enchantments begin to falter under the pressure of its Aether.

“Don't just push Aether into it,” Eryl stated quickly, “infuse it with your Aether and think of what you want it to display.” 

               The being huffed as it pulled back and tried to imagine its Aether running along the enchantments instead of into them, it could feel its power start to coalesce into the mana of the Intuit screen before the window became clear and for the first time Me could see something on the screen other than words.

               It looked like another void, but unlike it’s void this one was different, it was furnished with enormous bookshelves packed with tomes of all shapes and sizes, all surrounding a lavish desk in the center. sitting at the desk was a woman, well what looked like a woman. She was tall and distinctly woman shaped, quite well endowed from it's view from the window. Her whole body was light blue, with green accents swirling around in her from dancing around the contours of her body. 

               oh its a Soul, like sparkle. Me thought as the soul seemed to look up at it from its desk. It doesn't look too different from me really, i wonder if all souls look like that? It's really pretty.

               Me allowed itself to just watch the soul for a second, caught off guard by its graceful movements compared to its own jerky and awkward steps, the soul had no problem lifting its arm and gently tossing the book from the desk causing it to launch up out of sight only for another book to appear on the desk a moment later.

               What's it doing? Me watched as it thumbed through the book all the while looking at it through the window.

               “She is trying to identify you,” Eryl replied. “It appears this soul organizes its knowledge into tomes.”

Its knowledge? So what, that is all of her… well her? Me thought adjusting itself trying to see the top of the bookshelves. “Stop reading my inside thoughts by the way.” Me called out knowing full well Eryl would not comply with the demand.

“Hardly, that would just be its memory archives, and quite an impressive one at that.” Eryl answered, ignoring the spoken statement as she tilted the screen upwards, giving Me a better view of the shelves. “She is looking for a reference for you, if you're going to stop her I would do it soon by the way identification skills are usually instantaneous and dragging it out like this is probably scaring the poor girl.” 

It gave a sharp jerky nod, smashing its head against the screen, causing the display to flash red “HEY, it's rude to peek into someone's soul you know! pervert.” Me yelled before the screen went dark. “How was that?”