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[[SC.03 "FALLEN DEITY" ONLINE]]

I don’t know what I was expecting to happen, but it definitely wasn’t a faceful of mud in a tight pipe.

“Hello?” I called into the darkness, hearing my voice echo down the tunnel I had found myself trapped in. The rusted metallic wall flaked into tiny particles of oxide as I reached for something to hold on to. I plunged my hand into the wet dirt below me and slowly lifted my head. I saw nothing but darkness. 

“Hello?” I called again. I tried to blink a few times but the tunnel stayed dark. Weren’t my eyes glowing pink just a couple minutes ago? And wasn’t I in my chamber too? Where am I? How did I get here?

How am I even alive?

I checked my bag for the neurons I had gathered. They were all still there as far as I could see, though very dirty. I looked for one I had marked earlier with a purple cross on it; I had installed a simple internal clock just in case. 

1655.000 5:17pm

“2 and a half years…” I said aloud, “by the void…”

I put the neuron back in the bag and looked out into the darkness, lifting myself up on one knee. There wasn’t enough room to stand, so I kept my hands down in the water. I began to aimlessly shuffle forward in hopes of finding something useful.

I guessed I was fairly lucky to not have a nose. Whoever was using these pipes was not taking good care of them. The suspicious goo that lined most surfaces was likely some organic residue from iterator processes… so perhaps I wasn’t too far from home.

Despite my minor worries I was not in fact blind, ahead of me was a dim white light in the side of the tunnel. As I got closer the glow revealed itself as 3 vertical lines; the ancient symbol for “access”. Below it was a small square hole, indicating this was a transportation pipe. Just what I needed!

I had never used one of these before… my chamber had two in the ceiling, which my creators used often. I had heard about creatures on the surface using them too, so they must be safe. Right?

I turned to look down the two ends of the tunnel. Nothing either way. So why wait? 

Before I was even halfway into the pipe I was pulled at incredible speed through the tight winding tube. I clutched my bag and tried to block out the sounds of my metallic body screeching against the rough walls. My face scratched along the surface and I shouted obscenities out of sheer fear as the pipe took a sharp turn upwards and I was launched a few metres into the air. I impacted the ground face-first and groaned in pain.

I jumped to my feet from the sudden rush of adrenaline, but fell over immediately, having never walked in my life. My eyes slowly opened and adjusted to the sudden light. And by the void was it bright! As clouded as the sky was, one point was giving off an unimaginable amount of life.

“The sun…” I whispered, “I wish I could tell Setting Suns about this.”

If I had muscles I would have stretched them, and if I had lungs I would have taken a deep breath of fresh air. Instead I just sat up. Around me was an extensive array of pipes and tubes forming a sea of rough metallic terrain. Everything was damp, but devoid of life. Looking up from the ground I saw the most beautiful sight I had seen yet. Far away to my left was a towering mountain with a few shining antennae poking out from behind. In front of me was far away land of rock and dirt, with a tall grey structure behind it. I recognised it as the Monolithic Factory. As miserable as this wasteland was, it had a good view. 

But to my right… behind the mud-soaked fields, near the edge of my sight through the thin fog, stood a metallic wall. Covered in sprawling pipes and grids of unusual geometric protrusions; it was undoubtedly an iterator can. My sister, Observant Pillars. It must have been miles and miles away but it was still bigger than I could have ever imagined…

I turned around.

The sepia sea of pipes became a forest of metal debris surrounding the single largest structure I had ever seen in my life. It sprawled so far that it didn’t even fit in my field of view. I couldn’t describe it if I tried. It wasn’t beautiful, just a mess of metal. But it was unfathomably large.

My corpse. 

OP: New year, new catastrophe. What’s happening now.

SS: Nothing you aren’t already aware of. Nothing new on Deity. 

FS: Nothing but annoyance and grief.

SOTH: Nothing worth your time.

FS: Speaking of annoyance and grief, here he is.

SOTH: Watch it, Searcher. 

FS: How about you watch something other than other peoples’ business?

SOTH: I’ll watch your collapse. I’ll be laughing.

SS: By the void man calm down what the f[///]ck

OP: What is wrong with you two!? Are you asking to get muted?

FS: Maybe if Hills kept his eyes off my comms I would keep my mouth shut.

SOTH: Don’t worry about muting Searcher, his General Systems Bus has clearly muted itself. 

FS: And f[///]ck you too.

SS: Pillars can you sort this out I’m not ready for more drama.

OP: I’m shutting this chatroom down until you can behave yourselves

SOTH: Maybe you should ask Seven Red Suns for a fresh batch of rot if you haven’t already

FS: Watch me

[GROUP CLOSED TEMPORARILY]

I’ve had more than enough with Hills’ sh[///]t. I’m tripling development speed on the new overseers. The research and development phase has taken far too long. I’m taking this into my own hands now.

My super-speed overseer is nearly done. I’ve tracked the golden pearl to a small outcrop in a tower near Five Pebbles’ primary surface exhaust vents. It will go there, find the pearl, decode its contents, and take it back to me. Then I’ll have that data. I think I’ll name it ‘Scribe’.

The bulkier overseers (the ‘Deactivators’) are going to tear apart Hills’ communications arrays. They’re getting destroyed whether he likes it or not. 

Frantic Searcher is getting on my nerves. Strike that, he’s just trampling them at this point. I don’t have the power to alter his comms, and Pillars is being unreasonable, so I’ll dismantle them myself. I’m putting an end to this. They’re getting destroyed whether he likes it or not.

And on top of that, there’s some impersonators running around! There’s some crazy out there with the name Spirit of the Holidays! Spell that out. S-O-T-H. Just like me. They know I have power in communications… they’re trying to take my identity! And I don’t trust that Setting Suns guy; he’s definitely using Seven Red Suns’ stupidity for publicity.

Can’t trust anyone these days…

man this is awful. hopefully next year is better. i have nothing more to say. still a long way to go though.