revivalproject | Only a Crack in This Castle of Glass

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Only a Crack in This Castle of Glass

WHO: Felwinter and you
WHERE: Here, you never left
WHAT: Exploring the past of a warlord
WHEN: Calibrations Event
WARNINGS: Warsat involves Robo-death

The former observatory has been preserved better than most places during the Collapse, at least from what little can be seen as one steps down the hall. The air is crisp, chilly, and a glimpse out of a passing window reveals why- a windswept landscape nearly whited out by flurries lies beyond, the snow broken by lines of dark craggy rock and jagged terrain of the surrounding mountains. Turning around only greets you with a strangely blurred wall. It looks like there's only one way to go, and as deceptively long as it appears, things shift within the next few steps. The hallway itself opens up to a larger room, converted into a throne room if the large, gothic chair is anything to go by. A fireplace crackles off to the side, though it does little to alleviate the chill.

If he's not sitting in that throne, then Felwinter can be found standing, staring at the fire or some of the scant things found around the room. On a long table not far from the fireplace sits an old, battered book that's certainly seen better days. At the table's foot, a sad looking wooden crate, filled with even sadder looking, meager pickings of a crop. By far these things are amongst the more normal things that could possibly be reasonably found in such a place.

Off to the farthest side however sits a massive warsat that couldn't have possibly been brought in by any normal means, and no gaping hole in the roof to suggest it had come crashing in through there. Against the wall near it is a smooth black surface that reveals itself to be a computer console once one passes their hand over it.

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Felwinter walking along with him did make Tony feel chased, not helping his assumption that Felwinter was likely to stop him from unspooling the secrets of this place and making him consciously try not to look like he was hurrying while he very much wanted to make a run for the machine. "Something more tasteful here, then," he surmised as he approached it, both hands up to encompass it like he was just thinking about how Felwinter kept his room appointed and how to best maximize the space for all of that nothing he had. Then Tony slapped both hands to the metal, searching just as much for what it did as what it did.

It was definitely not the effect he'd had in mind. He should have realized right off the start. Of course something new and mechanical would capture the man's attention. "I would not call this 'tasteful'," he said, his steps quickening just a little, unfortunately not taking much away from the reminiscence of a tiger prowling after its prey.

"Stark-" he began in warning as he saw the man move to apply his hands to the warsat, but it was the last thing heard as Felwinter's Peak was replaced by a wide open wilderness, stretching for miles with nothing in sight.

You've been traveling for a few days and come across no one. It's the third night that you see it as you and the drone continue along, and you turn your head towards the dark skies to see the trailing lights of something. Meteors? It's a sight to see, certainly, and you can't help but be somewhat awed by it...at least until one in particular begins to grow larger as its point of descent becomes more clear. It's coming right towards you.

"Run," the little silvery drone says, and though you're still not sure how much you trust it, you have no room to argue as you take the suggestion. The first meteor hits the ground just behind you with an impact that makes the ground shudder beneath your feet, and as you glance back you see it's no meteor at all. Something metal. Something man-made.

That's all you have time to register before the heat of the next comes bearing down upon you...

Edited 2022-06-07 02:56 (UTC)

It was as though he had been rerouted, suddenly forced to integrate a distinct awareness of where he was and what he was supposed to be doing and odds with the sound of the crackling fire or the cold metal under his hands. It was dysmorphic, and disorienting, without a lot of confidence to reach for even with this new consciousness to explain his purpose. One thing they can agree on is that awe, Tony wanting to stop and consider these streaking stars, a sky that was so much more familiar than the one he had been living under for too long, yet strange and so bright.

It felt like his program was lagging, still staring when he was suddenly running, the body he didn't feel properly connected to carrying him forward until the rumble of the impact jolted him in sync again.

Of course, it was a satellite. Impressively durable, too. Probably more likely to survive an impact than his skull in a fight.

A fact proven in the next instant as blackness engulfed him.

SLAM.

The pain is everything although thankfully short. The next instance is like trying to drag your head out from underwater, accompanied by disjointed flashes of images flitting through your mind. A frozen wasteland. A desolate library. Light flares around you and you stumble to your feet, out of the crater of another satellite's impact. The little drone urges you to hurry, and you try to do so despite feeling like every step is a lead weight and--

SLAM.

