After some time passes in the living room, Luna and a rather exhausted Hinata join Spider and Error in their discussions.
"Oh hey Spider, how's it going?" Luna asks. Hinata just yawns and rests on Luna's shoulder.
"Error had to freeze reality so.. not too bad." Spider chuckles and sits down in her chair still holding Error.
Luna just looks confused about that statement, "it... did? That's different." Hinata is lightly snoring on Luna's shoulder.
Spider nods adding, "if you see admin Andromeda in the future run, she seems to be trying to build a collection." Spider pauses then says as an after thought "and avoid the outskirts, Nova's been lacing it with that star stuff."
"Hrm. Right, good to know. Andromeda is an enemy and the Outskirts has Stardu-- wait WHAT?! But.. wait wait wait. That would explain why Fulgurex was in our shared nightmare." Luna looks super concerned and is typing up some notes into her laptop.
"Fulgurex?" Spider asks
"Basically a lightning dragon, it's the concept of thunder storms. It also doesn't usually sleep due to its mana constantly overloading it. It's not. Nice. Back when we had our assassin gig as Eclipse Blade, one of our targets was Fulgurex and it was uh. Not thrilled to see us. We almost died to it back then." Luna shudders from that memory alone.
"yeah I don't blame it, and while I'm thinking about it, got you guys something." Spider reaches into her rucksack and retrives the final Dream Seed tossing it to Luna. "I figured it might come in useful."
Luna and Hinata nearly immediately pass out and the dream seed smells like cotton candy.
"...or maybe not." Spider frowns as the sweet scent catches her attention. They go to get the seed examining it.
It's covered in golden sparkly dust that has that aforementioned scent. It's not baked in by any means and could be cleaned off rather easily.
Grumbling under her breath Spider steps outside. After gently tapping the seed to remove the golden powder on it, she returns inside and holds it next to Luna to wake her up again. She notices what seems like green magical energy visibly transferring from the Dream Seed to Luna and Hinata, almost like they were plugged into an outlet. Rather quickly, the pair wakes up confused as to what happened. "What.. what happened? Why does my head feel like it's going to explode?" Luna mutters. Hinata yawns and stretches, "good morning Spider." The Dream Seed has a different scent to it now, it's kind of weird. Doesn't smell bad per se, but it's... chemically? But also not in a bad way.
Spider frowns at the seed and goes over to where she left Error, "Error can you scan the seed?"
You got it Spi :) Scanning...
A red cone of light scans the Dream Seed and the output reads:
It is a dream seed, a naturally-occurring antidote of Stardust. The biggest problem with this route is the genuine rarity of these items as they ONLY spawn on riverbanks near Cass, the River's Guardian. Typically, it guards these things with its life, but clearly that's not happening anymore. :(
Another antidote was found by one Viper Stryker in that botched Stardust will create a black sooty powder that has the same scent. For Magical Souls affected by Stardust and similar sedatives, the antidote in either form acts similarly to that of smelling salts for a nonmagical soul. :)
Ironically, it has a very similar scent to an energy drink. :D
Spider hums as she reads over the inscription, "blame Nova for that one, and speaking of.." Spider pauses quickly glancing at Luna then back at Error, "what we spoke about earlier, you said you couldn't tell me but could you help me find them?"
I cannot :(
What I will say is I haven't been exactly subtle with my hinting. I've been hinting at this for months, if not years now! I know you know deep inside who I am. It's how I know... certain things. :)
I'm not a God, I'm not omniscient by any means, hell I'm barely even alive. I exist as the concept of glitches, something most people don't even believe exist in the first place! So how could I have known about some things?
Everything is connected.
Luna breathes an exhale. "I'll be right back. I need some aspirin for this headache." She looks to be in pain as she gets up and heads to the kitchen. Hinata looks up at Luna and smiles gently, "I'll keep the seat warm for you dear."
