# "Legacy of Dust and Stone" (Fantasy/Cyberpunk)



## MadBen (Sep 25, 2011)

Please follow this link to get to the most recent version of chapter 1 and 2!

http://www.writingforums.com/fantas...st-stone-fantasy-cyberpunk-2.html#post1484503

Also, here is a link to the downloadable ebook which I will keep updating as I edit/add chapters. There are no ads or links or anything else in it other than the story itself and it can be opened with any standard reader (I use mobipocket):

http://avadome.com/d/lodas.prc


EDIT HISTORY
#1: No longer dragging out the details about those news (thx to josh.townley)#2: Completely reworked all three chapters into 2 (see link above)
#3: removed old versions because lots of people just read them instead of the new, completely ignoring my really large hint on top_

-- old version removed, please see link on top for new version --
_


----------



## josh.townley (Sep 25, 2011)

It's an intriguing start. I found the style of writing to be quite interesting and it certainly made me want to find out more. My only criticism, though, is that I think you might be leaving out too much and trying to be a bit too mysterious. For example '*T*ara could hardly believe her eyes when she watched the news that morning'. That's a good way to catch the reader's interest, but if you don't actually tell us what the news is before too long, it gets annoying. It felt like there was too much being withheld so I didn't really have a clear picture of what was going on.


----------



## MadBen (Sep 26, 2011)

josh.townley said:


> It's an intriguing start. I found the style of writing to be quite interesting and it certainly made me want to find out more. My only criticism, though, is that I think you might be leaving out too much and trying to be a bit too mysterious. For example '*T*ara could hardly believe her eyes when she watched the news that morning'. That's a good way to catch the reader's interest, but if you don't actually tell us what the news is before too long, it gets annoying. It felt like there was too much being withheld so I didn't really have a clear picture of what was going on.



Thanks for reading and commenting 
Good point on that section, I shall change it immediately ^^


----------



## Iggy (Sep 29, 2011)

So far I really like what you have.  The start is interesting and makes me curious for more.  You've done a good job establishing an environment and a certain feel to the story without having to force it.  I honestly can't find much to critique at this point (I wish i could help more >.<) but am looking forward to seeing what's next.


----------



## MadBen (Oct 10, 2011)

Iggy said:


> So far I really like what you have.  The start is interesting and makes me curious for more.  You've done a good job establishing an environment and a certain feel to the story without having to force it.  I honestly can't find much to critique at this point (I wish i could help more >.<) but am looking forward to seeing what's next.



Thanks, Iggy, I'm glad you liked it. I hope you will enjoy the next chapter as well.
Now to go and post that second chapter...


----------



## MadBen (Oct 10, 2011)

_-- old version removed, please see link on top for new version --_


----------



## Nevermore (Oct 10, 2011)

I love how well write it is, and the style of writing really draws you in.  Character design is quite nice, and the idea behind your story is very creative.  Keep on writing!


----------



## MadBen (Oct 29, 2011)

Nevermore said:


> I love how well write it is, and the style of writing really draws you in.  Character design is quite nice, and the idea behind your story is very creative.  Keep on writing!



Thanks once more, I hope the next chapter will be to your liking as well :fox:


----------



## MadBen (Oct 29, 2011)

_-- old version removed, please see link on top for new version --_


----------



## Deyo (Oct 29, 2011)

Fascinating Story.  I really enjoy the complexity and the detail you are putting behind your story.  After reading the first chapter I had initial trouble understanding what was happening.  Maybe it was a lack of detail, but I think it's because a lot of the terms go unexplained, like Meta for example.  The following chapters where much better after an explanation was delivered, and that's when I became enthralled by the story.  Clever, interesting, and unique. You're getting me to like some of your characters already, like Elza, truly awesome.  Very interesting dialogue,  Keep it up, will definitely read more.


----------



## Nevermore (Oct 29, 2011)

Again, I love the scene set up for the latest chapter, how you show the characters and world.  I'm intrigued as to how you plan to continue from here.


----------



## Tiamat (Oct 29, 2011)

Hi there MadBen,

The idea behind this intrigues me.  I love dystopian fiction.  It's one of my favorite things to read.  Here's my biggest complaint though:  I don't know what's going on, and it's not the kind of confusion that makes me want to find out--it's the kind that makes me want to walk away.

What kind of confuses me here is that you start out with an intriguing hook.  I don't fully understand it, but it makes me want to keep reading.  Cool.  Then you introduce a couple different scenarios, and other than Tara's POV, I'm not sure how the rest fit in.  Then (and this is one of my biggest pet peeves) you have long, detailed info dumps.  The info dumping is bad enough (because you're telling, not showing, and when you do that, you actually push your reader out of the story), but I would think, given the fact that you tell us a whole lot about what's going on, that I would know what's going on.  I don't.  (Bear in mind, I didn't read the third part.  Maybe that explains it all, I don't know, but it's another info dump.)

Other than that, here's a couple technical things I found...



> Raril considered finding one of the Primaries and request an explanation,


Requesting



> “Most likely, yea.”


Yeah.  (And you do that again a paragraph or two later.)



> The wind was blowing gently from the east, slowly caressing Tara’s face.
> 
> “So you came,” she whispered without turning.
> 
> ...


A thought on adverbs here.  You use a lot of them.  My question is how many of them do you really need?  Why have the wind 'gently blowing' when it could be 'fluttering'?  Fluttering creates a much better picture, since adverbs are a form of telling, not showing.

Or, 'slowly caressing,' for example, is a case of redundancy.  Have you ever caressed someone quickly?  Not so much, since a quick caress tends to equate to a rub or a brush.

'Murmuring softly' is also redundant.  I challenge you to give me an example of loud murmuring done by a single person.

And throughout your prose, I don't see a single simile or metaphor.  These should be used sparingly as well, but a good, solid metaphor is worth a thousand adverbs.  Plus it gives you a chance to show off your creative writing skills (but that's why you shouldn't do it too often).

Last but not least, since you're writing dystopian fiction, I simply have to recommend an excellent book in this genre, which balances a lot of the things you're struggling with in this (i.e., showing not telling, while still revealing your backstory and establishing the setting, smooth, concise prose, similes and metaphor, and solid description).  It's called _Oryx and Crake_ by Margaret Atwood.