Light flares, a somehow familiar warmth. Images of people you don't ever recall meeting. Snippets of music from a time long ago. You stagger forward--

SLAM.

Light. A voice shouting at you. "Watch out!" it says. Something's overhead-

SLAM.

Light. You fight past the fragmented memories, distractions that mean nothing at the moment, if they ever did. People and places that probably don't exist anymore. You move, and if you had flesh and bones then maybe this would account for the same as muscle memory, this urgency to hurry, to run. Not enough--

SLAM.

You stumble forward in a wash of shimmering light, pushing aside the confusion as your body remembers only one thing in this moment. You need to move--

SLAM.

The flare of light dissipates as you stagger forth. Behind you, six looming masses, smoldering in the crisp night air, the latest still glowing with its dying heat from atmospheric entry. You turn your head forward, focus on one foot in front of the other, dreading the renewed glow that throws your shadow out before you. Desperation fuels you to throw yourself forward, not far enough as the next satellite hits, and this time there is no blissful blackness to cut the pain short as it throws you forward and continues to threaten to crush you into the ground, pieces of it breaking off with the impact.

Edited 2022-06-08 22:16 (UTC)

The disconnect between Tony's body and his awareness made every move feel like some deeply coded instinct, the ones that he couldn't fight and didn't even know how to; didn't even know how to scream his frustration. The one thing he should have still had control over, the thing that he always had control over, wasn't even his anymore, he realized as that incredible agony bore down on him and this time he had to bear it, this time he had to feel the heat and that pressure instead of the darkness and that bloom of light, that had him sure that dying would be better than this. That was the key. He wasn't being allowed to die.

What a curse to realize more than once.

Somehow...you're still alive, crawling out from the last satellite's wreckage as that's all you can manage to do until you claw your way free of that crater, leaving a trail of parts that used to be attached. This time you don't look back, spurred by fear that more may still come, even as you struggle to run to the first shelter that presents itself.

You all but collapse within the cave, dragging yourself further within. "Nrrp..." Words refuse to form, as though even they wish to smother you as choke on each attempt. "Rrrn. Mnnr."

The little drone is there, a light emitting from its eye-like core, scanning over you. "I can't fix you. That last hit corrupted write-protected processes in your cognition modules," it informs.

"Nnnr?"

"You're an Exo. Exos were made in the Golden Age, with proprietary tech," the drone replies, looking a little uneasy, if only by its movements. "I can't hack into your head to fix the damage, but I can rebuild you as you were. If you shot yourself, I could work quicker."

Another death would be welcome compared to this. Or would it? There's little other option. You can't function this way. You drag your gun from its holster, and before you can change your mind, pull the trigger...

The light fades around you as you come to, but all the same, you crumple to your knees, dropping your face into your hands. Your body feels like it still aches from the memory of each death just moments ago, but you know that's impossible.

"Why is this happening?" you ask, looking up at the drone. "Because of you? It's after you, isn't it?" you press, trying to discern anything from its movements, the way it carries itself.

"No," the drone replies before continuing, "I don't know why." How much is truth? But what reason would this thing have to lie? You don't know. You don't know anything, ever since you awoke to its insistence to move. The little drone softens its tone as it admits, "The Traveler told me to save you. That something was different about you."

"That ball in the sky you showed me? It talked to you?"

"I can't explain it."

Frustrating. You wince, once again cradling your head in your hands. "Can you explain anything?"

"Not really."

Silence falls between the two of you, and outside things are just as still. A minor comfort, and yet neither of you are reassured in the least. The drone breaks the silence first. "We shouldn't stay in one place for very long. I don't think it's safe."

You stare at the ground, reluctantly agreeing though you don't say as much. "How will I sleep?" you ask as you look up at your strange companion.

"You don't need to."

"But I want to."

"That's fine."

It was here that the cave would begin to fade around Tony, overlapping with a chill that did not sync up with the memory as he'd eventually find himself where he'd been all this time, standing there in front of the warsat sitting in Felwinter's throne room.

It wasn't the chill that had Tony's teeth chattering; he hardly felt it, still detached like he had no control over this body, the scream still caught in his chest where it hammered like it would break out of his ribs if it couldn't burst out of his mouth. That was his heart, he realized belatedly, realized then that it had been gone and now struggled through an untenable rhythm as Tony tried to push the feeling back into his fingers, take a breath, stop his shivering and get control of his knees before they buckled. Watching the memories as they had happened in these rooms had been, Tony told himself, a necessary discomfort, knowledge that would help more than it hurt to carry. None of them had felt like that.