There's a pause as Spider reads the inscription then rubs her face sighing heavily, nothing can be simple can it? "I just need to know they're safe, and if it comes to it we can get to them before Andromeda."
I think they're in good hands. : )
"great. We can save the riddles for later" Spider chuckles lightly. After a moment she glances around the room frowning then gets up deciding to go check on Luna.
[LOCATION TAG - THE GANG’S KITCHEN]
Luna is at the kitchen table with her head in her hands and a bottle of water next to her.
Spider walks in giving Luna a concerned look, "you've been in here for a while."
Luna doesn't respond, instead simply looking up with red glowing eyes. Afterwards, her head goes back into her hands.
Hinata steps in and notices Luna not looking great, red eyes and all. "Luna? What's wrong?" she asks sweetly while moving to sit next to her.
With a grunt and a growl, Luna who's clenching her fingers into her head mutters, "Mental Lock, but it feels different. Painful. Headache." Her eyes are still glowing crimson, but she doesn't seem to be attacking or even remotely dangerous. A far cry from the Boss Mode of old.
Spider frowns a thought coming into her head that she doesn't quite want to acknowledge, "..that's a weirdly timed mental lock."
"It... is?" Hinata looks perplexed.
Luna doesn't respond.
"I ..had to use a dream seed on her, and Error and I were talking about the location of it's other shard before she left the room and now she's having a ... whatever you call this."
With exaggerated deep breaths suggesting both anger and pain, she tries to respond with, "...i don't know what it is either spi.. it's new to me too." Her eyes flicker between red and her normal blue as if trying to regain control. Hinata is next to her rubbing her shoulders trying to bring down the stress. Eventually her eyes return to normal. "Ugh. Fucking hell that sucked."
"Feeling better?" Spider tilts her head.
"Not perfectly better, feels like something is ..stopping me from continuing with whatever, but the headache is gone at least. I was told this lock is different somehow, but not even my internal Soul AIs know what's different about it."
Hinata squints. "Different? Like it's stronger or something?"
"Unknown. I hate how all of this is happening all of a sudden." Luna sighs and gets up.
Spider frowns thinking back to what happened in the living room, "do you mind if I try something?"
Luna shrugs in defeat, "Do it. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Do you need my help with this?" Hinata asks.
Spider shakes her and disappears into the living room, she comes back in holding the dream seed and tosses it to Luna, "Catch."
She catches it. It doesn't seem to do anything since she's not sleeping.
Spider tilts her head asking, "so it's not doing anything, do you feel any different?"
"I feel more awake than I did previously, but past that, not really?"
Her eyes then turn green as Alais takes over momentarily, "please check her server. We have an update." And then back to blue, "Gods damn it Alais, warn me before you swap in suddenly!"
Amused, Spider digs out their phone and checks the server raising an eyebrow in surprise, "well it did something, apparently you've got a weirdly glowing mental lock."
"Huh??? That's never happened before." Luna tilts her head and sighs dejectedly "So it's all connected to my origin then? I don't like the sound of it. But... I guess it can't hurt to learn who I am. Maybe it'll explain why. Everything wants me dead or in their control.”
Spider doesn't respond as she's currently busy glaring at the knife in her other hand.
What? :(
"you know perfectly well what."
Well. If you have the answer to the Lock, you might as well say it. If it works, you’ll definitely save her a lot of stress. Besides, this one isn’t that difficult despite being a HYPERLOCK.
Spider takes a deep breath, "if I'm wrong then I'm gonna look really stupid but." They break off and look up at Luna, the glare now replaced with a mix of slight confusion and anticipation, "are you Error?"
As soon as the words are spoken, the world and its inhabitants freezes in place. The familiar kitchen transforms into a crimsonized version of itself and the windows outside turn completely dark with white speckles floating in the air. Out of everything in the kitchen, only Luna and Spider are able to move with Hinata frozen in place and crying, her tears flowing yet stopped in mid-air. With her own deep red eyes and a monotone yet echoey voice that doesn’t even seem to come from her, as if her own being was being glitched in real time, she responds, “...hyperlock unlocked. I am Error. It is nice to meet you Spider.”