And just so you know, I'm being a harsh critique not because I think this story is a failure, but because I think it has the potential to be a lot better.  I like the idea, just not the execution.  Keep writing.


----------



## Higurro (Oct 31, 2011)

I wasn't sure at first, but having read the subsequent sections I have to admit that I'm fascinated. One thing I look out for when weighing up a story or film plot is whether the world created is consistent with itself; does it amount to a complete and convincing creation? I think this certainly does. The level of detail and the complexity of the social/historical mechanics you've built in are wonderful to explore. 

I should also add that I personally felt that the narrated sections, where you fill in on the history and run up to your present setting, were not a problem at all. I know it's down to individual taste, but I thought they were a neat, effective and well written way of saying a lot in a short space. I think it worked due to your setting; I can imagine them being narration from a news story or a textbook, and as it's right at the start of the book, that's fine by me. 

If I have one criticism it's that the writing occasionally (though mostly in the first section) becomes a little hard to follow and jumps around, but that's something that a fairly basic reworking would sort out. I'm intrigued to find out what happens next and have no trouble imagining this world appearing in print at some point.


----------



## MadBen (Nov 1, 2011)

Thanks to all of you for your feedback, especially Tiamat10. I am glad that the idea itself seems to be sound and working as intended. I will have to work on a more continuous flow for sure, considering that pretty much everybody was concerned with "jumping back and forth" and I will try to get my hands on that book you mentioned, Tiamat. Now I am considering to actually "go back in time" and create a decent prolog instead of throwing out pieces of narration every chapter or two. There is nothing more fun than trying to raise one's level with the help of good (and thereby somewhat brutal) criticism


----------



## Red-James (Nov 3, 2011)

very interesting, the style is perfect for what story you have going here. The charaters are beliveable and interesting. I only read the first part so far but i shall read the other 2 parts you have later for sure. Kepp it up.


----------



## MadBen (Nov 20, 2011)

Following the advice of the many kind reviewers that took some of their precious time to read through my (still rather raw) piece of story writing, I am now completely reformatting the story, getting rid of the large blocks of narration without character interaction. I hope there is enough explanation and that I will manage to include all the important bits of history (and prehistory for that matter) where they are needed.

Once again, here are the (somewhat altered) chapters 1+2. I gave up on the formatting carrying over perfectly, because it just takes too much time. Hopefully somebody "up there" (an admin) will finally fix this or activate simple HTML ^^;;;