He was drawn in tightly around himself by the time he managed to finally look Felwinter's way, a small twist of his shoulders, and his eyes darting cautiously, searching for the Ghost that he thought was supposed to help. The cruelty in their pointed design was suddenly so evident.

"Why?" He didn't know how much that Felwinter's lingering confusion still held him, and how much of the question was actually his own, but it was the only word he could manage yet. Did Felwinter even know what Tony had just seen?

The warlord hadn't gotten much farther than where he'd been when he'd attempted to halt the man from making contact with the warsat. His shoulders hunched as though seized up in mid-cringe, he brought a shaky hand against his helmeted face. Those memories were amongst some of his oldest, and although it wasn't something he felt he could ever forget, it seemed to bloom afresh, like it had just happened yesterday.

He forced himself to relax, as much as he ever was able to, anyway. His head lifted towards Stark, and finally he continued forward, although almost hesitantly now, as though he half expected the warsat to try and conduct a repeat of what they'd just seen.

"...I still have no clear answers," he admitted quietly, his voice sounding somewhat more hollow than usual. He stopped beside the massive construct, looking towards the insignia there. "Do Warminds exist in your time, Stark?"

While Felwinter was more cautious this time, Tony wasn't trying to skulk away anymore, only looked back at the satellite with a new, more wary intent to dissect it from a safer distance, hands still tucked under his arms. Felwinter's question sounded kind of like an accusation; stripped of context, Tony thought a few people might have called him a warmind, and some of those even thought it was a compliment. Looking down the barrel was the kind of death someone like that deserved.

He had to bodily try to shake that off, and admit as much as it was a resolute declaration, "I don't know what that is." With more clarity, deep breath, he could guess; something like the Overseer, or Ultron, an intelligence designed with one purpose. "An A.I.?" felt like an accusation then in return. Felwinter hadn't been designed to swaddle babies.

Felwinter nodded, even as he continued to avoid looking at him, unsure what Stark thought of him after that. It almost seemed that he flinched at the man's response. He stepped around the warsat, still keeping an arms-length from the thing.

"From what I understand, the Warminds were A.I.s, created as a defense against threats that came from beyond humanity's territories, or that manage to get within them." He tipped his head towards the satellite. "The warsats are part of a system-wide network as part of that defense."

Maybe it had been closer to an accusation than Tony had realized. Now, he studied the satellite, looking for his own fingerprints, beyond the regrettable ones he had pressed into the surface.

"But you're an Exo," he replied. Felspring had just told him as much, even if he didn't have that vestigial human part that the designation seemed to require. He hadn't exactly argued with the kid when Kaz had made that claim. "You're part of the system."

Again the Exo nodded, although there was hesitation. "Not in the way you think. It took us time to find out why the Warmind Rasputin was so fixated upon me."

His steps carried him to the other side of the warsat where the black panel was set into the wall, equally out of place once one had a closer look. His reflection looked back at him from its smooth surface, at least until he brushed a hand across it. It lit up then, scrolling lines of coding of some kind.

<<AMYGDALA VOTIVE GRASP>>
V149GAQ145CB120
AI-COM/RSPN: ASSETS//GOLEM//INTERROGATIVE
IMMEDIATE ACTION ORDER

This is a SUBTLE ASSETS IMPERATIVE (NO HUMAN REVIEW) (NO AI-COM REVIEW) (secure/AUTARCH).

Initiate SIDDHARTHA GOLEM upload at DSC-342 to assess integrity of moral structures.

Stand by for CRITERIA:

Under PASSAGE (obsolesce/SIDEREAL):
If NANOBE SONDER is IVORY
If HAMMURABI is ACTIVE and passes human review under context TURING
If DURYODHANA is in FAILURE and passes AI-COM review under context IDES
Set spectrum certification to SMARAGDINE

Else, stand by for CONTINGENT ACTION ORDER:

Set spectrum certification to AMARANTHINE
Initiate human review unless tactical morality is built at MIDNIGHT

"Experience is the teacher of all things."