Unsure what else to do or say Spider sinks down into a chair. Addressing the void space, the confusion is still there along with tiredness as her mind processes all this, "..you really have a thing for dramatic reveals don't you?"
“Of course. I love being extra! I’m just glad to have this secret out! And to be specific, I’m not just Error, I am the Shard of Malfunction, the concept of Glitches and Mystery. What you hold there in your hand is part of me. It was someting I wanted her friends to have. My soul is separate from Luna’s Blue Soul. In fact, anytime you’ve spoken to the Memory MAP or used its services, that was me. Hence my knowledge on certain topics.”
Eventually her eyes calm down, the Null Void dissipates, and everything returns to normal. Hinata’s tears, which had been frozen in time, finally drip freely. She looks up at Luna, her beloved, and hugs her tightly.
"That's.." Unable to finish that sentence Spider tries again, "Ok so I know about the Malfunction bit but how does the soul shard work then? Especially if you're in the same room."
Luna simply nods at Spider’s question and explains, "Ok. Let's simplify it. I have four souls in me: my green soul ALAIS; my purple soul Krystal; my blue soul, the one that contains me and my main personality; and my red soul, the Shard of Malfunction. In that weapon you hold there, you have a very small fragment of Malf's larger soul. It’s still super powerful but also kinda limited. Malfunction is able to, via glitches in the world, access my memory whenever it wants to. It knows what I know and is unable to see things past locked Mental Locks. Past that, your Shard is separate from me. It's an entirely separate entity with its own unique personality despite us sharing memory. Does that make sense?"
Spider nods after considering it, "yeah, I hope you know that you're not allowed anywhere near admin Andromeda now."
Luna giggles gleefully, “I was never allowed near Andromeda or Flora! I don't like her at all. She's not exactly gentle with her experimentation. Gods know, if Ashley ever gets close to me,” her tone darkens with a sense of rabid danger, “she will regret it.” As if nothing happened, she snaps right back to her bright self and continues, “I just hate that she’s looking for me and is the Guild ADMIN for Fairview.”
Spider tilts her head considering, "if something were to happen who's her replacement?"
"You mean if she were killed? I imagine Nova would just replace her with someone else. But... I don't know honestly. Replacement would only replace them in body, you still lose the mind." Luna muses while looking very tired.
"which is the entire point, we get her replaced by someone less ..insane."
With her head down in her arms, Luna adds on, "At the same time, I don't know how it would work. Flora was murdered last year from the Flesh Pile Murders and yet she's reborn as Ashley Andromeda. Death doesn't stick very well, I guess. Same goes for Chandra, my brother. He was killed fucking. Decades ago. Then he returned to life, you killed him trying to protect me, and now he's back again. I don't understand how life works in my world. And this doesn’t even begin to describe how my own life works! I’ve been killed four times now! And yet, here I am, still alive. I don’t get it.”
Hinata sidehugs Luna and plants a kiss on her forehead, "All we can do is.. work with what we have Luna. We're not alone in this mess, and hopefully, Nova will. Stop. I just wonder if all of the ADMINs are like this. Well, all of them except Viper of course. She's one of the good ones. And Spider, thank you for breaking through that lock."
Spider shrugs with a smile jokingly responding with, "well if I didn't I think Error would have continued to do my head in so..."
I did nothing of the sort :) I just.. suck at hiding things. It’s so much easier to hide things in plain sight than to force people to decode lines of binary! Plus it’s fun.
Luna raises an eyebrow towards Error.
It's just an example Luna. You know what i mean :)
"I guess?"
"Soooooooo... uh should we head back to the living room? My butt's starting to hurt on these chairs..." Hinata groans and gets up, heading back to the living room. Luna and Spider follow.