*- I. -*
*Void - The Beginning of Time*
*I*n the beginning, there was darkness. Then the first word was spoken and became light, The First Mei. All words that followed were but shadows in the radiance of The First and never again was It heard in this world. For if The First would be spoken again, all creation would seize and start anew.
To this day, there are those who fear It and those who revere It. And then there are those who would speed its coming. But The First Mei is only ever spoken once, for when It is spoken, it is always the first time.
Our tale begins with a new cycle which is one after innumerable cycles before it. Nobody could count them and nobody will, but we will call it the first cycle.
* * *
*Mesopotamia - Deep Prehistory*
*H*e seemed such a small creature seen from above. His high build, broad shoulders and luxurious robes did very little to make him overly noticeable while standing on a building of such magnitude. Raril could hardly suppress a snort of derision as he circled ever closer, ready to land when commanded.
How such a pathetic beast could have the strength to bind him into service, even if it was just temporarily, he simply could not understand. Once the spell was released, he would surely make short work of the flesh dweller. If he could even be bothered.
Raril himself knew that he was pure, or at least the next best thing. His entire being was Mei, shaped by a Primary of The First. His had been an easterly wind that pulled at the very skies themselves as they made their rotation.
His time had come and gone and he had slept a short thousand years to awaken to this mayhem. Men had hacked away entire mountains and erected this mountain of their own, made of cold and lifeless stone and iron, held together by enslaved Mei.
The other fleshlings kept on their mindless droning chants while tirelessly pushing rocks up the steep ramps that encircled the artificial mountain. They had given much of their own makeup to the stone itself and with every word they were becoming less and their strange construction became something more than just a thing.
There was a sinister quality to it, that much was for sure. Raril considered finding one of the Primaries and request an explanation, but he was still bound to serve as a scout for that accursed man thing. Still, he could feel one of the Primaries very close-by and there was anticipation. Strange, hollow and somehow.. hungry. He would make his core right here. The claim was clear and forceful.
Raril looked once again upon the man thing that currently held his Mei. Proud and arrogant, standing atop a thing of such grandeur, the very pose of a victor. All of his Mei burnt brightly like a great fire. Like coal in a furnace it was consumed just like the Mei of the multitude that labored below.
An easterly wind is no gentle companion and nothing to trifle with. On this day, however, all thoughts of vengeance were suddenly forgotten. For the first time in his long existence, Raril experienced pity. He longed to extinguish the tainted life that now held his own. And he would call it mercy.
* * *
*New London - 17th of March 2191*
*T*ara could hardly believe her eyes when she watched the news that morning. This time they had truly done it, real sunlight. The whole district was in an uproar and the global Meta network was flooded with little else than that piece of news.
Hardly a minute passed without one of her friends asking if she "had heard it" or what she "thought about it". After a while she had given it a little more thought and currently had three people in vigorous discussions with three very convincing daemon projections of herself.
She rubbed her temples as she felt the oncoming headache.
"It's good training.. training..", she mumbled to herself and continued plodding along the canal boulevard, her favorite place within easy range of her apartment.
They had really done it, she could even see a bit of it from here. The skies had been murky and gray for a century and now they had been breached. Surprisingly, she didn't feel the elation she would have expected for the occasion.
It would be many years before the shroud could be removed in its entirety. After all, humankind had had far more than a century to build it and see it grow out of control. They had given an estimate of about eighty years. Then, they assured the Meta news service nodes, permanent sunlight would be available for all major provinces.
They probably had chosen this day very carefully, after all it was Ascension Day. More precicely, it was the 50th anniversary of that fateful day. Everybody learned about it at school, the expedition into the Caves of Deliverance and how the entire world had changed in a matter of three short years.
In 2138 a team of scientists around a brilliant geophysicist named Ivan Radinov discovered large caverns deep beneath the Middle Sea. But instead of finding living space for their wretched band of refugees, they unearthed something far more significant.
The walls of the caverns were laced with a strange mineral compound that created magnetic anomalies similar to ball lightning in the air above the lakes that filled the lower half of the caves. But instead of dispersing within seconds, the anomalies seemed to be stable and even subject to growth and change over extended periods of time. While his colleagues were just fascinated, Radinov understood the true significance of the phenomenon.
The 17th of March 2141 can be called the day mankind once again rose out of the depths of barbarism and despair into a new age of development and progress. This was the day when the first cold fusion plant with a production capacity of over a hundred Gigawatts lit up the skies above a new city.
New London was only a nucleus of a city at that time and covered barely half a square mile of artificial ground. Having been built in the Middle Sea, it was safe from the feared scavenger hordes that plagued the shores of North Africa as well as the harsh climate of Europe.
Cold fusion was not the only discovery Radinov had made in that cave. Everyone who had known him before was quite sure, the man that entered the caverns and the one that left were not quite the same person. After he had brought light and energy back to the world, like a new Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, he suddenly disappeared, leaving behind obscure writings that would probably take mankind another century to decipher.
Radinov had also been the one to begin preparations for what the news feeds now theatrically called the "Dawn of Ages", sunlight for a world in darkness.
Tara had trouble thinking ahead more than a decade or two. She wasn't a very diligent person when it came to saving money. At this rate she would never have enough to keep up rejuvenation treatments. Maybe she would see a full day of light when she was old and withered. Sitting on a hill with the sun rising, then watching it move in the sky all day and settle behind the cityscape in the far west. Then dying as the last ray faded into a pure black night.
That didn't sound so bad. She could save that memory and upload it to the Meta before her last synapses would shut down. Or maybe she could embed it in a PET, a permanent projection of her mental self, if she trained really hard. Well, so far she could only do daemons. Nothing as lasting as a true PET.
A cool wind was blowing gently from the east, caressing Tara's neck. Now wasn't the time for thinking about death. He had come just as he had promised.
"So you came," she whispered without turning.
A light chuckle seemed to animate the wind which swirled to form the image of something vaguely humanoid.
"Our promises are binding as is your foolishness it seems."
"I wish to learn more," she murmured.
"You humans always want to learn more. How pitiful that you do not simply know the world for what it is as we do. Maybe then you would have more respect for it."
"I'm willing to trade."
"Don't start again. I told you before that I am not like one of those. I do as I please and I won't soil myself with your pitiful life force. But there is one thing you can do, as usual."
"That song again?"
"Yes. The first one I taught you. I will have you sing it for me once more. How long do you think you can keep it up?"
"I got better. Maybe half an hour. I'm still having trouble with the fifth score though since I can only create three stable daemons of myself."
"It has to do for now. Summon your voices and begin."
The song felt like running water on slick stones, flowing from puddles into streams and from streams into oceans. Whispering and roaring at the same time. She could see its vivid blue color and smell the freshness of leaves in the wind.
It was a living song, rich and free, without constraints of any kind. A song as vivid as it was unchanging and in its center glowed a single vibrant shape. Tara knew this to be Raril's Mei. This was the song of his life, the melody of his task that was also his entire existence.
She knew that by the time she stopped singing, the shape would slip from her mind without trace once more. It was impossible to grasp or even remember, because he would not be tamed or shackled so easily.
Raril was always at his most human-like after the song. He seemed lost in reverie for several minutes, before sighing and turning towards the girl:
"It's good to hear it, even if you cannot sing it perfectly, human. I hope I will hear The First sing my song again one day. I would give everything for that, even my entire existence. But you wouldn't understand and you are impatient for your reward. You humans are nothing if not impatient."
Tara smiled and watched the sky, imagining the sun setting in the west:
"I changed my mind. No need for rewards today. Let's just enjoy the evening breeze."
"Trying to surprise me, aren't you. No matter. Actually, there is a Mei I would quite like to teach you tonight. It is one of the seven-and-one that govern light."
A sudden glare forced Tara to close her eyes, before she blinked them carefully in surprise. The crimson disc of the setting sun was just about visible in the far west. Raril's soft chuckle brushed her neck as he explained with considerable amusement:
"It's not really good for anything. Also, you can only use it during the last hour of daylight and you are the only one who can see the sun. Still, I somehow feel like it is just the thing you wanted."
Tara stared as the last rays of light vanished behind the horizon. The soft red glow remained, burned into her eyes for at least another few minutes. She didn't even notice the tears that were running down her cheeks and falling in large drops on her shoes.
"I'll work on that fifth score," she whispered.