STOP STOP STOP V149GAQ145CB121

Tony couldn't be sure if Felwinter meant he was wrong about the Exo part, or the system part, and only managed to hesitate a second before he was trailing after Felwinter curiously, once again betrayed by his own instincts. He didn't mean to go much closer, either, but the screen activating drew him in further, just another puzzle to solve, eyes narrowed and chin up trying to parse it over Felwinter's shoulder. Some kind of code, judging by its structure, desecrated by holy language; digital, new age crystal golems. Hell of a mix.

"You're the golem," he could at least figure out. Ben probably wouldn't appreciate the application, but it seemed neat enough to Tony. "Who's the autarch? The Traveller?"

"Rasputin himself, I assume," Felwinter said. As Tony neared, things around them began to blur slightly, the image of a darker enclosure overlapping their corner of the throne room. The memory wasn't as immersive as the first, more audio than visual, as it were, save for the vaguest impressions.

"This is weird," Felspring says as she projects a long string of code she's pulled from their researching in the old, yet very much intact Seraph bunker. "Look. In the Golden Age, Rasputin executes a protocol called SIDDHARTHA GOLEM. No idea what it is. Some kind of knowledge-gathering. It gathers a bunch of transcripts—conversations with Humans, recordings of music, a huge database of literature..."

Felwinter studies the code before him. It doesn't occur to him that it might be strange to be able to sight-read it as he does, and although it's not without a little effort, it's a bit like dredging up a native tongue he's forgotten. He can pick out what Felspring summarizes. With another flicker of light she blurs through more strings of recorded code until she comes to another point, like skimming chapters of a novel.

"Here. Early Dark Age. A submind in Old Russia says SIDDHARTHA GOLEM is active. And gone rogue." When she speaks again it's with a much quieter tone as she begins to piece things together. "Around the time I found you."

It had been a puzzle. Felwinter wasn't sure how long it had taken them before they'd even found such references, how many bunkers they'd tracked and broken into, even if they hadn't exactly known what they were looking for.

By then, Tony was back to watching Felwinter, letting the shadows and flickers of the scene fade at the edges of his vision. The Golden Age was what they had called an Earth that Tony would have recognized, maybe even his own, or his near future--before whatever it was that wiped them out, before the Traveller, and before Tony thought they even had Exos. Those resources that Ikora had given him hadn't exactly been thorough about them.

Tony was watching Felwinter, and he was quiet. There weren't a lot of ways for a database to go 'rogue'. Eventually, he posited, "What aren't you supposed to know?"

Felwinter shook his head. "When I first awoke, I knew nothing. I remembered nothing. There was only Felspring. And then we were nearly crushed when the stars fell upon the library I found myself in." Stars....he knew better now, his head turning slightly enough that he could eye the warsat just out of the edge of his peripheral.

"Answers were never easily forthcoming. I only found myself with more questions. I didn't even know it was a Warmind after me until we came upon another Exo who recognized the symbols on a group of attack frames that came after us." He opened his fingers from his palms, splayed out in an empty query. "If there is something Rasputin does not want me to know, then he needn't go through such lengths as he has." He had a feeling that wasn't really the case. "...I was created to know...to learn things for him, I think. His outlet. That is all I can gather from the old code we found."

That didn't leave Tony with a much better theory about what drove the Warmind to kill Felwinter. There must have been something there, tied up in all of the code that made him sentient, that Rasputin must have been worried about. Whatever had lead to his death the first time, maybe.

"Did he ever stop?" Tony asked, quickly figuring out what circumstances might have led to that conclusion even as he did, and looking pointedly back to the panel set into the wall before Felwinter had to explain his violence.

"We have not been accosted for some time. This location has proven strategically sound thus far. It's why we came here in the first place," Felwinter said.

They came here to hide, and it was only unfortunate that the place had one previous, stubborn owner. Or perhaps it was more unfortunate for said owner, a warlord himself, to have met someone who wouldn't take no for an answer.

Turning, Felwinter began to step away from the wall, from the warsat, more so to distance himself from the latter. A facsimile in his memory wouldn't divulge any information that he wanted, but at this point he didn't much care so long as he wasn't being hunted down.

So...no. Tony's brow furrowed with concern, and he briefly watched Felwinter again as the Exo turned away, but didn't follow this time. He let his gaze slip back to the satellite, eyeing it with a similar anxiety, not sure enough that it wouldn't make him relive the scene a second time and still unwinding himself slowly like he would reach to find out.