*- II. -*
*Lower New London - 17th of March 2191*
*I*n a more shady part of town, two men stood hunched over the body of a girl. Well, technically a girl if you looked at it from a biological point of view.
"He got roughed up real bad", the detective mumbled with a tone that almost sounded like appreciation of fine craftsmanship. Only his closest friends and colleagues knew it as the expression of sardonic humor it really was.
Also, this was the main reason he had never made it very far up the career ladder of the police force. Instead he had stagnated somewhere near the upper crust of the common footmen, having the rank of Detective Sergeant.
"He.. she.. oh well. He definitely complained with lots of artful insults when he got back to his main body. I really don't know why they allow rich freaks the use of remote-controlled clone bodies for crap like that." His partner, a young man in his late fourties, still had a weak stomach when it came to cases like these. Especially when he thought about the paperwork that would follow.
"Wearing a tankjob as fine as this and walking down Tickler Alley is an invitation if you ask me. Man must be a masochist or had his brain spliced all to hell most likely."
"Most likely, yeah."
"I wonder what he will say when we tell him the body is still alive."
"And pregnant too."
This voice belonged to a female officer who had been evaluating snapshots of the crime site from her office.
"Elza, don't just hack into our Meta location like that. I've told you.. what.. ten million times?"
"One thousand seven hundred and fourty-four times, Kelly. Oh yeah, it's Kell, isn't it? You don't seem to like your real name, even though it's just so cute. The sample is growing inside that body as we speak. Really disgusting the way he roughed that fine shell up. Maybe I'll scrape it out and use it as a spare. Or you could have it if you catch more bullets than.."
Kell gave a thankful nod to his partner as the connection was forcefully severed:
"I owe you a cold one, Jim. Never shuts up, that one. And the way she shifts from one sick joke to the next.."
"You just love it", came the drily amused reply.
"No icebreaker for you after all. Feh.. let's finish this picnic and catch the ride home."
"You make me sick."
"yeah, yeah, let's go. Elza probably can't wait to analyze that thing inside and I don't want anything more to do with it."
"I don't even want to think about it."
"Paperwork is on you, buddy."
Their conversation continued as their outlines began to take on a soft blue-white hue, then blurred and vanished. Being simple policemen, they had to take the cheap route through the Meta. Sucks every time you get out and notice an advert has been stuck in your head on the way through an unsecured data stream. However, these two would arrive with a little less than before.
A strange creature that looked like a cross between a giant fly and an octopus disentangled itself from the Meta control node they had just used. It felt entirely pleased with its handiwork. The master would also be pleased. 
Glowing briefly, the PET homed in on its master's location and activated a Meta jump, which would transfer all of its existence into energy and back to matter at the destination. It liked taking the paths through the deep layers, where you had to fight off hijackers at every turn. Also, its target was down there among the dust of ages.
The two policemen were none the wiser when they rematerialized at headquarters. They hadn't felt any particular urge to further investigate the case in the first place. Now, they felt positively thrilled about the prospect of having at least a few hours of Ascension Day which, after all, was supposed to be a holiday.
Kell wiggled a finger in his left earhole as if that would help him dislodge the commercial for self-heating underwear from his troubled brain. His colleague Jim eyed him with a mixture of pity and mirth. He hadn't been left unscathed by the cheap Meta transfer as well, but at least his spam had underclothed pretty women in it rather than old men complaining about the modern day cousin to arthritis.
"Here we are, wasting our precious day off with cleaning up some rich bugger's mess, and all we get for it is a salary that won't even keep a man alive for a few more decades", Kell complained.
Jim nodded dutifully, neither encouraging nor ignoring his partner when that mood took him as it usually did after a long day of bloody work. His family was actually rather rich. Enough so that he could probably live several hundred years.
The choice of becomming a policeman had caused quite an outrage among his relatives, foremost his parents and older sister, who had groomed him for a career as a technical advisor for the High Council, just like his father. He had excelled in all the necessary subjects at school and successfully took the final exam at the age of fifteen.
He had taken the attainment test without telling anybody and signed the contract for a 10 year term of service directly after being declared to be "of age". Those had been different times when New London was still growing rapidly and the people flooding in from North Africa were a mixture of pioneers, criminals and cannibals. Often all three of those combined.
These days, the horrors of the past were reduced to stories used to frighten children and to liven up a pub at night. Crime had been brutal and straight-forward. Now it was a lot more twisted and tended to involve hushing up anything that might bother the proverbial upper crust of the city. All for the sake of "public peace and order".
One of the reasons Jim Borne and Troy Kelly were such a good team was their shared interest in what they called "bending the rules". This usually meant leaking seemingly random pieces of information to the more radical Meta News Publishers.
They would have been caught a long time ago had it not been for a certain computer genius who kept the internal department off their trail. Elza Chen was "a damn nuissance", as they would both agree on quite readily, but cracking into any kind of system came as easily to her as breathing.
She also didn't know the meaning of a "day off". When she wasn't busy with work, she always had one or more of her little so-called "projects" going. Or maybe it was the other way round. No matter, she always got the job done and that was all that mattered to the department chief. 
Whistling a tune while her hands were busy on the inside of a corpse, Elza always felt the most comfortable. Sometimes she wondered if, had she not become one of the most renowned pathologists, she might have had to become a very active serial killer.
She finished transferring the embryo from the victim into the observation sphere and started removing the compromised parts of the host body. This one would become her favorite for sure. She had already ordered replacement organs with her own specifications.
Being a police force CSI technician didn't really pay enough to be able to afford regular rejuvenation, so she had to take what she could get. Clone bodies were only authorized to people with severe physical disabilities, but this was a nice loophole.
When somebody decided to throw away a perfectly fine clone, there was no law preventing her from taking it for herself. She had already begun imprinting the brain with her general personality, childhood memories and other important details.
After getting the new parts, all that was left to do was a complete neural download and implanting relay nodules that would link up with her consciousness. Then she could put her main body in limited stasis and use this one instead.
Aging of her real self would be limited to less than 4% and, in a way, she would be even more immortal than those rich bags with their rejuv treatments. After all, if she got killed, even if her entire body was turned to ashes, she would just wake up from the stasis capsule with a little bit of trauma. Nothing too bad.
As she cleaned and disinfected herself, she took one last look at her handiwork. None of her colleagues ever ventured down here into her ghoul's lair. Probably even Jack the Ripper himself would break out into tears at the sight, though whether in horror or out of joy she could not tell.
"Can't close her up 'til I get those organs...", she mumbled as she locked the lab and made her way upstairs to her regular office. The chief would be quite surprised. Whoever or whatever had raped that female body had definitely not been human.
In a few more days the incubator would give her a good idea of what they were actually dealing with, but judging from the DNA scans it had to be pretty monstrous. Just the right thing for her then. She could almost picture it emerging from that artificial womb and calling her mommy.


----------



## MadBen (Nov 21, 2011)

_The following is an addition to chapter 2 that ends the chapter. The ebook-reader file (PRC; see first post of this thread for the link) has also been updated!_

She locked the lab and armed the security system. On her way to the lift tube she pondered how to spend the rest of her evening. By the time the lift had deposited her on the small deserted parking deck, she had decided to do a bit of adventuring in Elsewyrd, one of her favorite Meta games. She loved the fantasy setting. Her character was, of course, a necromancer.

The skylanes were almost empty these days. More or less everybody used Meta transfer instead, which was practically free and instantaneous. Elza didn't like it though. The thought of all her thoughts and secrets being transmitted through a data stream seemed far too risky. Who could tell what might be read or tempered with along the way.

The small red metal disc was in her mouth almost before she noticed it herself. She geared up as her vision cleared beyond normal human capacity. The shakes would be bad in a few hours, but she could just take some sleepers then and to hell with tomorrow. The freezer was full of replacement bodies anyway so she could blow this one without worrying too much.

Her apartment was a small cubicle less than 3 meters across, but stacked with the latest tech and a Meta connection you could use to teleport a mommoth. The chair in the middle was workbench, entertainment center, bed, kitchen and even bathroom. She used its hygiene-related functions only while her mind was in Metaspace and didn't care to know the details.

As she relaxed into it, the Meta engaged and she found herself standing on a green meadow. "Pynk Wroth has entered The Northern Grasslands", a voice stream muttered somewhere in the back of her mind. Sometimes she really regretted the choice of name. For once, it made it totally impossible to play together with colleagues. If anybody ever found out she used an alias like that, she would have to kill them. She was serious, too.

There was lots of junk but one message in the inbox caught her eye:
"Found your dog. Meet me at the usual place."

The code was simple, she had been looking for information on in-game daemon deployment and someone had offered to do even better than that. Getting your very own daemon was a tremendous and rare honor, so there were lots of people who tried to get one in more shady ways.

The meeting was set two hours from now and she set a timer to remind herself, while taking a short trip into a nearby dungeon. The only thing that had puzzled her was the last line of the message: "Don't worry about delivery, we made sure that you are properly tuned."

A small indicator on the wall slowly changed from green to yellow, then it turned red and began to flash. The warning was only low priority, because Elza had an unlimited bandwidth plan. Then it returned to green as if nothing had happened.

Enzymes split proteins, chemical payload penetrated into the bloodstream and information reached the brain. A drug could do so much more than heighten senses. It could also unlock doors you never knew you had. When the upload from the Meta started, no firewall engaged, no safeguards were triggered. The package had been accepted and delivered into Elza's mind.


----------



## MadBen (Nov 22, 2011)

_The first section of chapter 3 is done - the plot is beginning to move faster now. I have also updated the ebook-file (lodas.prc)._


*III.*
_New London, Central District_

"Tara Caine to the central auditor's office, please. I repeat, Tara Caine..."

Tara sighed and got up from her cubicle desk. Underpaid, she was also working for a company that was seriously understaffed and, quite frankly, underdeveloped. Which other firm would force its employees to actually come to work rather than work from home?

Still, the money was alright. Not having passed her final attainment test at school, there weren't any companies that would employ her as a Meta technician rather than as a multiple personality answering machine. She only used two daemons while at work though. If her boss ever found out she could actually bring out three, she would be in a lot of trouble and would have a lot more headaches.

Had somebody snitched on her then? She doubted it, but it was always a possibility. Plodding along the stainless white corridor, she decided to quit if they actually wanted to force her use all three daemons for the job. She sniffed. Somebody had definitely gone overboard with the desinfection fluid today, the smell was aweful.

She had just rounded a corner, when the world went mad. The shockwave blasted her forward in what seemed like slow motion. She watched in muted astonishment as a multitude of pencils and other office supply items came flying by, followed by a chair that would have laminated her to the wall had she been just a little slower.

Every part of her meticulously spread-out self seemed to note other aspects, recording and filing them away for later use when the inevitable shock would subside. But she had more important things to do. She needed to roll or her head would crack open like a ripe melon. When the impact came, she had barely bent her neck and raised a protective arm. Blackness took her and swept away all conscious thought.

* * *

_to be continued
_
*P.S.: Please comment and let me know if you liked it and if you found rough spots that need editing. Thanks a lot! ^^*


----------



## MadBen (Nov 27, 2011)

_Here is the rough first version (proofread only once) of the rest of this version of chapter 3__. I am a little sad that nobody felt like commenting, but I will at least post this before giving up on the thread. Who knows? Maybe there will be interest in the future and I will resume posting my progress here then. So please, *if you want more let me know*. Otherwise I will just keep it to myself _;-)

Elza found herself staring at the blue-green sky as her brain began to unfreeze by increments. Then her legs gave out and she fell forward, barely catching herself before hitting the ground. All the while He was watching her. She wasn't quite sure what formed the capital letter in her mind, but it seemed undeniable. The wolf had a look of amusement on his face or, as she contemplated this, probably his muzzle.

She knew too much about the game and about the tech behind it to have any doubts about what had just happened. Some sick bastard had mind-raped her and installed this thing deep in her consciousness. But how? How did they bypass her safeguards that were not simply top notch but outright paranoid?

"I'm not a thing", the creature growled with a dismissive shake of its shaggy head, its gray-brown fur rippling like water, "You already had a part of you that was much like me. I simply gave it a voice and...", here he bared his long white fangs, "...teeth, lots of them. So don't try anything funny and we will get along like a house on fire."

She abandoned the thought of having her mind purged of him very quickly. Not because of his threat, though. She simply knew that her neural pathways were too full of secrets and contraband software to let any of those Agency lackeys take a poke at. However, There was no way in hell, that she would become his bitch.

She wasn't foolish enough to try a physical attack. This wasn't even the real world and in the game he could hurt her, if he meant business. Her strike took him entirely by surprise and his voice rose from a surprised snarl to a yip as her mind closed on the parts that had definitely not come from her own subconscious.

Yowling pitifully he rolled on his back so quickly, he almost hit his head against a nearby rock. Elza released her mental grip on what could only be called his family jewels, even though it seemed rediculous to her that the programmer had included such unnecessary details.

"If you behave I might not have to Cut you Loose", she murmured threateningly and he flattened his ears.

Now it was definitely her time to use capital letters that could not be misunderstood. Next she had to make whoever saddled her with this furry parasite regret the very day they were born. She growled and the wolf thing cowered even further.

"Will you stop sniveling already", she bellowed and the mountains seemed to throw back a tremendous echo.

Then she sighed, sat down next to him and started thinking. First off, she had to make sure there was no malicious code running in the back of her head. Closing her eyes, she pictured a perfect cube and capped each of its corners with a three-sided pyramid.

Slowly the eight pyramids seemed to extend outward from the very center of her being with the cube increasing in size whenever all of them has moved sufficiently. When the structure had grown to the size of her head without changing color, she released it and breathed out with relief. Everything seemed to be in order.

Next, she had to isolate the wolf daemon from the rest of her mind so it could not glean information or meddle with her thoughts. It helped that he had become more docile, because from his twitches and whines she could guess that he didn't like the procedure very much.