"Maybe we met, in your previous life. That's why you're so fond of me," he suggested suddenly, building himself back into his smirking confidence as best as he could while he spoke, trying to draw himself away from the feeling of pulling the trigger.

The look over his shoulder then somehow translated its dryness despite there being anything to go by but a faceless grill. "I think you have misinterpreted confusion for fondness."

Confusing. Annoying. Unpredictable. But Felwinter supposed he couldn't say he outright disliked the man. He simply had no idea what to do with him half the time. Had he ever come across such people, back when he was simply a data gatherer? He had no recollection, but then he couldn't even be sure that it was his own experience or if Rasputin had been the one piloting, to some degree.

And then the Light made him something else...

Confusion was a very generous assertion to Tony, who thought most of the time that Felwinter was considering if it would be less trouble to kill him, and so far he had lucked out on that mess being the bigger bother. He looked after, then started to follow Felwinter again then, still keeping his distance and letting the momentum he built carry him back toward the fire, and the throne. "That's even better," he declared. "Nothing better than a mystery. Keeps the romance alive."

Living alone in a big, drafty castle at the end of the world not knowing why you were alive, that was a kind of romance.

"Don't worry about your dad. Mine hated me, too, we don't have to get our hopes up," he continued as he draped himself back into the seat, or tried to. It was much more stiffly this time, his restlessly energy clear in the tick of his tendons as he held himself still.

It was hard to say whether the sound was a sigh or something in disgust. Something in between, maybe. Why did he always feel so exhausted when dealing with Stark? And of course the man was taking up his seat again. Well, it was better than having him loiter about that warsat. Absently he wondered how much of a fuss would be made if he just picked Stark up and tossed him out of the room.

Having Rasputin referred to as his 'dad' made him stiffen a little. The concept hadn't really occurred to him, but the more he thought about it, the more he supposed it wasn't completely ridiculous. If A.I.s adapted such human concepts. But then Rasputin had been curious about humanity and its culture, so maybe it wasn't too much of a stretch. ...but then why?

"It is difficult not to still hold some concern, whenever I set foot off this mountain. But I've since learned that I am hardly the only one who lives in the fear of being crushed by some greater force."

The satellite still loomed, drawing Tony's eye, but his chest wasn't so tight over here, and the familiar beats of Felwinter's annoyance with him were reassuring. As long as he was distracted and irritated, whatever darkness lurked in any of this other stuff around the room couldn't be too oppressive.

He spoke so broadly that Tony wasn't sure if he was still only talking about back home, this place, where he came from, or when they woke up back in Temba, and had to bite his lip. At the very least, being snatched away to an unmapped planet should have been a reprieve from being pelted with heavenly bodies. No wonder he was so tense all of the time.

"You've been seeing other people?" Tony accused, looking appropriately shocked and offended with a dainty hand to his delicate heart. He wasn't sure what Felwinter meant by that, and didn't know enough about who else he did actually talk to, Tony realized.

It was all one and the same to some degree, wasn't it? Although Felwinter referred to those of Earth, there were people here who needed help just the same. Things would have been much simpler if it had been simply an abduction to a place far from a selfish A.I. father. Peace here was an illusion, broken easily by experiences that had no right to happen under natural circumstances. At least you could try to run from a rain of meteors.

"I- what?" Again Stark caught him off guard as he swiveled his head towards the man. He stared at him, either until Stark abandoned his melodrama or it seemed he wouldn't budge until he got an answer. He turned and walked alongside the table, his helmet angling just slightly enough as he looked down at the crate that sat there, nearly pushed beneath it.

"...there's a village at the foot of my mountain," he said. "The people were under the protection of the previous warlord." He gestured at the sad, wilting selection of crops that barely filled the beaten crate. "A woman came up with a tribute some time after I claimed this place. She's the one who called me a warlord, though I made no such claim of the title."

Tony was too stubborn and committed to his dramatics to break until Felwinter spoke again, and he slowly let his hand drop to lean forward and try to get a better look at the box Felwinter was indicating. That did give a sudden clarity to his morality that Tony had been struggling to frame. Even if Felwinter didn't necessarily care about that village or believe in the cause, it sounded like a very distinct purpose where there had been a void. Other warlords.

"Has anyone ever helped you?" Tony asked, though he was sure he already knew the answer.

Only a Crack in This Castle of Glass

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