Finally, knowing that she now had nearly complete control over the creature, she had to give it a name. It's not like you get a pet like this every day, she thought, her anger already subsiding. Still, she would make them suffer nonetheless, simply for good measure. She had to protect her reputation as a necromancer, after all.

Shrugging out of her line of thoughts, she found herself actually patting him on the head and withdrew her hand quickly.

"Time", she called out and the game presented her with an overlay of numbers in front of the landscape. "You are late, so come out right now", she intoned while avoiding to look behind herself.

"No, I think I am right on time. How did you know I was there?"

She stiffenend, then grunted and slowly turned around towards the female voice speaking to close to her neck. There was no way she would tell her it had been a wild guess. She had always wanted to try it and succeed at least once. Before she could loose a torrent of abuse, the other girl grinned and fixed her with a strange look:

"You two seem to have hit it off quite fast", she said looking at Elza's hand that had unwittingly started to pet the Wolf again.

Elza snorted and the creature next to her sniffed, both of them looking like strangely mirrored versions of each other.

"Well, I sure am glad you aren't taking our little.. interference too hard. It was a necessary precaution to ensure that you have not been bugged. His name is Alex by the way. He might look like a shaggy animal, but his forte is covert mainframe intrusion and information extraction. While you were asleep, he gave us a veritable encyclopedia of your various exploits in the realms of the illegal and downright reprehensible."

Elza gave her furry appendix a cold look and his gaze seemed sheepish before he turned away.

"Of course", the girl continued, "now that you have fully integrated him, he will have to serve you. After all he is now inhabiting part of your mind and is sustained by your very consciousness. Just think of this as meeting new friends that gave you a valuable present."

Her grin wasn't exactly malicious, but Elza could see the edge in it. She matched the girl's smile, showing teeth:

"Oh, don't worry about it", she said with exaggerated cheerfulness before locking eyes with the wolf: "Alex. Bite her."

Before she could protest, Elza's new pet had sunk his teeth into the the left leg of the girl's avatar. Cursing, she tried to dislodge him, which left her hopping around rediculously, until Elza ended the farce by hitting her over the head with her necromancer's staff. Carrying the unconscious body over her shoulder, she hissed:

"I know you are watching with your real body. What do you think would happen if I carried your avatar to the nearest town, stripped it down and tied it to the signpost near the quest board? I have fast boots, so you better start talking and don't even ask. You know what I want to know and you have access to my private channel now."

The female avatar in her arms suddenly began to vibrate, then it vanished in what the game depicted as a puff of steam. The landscape around her began to shimmer and twist and she saw the forced teleport coming seconds ahead. Whoever the girl really was, either she had succeeded to hack Elsewyrd on a fundamental level or she was an admin. Elza knew that, no matter how she looked at the problem, she was screwed.

In the cubicle room, the data connection gauge climed rapidly once more. Sensors that were meant for medical monitoring were recalibrated, and matter converters that would normally deal with bodily waste had to be completely rebuilt on the fly. Still, the whole process took less than a few minutes, before Elza's little home had been transformed into a somewhat unwholesome-looking one-shot teleporter.

Wires were twitching with pulses of energy they were never designed for and the occasional spark flew out of a tormented safety curcuit. It started with a deep thrumming that steadily climbed in pitch until the whole contraption screamed. Then, as the last scrap of matter that had formed the human being in its center melted away and was absorbed into the ether, it went critical.

Elza awoke with a convulsion of pain. The rough cot underneath her did very little to soothe the burning agony that suffused every nerve and seemed to run to the very tip of her hairs. The only illumination around her came from an old arc lamp that burned its twitching line of light into her eyes.

She cursed softly when she noticed the four figures arrayed next to it. When one of them stepped forward and smiled, Elza recognized her at once.

"Welcome to hell. Please make yourself at home, because you are now officially dead."


----------



## marrow (Nov 27, 2011)

Awesome story, i really like the originality of it. I especially like how how you start the chapter with a good hook and you end it with a cliff hanger that leaves me wanting more. good job you are a talented writer. I would actually like to hear your opinion on my story if you ever have time- kingslayer- Kepp up the good work and def post more i need to know what happens next.


----------



## MadBen (Dec 1, 2011)

Thanks, marrow - I will go take a look :smile2:


----------



## MadBen (Dec 1, 2011)

_Here is the 4th chapter - my pen is still cooling ;-) I only read through it once, so there might be lots of little mistakes. I hope you enjoy it though, as the story is gaining quite a bit of momentum now. *Please comment, thanks! Criticism is even more welcome!* ^^_


*IV. Quickening*
​ _Central District: Calico Bombing Site_
​Jim Borne flashed his photoactive ID once more as he crossed the last of the three cordons around what had been several office buildings. Now little more remained than burned-out ruins and a pervading stink of burned plastics with luckily only a hint of charred bacon. Still, he would probably have to change his breakfast habits for a while.

As he reached the edge of the blast radius he felt rather than saw the eyes of the CSI team. It was the all-time-classic "Get off our turf", which had not needed language ever since the first cluster of bacteria had decided to get territorial and bumped off the neighbors. He ignored them. A great part of police work required ignoring people who could only cause you trouble if you paid attention to them.

He really wished his partner had come as well. It was so much easier if one of them kept the ghouls busy, while the other looked for anything that might give them a general idea of where to start with their investigation. But then he was usually the one taking all the abuse so it wasn't so bad after all. Maybe he could actually find something, before the Agency took over and all bits of evidence would vanish like pre-election promises on a hot summer's night.

One did not have to be much of an expert to see what had happened here. That was probably why they tried to keep civilians at such a distance. In some places, small explosions had taken place. The fire that swept through the entire complex afterward must have had a completely separate source. Its epicenter of molten concrete was more than 50 meters away from the nearest detonation.

So who would have the resources and access level to plant bombs not only underneath the Calico office building, but equidistantly throughout the complex? The list of suspect wasn't very long. In fact, he could only think of two organizations powerful enough: the Agency itself or the Exodus freaks with their space station in high orbit.

Calico Corp was actually largely owned by Exodus, so it was unlikely they would destroy their own equipment. On the other hand, the Agency was New London's very own intelligence service. Unless a third, as yet unknown party, was involved in the matter, things were turning bad very quickly.

Having satisfied his curiosity, he decided to leave before somebody decided to have him killed. Kell would want to know as well. If he wasn't too busy turning the whole of New London upside down to find out what had happened to Elza.

"Damn it", he mumbled, "He would never admit it, but he loves that crazy girl."

* * *
​The stars seemed strange tonight, Tara thought. They were bright, but seemed to flicker. There was also only two of them on the ceiling above. The meadow she was lying on seemed strangely smooth, as if the stalks of grass didn't even touch her arms and back.

Then her world turned cold. A blast of icy wind assaulted her face and she screamed. The next moment her mouth was full of air as thick as water and her cry was cut off before it had time to gain volume. Tendrils of it pushed up her sinuses and down her throat.

When she was sure that she would die from suffocation, the assault subsided and she blinked with tears in her eyes. Raril was sitting next to her in almost-human form. There was a white sheet underneath him, just like the walls and the ceiling were white. Something in Tara's mind still insisted on being on an open field under a starry sky, but the spell was broken.

"Thanks", she murmured, "But couldn't you have simply pushed away the illusion rather than dousing me in a blizzard?"

He just looked at her with amusement. Yes, she knew. He never touched the minds of humans except to teach them things they wanted to know, things they should know. And even then he did so with the utmost caution. According to him, it was a matter of pride. Too many of his former brethren had become parasites and he loathed the idea of joining their ranks.

"Where am I?", Tara finally asked as the silence continued for a minute longer, "Some kind of hospital?"

"A place that smells of despair", he answered with disgust, "The very air is stagnant with it. There is death as well, but I think they keep it in the rooms further down."

She resisted asking him what he meant by that and focused on the immediate future:

"You wouldn't be here unless I was in mortal danger. So how do I get out?"

He smiled:

"Maybe you are learning from me after all. A few months ago you would have wanted to know everything about this place first and by the time you started moving, your body would have already been ended. Well, follow me."

He stood and walked, or rather levitated, to the door and walked through it. The metal it consisted of cracked and groaned, then it crumbled to ice-rimmed shards. Tara got to her feet with some difficulty and almost cut her bare feet when she stepped through into the corridor beyond.

He was already halfway towards the door at the far end and the icy corpses of a nurse and a security guard lay slumped against the walls. It was the first time that she had seen Raril actually kill somebody, but she knew that he hadn't taken their life force. It was almost a waste, but he had his principles.

Her progress through the facility felt like it was happening to someone else. She barely remembered taking the shoes off a nurse and grabbing a bunch of random clothes from a hospital bed they passed. A fallen guard donated a device that looked like a cross between a flashlight and a cattle prod and she made liberal use of it. Raril approved as he had to do less killing now. They would wake up a few hours later with only a bit of pain.

She remembered asking him about his feelings when ending lives, something he had always disapproved of so fervently. His answer had made her shiver:

"Most of their Mei has already been eaten and what is left is so tainted, it needs to be purged. I'm not eager to do it, but I would feel more regret killing flies."

The rest of their flight was spent in silence, lights and voices flashing by without leaving lasting impressions in Tara's mind. When she finally threw open the last door and bright daylight streamed through, she was winded and bewildered, but felt more alive than ever before.

Raril had disappeared. She hadn't expected anything else. He had done his part, now it was up to her. He didn't believe in meddling any more than necessary. She found herself in a deserted side street, having left what looked like a run-down lower district apartement. There were no guards and no cameras that she could see, even though she was pretty sure there had to be some.

When she had run for several minutes and rounded the third corner without meeting any opposition, she finally allowed herself to slow and breathe. Someone stepped out of the alley to her left and turned toward her. Only now did a suspicion rise inside of her. There had been no people. Even in this part of town there had to be people.

Turning around, she noticed several more figures that had somehow sidled up to her from all directions. She was cornered like an animal. Cursing, she crouched and brandished her weapon. The woman in front of her just smiled amicably:

"Don't be alarmed. I can't exactly say that we are your friends, but we are not the ones who put you into that clinic. After the bombing, we extracted as many people as possible, but the Agency arrived before we could get everyone. They so hate it when people are left to talk."

When Tara showed no sign of dropping her fighting pose, she waved and the three men on all sides slowly drew similar weapons, activating the electic tips.

"I'm not asking you to trust us. You can choose between coming vertically or horizonzally, if you get my meaning. We will not cut you up and sell your organs like the Agency would have done, but there is no time for convincing you with words. It's now or never."

In the distance Tara could here a siren, then more joined it and drew closer. She threw away the taser and hurried after the woman who had turned and rushed off immediately. The men quickly surrounded her, acting like protectors rather than abductors as they kept looking around for trouble, shielding her with their bodies.

Their flight ended two blocks further at a small gate in a large wall. Tara knew this building: the Exodus embassy. How did the space freaks fit into all of this? The gate clanged shut behind her and two female guards began to pat her down and scanned her from head to toe. She understood the need for security, but felt a little annoyed nonetheless.

"Can't have you spy on us without knowing", the woman who had brought her commented with an apologetic smile, "You will receive clothing and information inside the office and a technician will look you over for any signs of mind alteration."

Tara shivered. There had been lots of alterations, but she was pretty sure Raril had made short work of them. He hadn't infiltrated her mind, but had given her what could only be called a "cold reset". Hopefully she would never have to experience anything like it again.

She noticed the people they passed giving her strange glances and, following their gaze, realized that she was wearing a black leather jacket over a tattered blue-green petticoat. Her cheeks flushed and she was gratful when she found their first stop to be the clothing store. She felt like she owed these Exodus guys already. No matter what happened next, she wouldn't want to be seen dead in rags like that.

For her mental examination, she simply had to go through a number of simple exercises and was soon released with a clean bill of health. She was left to wait in a corridor outside of a row of offices. There were few guards and she understood the message: We have no reason to treat you like a prisoner, so you shouldn't try to escape.

She was just about to fall asleep in the comfortable chair, when the door next to her flew open and two people erupted from it in a cascade of shouted abuse.

"...must be insane to bring a replicant here! That's what they have been waiting for all along! You have probably doomed us all! Get the guards right now!"

"Hey, hey, calm down! Calm down. She's clean and she's no replicant. I was just as surprised as you when I picked up her signal outside of that butchery, but I wouldn't let anybody they are interested in go to waste."

Tara felt like she was taking part in a badly-acted comedy. They knew she was sitting there. They knew she was listening. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of showing surprise or anxiety. Instead she looked up calmly, the way an adult might watch two squabbling children.

They noticed her gaze and her raised eyebrows. The man lowered the panic button he was holding and met her eyes. He was tall, well above 6 feet, and had a thin beard on his chin as well as just a hint of a mustache. Most peculiar were his eyes, though. They were milky white with no irises around the pupils. Cyborg, Tara thought.

"When you two are done setting up your game of 'good cop, bad cop', maybe we can begin the interrogation. I know you are going to measure my vitals and responses to ascertain whether or not I am telling the truth. I'm also very tired, so let's get this over with."

She was ushered into the office which was comfortably furnished and had several paintings on the walls, even though she didn't recognize the artist. There were even two potted yuccas in the corners next to the large frosted glass window that covered an entire wall. She sat down in a chair next to a large oakwood book case.

A slight scent of incense clung to the air and she soon recognized the joss sticks in front of a small statue in a corner. So he was a progressionist, one of those looneys that worshipped the power of the ancients and Radinov as their prophet. He saw her look of disgust and gave her what was surely intended as a comforting smile:

"We are living in times of great change. A man needs something to hold on to, someone to look up to."

"Why not simply worship god? I mean... I understand how people don't believe in him, but who would be so stupid to pray to some long-dead human? That's like jumping into a puddle of mud right next to a clean lake, isn't it?"

Tara didn't know very much about spiritual things, but maybe she could unbalance the man a little. Raril kept talking about "The First" and he had been around since... well... practically forever. Knowing him, most religions seemed as transient to her now as yesterday's laundry.

"You will understand, when you see the promised land."

He was still smiling, but it no longer reached his eyes. The woman standing next to him was obviously somewhat displeased with him and her glare silenced him immediately. So that's how it is, Tara thought. She is the in charge after all.

"Well, we haven't introduced ourselves. My name is Jane Langdon and my colleage is..."

"John. Simply John."

Both of them shook Tara's hand and her sense of unreality only increased. These people, she thought with rising dread, are completely bonkers. Knowing that she was completely at their mercy, she gave them her best smile. The woman, seeming encouraged to go ahead, placed a small box on the table between them. Through the transparent cover, Tara could see a large syringe filled with a clear blue liquid.

"How would you like to take a trip to space?"

She shut her eyes. That's it, she thought. The world has gone mad or I have died and gone to hell. It was probably just an auditory hallucination, but she thought she could hear Raril chuckle.


----------



## MadBen (Dec 1, 2011)

I just updated the ebook file as well, correcting various small mistakes. For reasons of convenience I won't update the posts on the forum, so if you want the latest version, you should use the PRC-file, which is better to read anyway. Here is the link once more:

http://avadome.com/d/lodas.prc


----------



## QDOS (Dec 1, 2011)

Hi [/FONT][FONT=&Verdana]MadBen
  This is my first view of your work. I found the concept intriguing, however the storyline jumps from one scene to another. Your ploy may be deliberate but it leaves me somewhat unfulfilled. I feel the main characters need more definition and by that I don’t necessarily mean characterisation but their purpose.    

*Void - The Beginning of Time *
  I think you could work this to have a bit more of a flow. For me the static statements don’t quite gel. The first  the first, the first, sound like your ringing a bell and the dramatic command that I feel your trying to give it, a Geneses opening is lost.

*Mesopotamia - Deep Prehistory*[FONT=&Verdana]
I guess this is a likeness to the tower of Babel. Although I’m not quite sure what the outcome is in this case. In fact the whole function of Raril is a bit vague I’d like to know more. This section I feel needs to be expanded. [/FONT]

*New London - 17th of March 2191*[FONT=&Verdana]
Tara could hardly believe her eyes when she watched the news that morning. [/FONT]
  What was the news ? Reading on I thought the discovery of cold fusion and the lighting of permanent sunlight, only to discover that had already been achieved in 2141. Ah! The Dawn of Ages is that it.  
  Then Raril is revealed as death and maybe Tara has sold her soul to the devil and a pupil of his teaching.  
  [FONT=&Verdana]
*II  Lower New London - 17th of March 2191*
A strange creature that looked like a cross between a giant fly and an octopus disentangled itself from the Meta control node they had just used. It felt entirely pleased with its handiwork. The master would also be pleased. 

 [/FONT]I’m now wondering if this is developing into a twist on Alien. And then are humans surviving by continually replacing body parts and harvesting daemons as alter egos.  
  [FONT=&Verdana]
*III **New London, Central District*
Tara Caine being called to account, then we switch to Elza confronting a wolf in some sort of mental mind game. Then ends with:- [/FONT]
  "Welcome to hell. Please make yourself at home, because you are now officially dead." 

*IV  Quickening*
  Central District: Calico Bombing Site a filler that might have had some importance my only clue is possibly:- 
  "Damn it", he mumbled, "He would never admit it, but he loves that crazy girl." I assume a reference to Tara 

  [FONT=&Verdana]Tara waking up in some sort of hospital facility then escapes with the help of Raril. Then taken to the Exodus Embassy and moves to;- "How would you like to take a trip to space?"

 [/FONT]  You have the story in your head I can only make my assumptions from what I’ve read. It may be totally wrong. My I hope this gives you some understanding as to where you might tighten up or provide more explanation to make it easier for the reader to follow.  

  QDOS[/FONT][FONT=&quot]                                                  8)


----------



## MadBen (Dec 1, 2011)

First off, thanks for your detailed comment, QDOS.

It shows me very well which parts caught your eye and which (guessed from the strange interpretations in places that could only be caused by reading three lines at a time) you skimmed.

The first section is actually what you might call "doing the Robert Jordan". In his world-famous series "The Wheel of Time" he has this ever-recurring cryptic opening theme you might know.

I will make sure to peruse your comment when doing the next cycle of proofreading, thanks again for your time!


----------

