Binary Systems [Complete, Slice-of-Life Sci-Fi Romance]

––––––

Mau_dev: With great power comes sloppy adherence to commenting procedures. Good luck everybody else!

––––––

Sol 506 FY 26, 16:00 Mars Time, Bonestell Crater Colony, Hab Layer, 9.32.002.B

"I've been doing my homework," Marie told the stream. Her voice was a little bit tired; so was her body, aching too strongly for the neural link to override. She just hurt so much. She wondered if this was what getting old felt like.

"And while I was doing my homework," she continued, "I discovered some filter strategies for killing the Titans. I thought I would adopt one for our titanic encounter. I'm reasonably sure that the Kraken is raid-boss tier or higher. This doesn't mean I've given up. It means that I'm trying to seriously consider all my options. I have been trying to consider the scope of the problem so that I can address it correctly. My conclusions are: raid boss, aquatic.

I could group-cast spells and throw them all day without having any particular effect. So if it's too big, what do I do? Just give up? I thought about it, but no. I told you guys that I'd try, and I'm going to try.

So, what's bad for aquatic things? Well, generally in both lands and real life, freezing is pretty bad for you if you live in the water. So, I'm going to freeze it.

'It's too big to freeze,' you might say. Well, that's correct. I can't freeze it. But I leveled up! The guys who made this wonderful simulation of ours were giga-nerds," she continued, "real old-time connoisseurs of some of the older books about magic. And in the upper levels of magic—which I can't believe I get to be the first person to introduce the world to, it's so cool. . ." Her words sounded a little empty to her, but she'd been rehearsing. She was going to avoid taking out her personal problems on her stream viewers, she decided.

"To contract—they were nerds. And so they mixed in the old concepts of magic from books and movies, media: sympathy, contagion, part-to-whole. They're supposed to need math. In the old books, it was more that it needed the appropriate permissions, that it needed the appropriate format, syntax, code. It's less that you have enough power to put into your computer to run the code, and more that you make sure that you've got parentheses in the end of your lines. Does that make sense?

So, I can't freeze the Kraken. I can't freeze the sea. But I can freeze a pail of water. And I can make a ritual so that what happens to the part, happens to the whole. And I'll need every advantage I can get to convince the world that it's going to work: proximity, line of sight—not just line of effect. Line of effect, for those of you watching at home who might be unfamiliar, is just causality. If there's a causal link between two things, then line of effect exists.

So, I'm brewing a bunch of frost potions—several times our normal inventory loadout—and I'm putting them all in a bucket. Then I'll be pouring that bucket into a bucket of seawater. So all of my power that I can concentrate into a small area, plus all these ritual markings and focuses ringing the bay as much as I can, like a horseshoe formation. . . I'm even climbing up on the tower of the fortress itself and putting a couple there so I can get encirclement. Circles tell the world, 'Here!'

This part," she paused, "is probably going to go horribly wrong. In real life, traditional witches are depicted in shows and movies as digging by hand, doing all the stuff by hand, or barefoot. I don't know if it matters, so I'm going to do every step as well as I can think of."

> Randoon_the_Wizard: sympathetic resonance go brrr

She drew a series of three circles. "God of the waves. Goddess of Connections. God of the North. IF they don't want this to work it won't work." The world AIs weren't the only persistent high level superintelligences in the game.

She dug a pit with her hands. "It's more honest if I do it by hand. I don't know if it matters."
She put a wooden bucket into the hole. "I'll fill that with salt water later," she said vaguely. "I don't feel like climbing the cliff right now."

A cry echoed across the water. Eagle-like, but deep and long. She looked around.

"A ROC!" she said happily. "I haven't seen one in ages, Too popular for group transport. Which is a shame - that's like domesticating a dragon."

She pointed her wand and swung her bangle. Timestop Shield began to form.

"You should be safe from here," commented Artemis, the NPC standing nearby. She'd returned to his father's lands, and Artemis had insisted on being part of it. Kept the ghouls off her back, so she wasn't complaining. "It's the size of a gnat."

"No, it's the size of a house and it can probably see me," she promised. "Besides, this is going to be awesome."

She cast. The timestop was almost invisible from the distance—a silver flicker around one of the roc's wings. The body kept moving, yawed, and fell into a spin. The wing. . . did not.

"Cruising altitude," Marie murmured. "That's going to leave a crater."

Artemis said nothing for a moment.

Then, carefully: "I was not aware timestop could do that."

She never understood how Gordon could leave his HUD and alerts off all the time. The trumpets celebrating her level-ups were exhilarating. Eight times.

"Level 308!" she reported. "Roc are like level 500, so that makes sense."

> FoxMender: How are you still a support class

> Tactikoolie: No way you're not in the top 100.

–––❖–––

It was time.

The waves were crashing, the Kraken unseen beneath them but very much present. She could feel the strain on the mana in the area from its massive signature.

Like a feeling of gravity, or static electricity. Weird what the neurolink could make you feel.

Her potions were already consolidated into an earthenware pot. She'd considered how long it would take to unstopper and decant them all and decided she'd probably die in the meantime if she went that route.

And Gallant was there.

It had been too long. Seeing Gordon's strong frame and gentle green eyes was more of a shock to her system than she'd expected. She suspected Gallant would hold her if she asked, but she was worried that if she did she'd just feel worse. The knowledge that it wasn't actually him cheapening and diluting the sensation of being cared for and safe.

But it was truly sad. He'd always made her so happy. The perfect love letter. Now—turned bittersweet.

[16:02] Gordon: Hey this is Claire on Gordon's portable. I thought I'd wish you well on your Kraken take-down. I'd give you some backup if you were Earthside, but you know how it is.

[16:03] Gordon: He left your stream up, so.

Aww.

It was nice that he was still thinking of her. They'd been drifting apart—once daily calls ending too quickly, or being inconveniently postponed by hospitalization and quarantine.

She wished she knew how to bridge the distance again.

But—how was she going to make it another year like this? Another year and a half? It seemed unfair, having to wake up every day and see his name on the door when he wasn't there, and wouldn't be.

They'd talk after the stream. She couldn't think this through alone, he'd think of something to say.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

> Randoon_the_Wizard: You seem pretty reserved today.

> xX_snakes_Xx: It's probably the drugs. Did you hear she lost a finger?

"Nail," she clarified. "I thought we were killing a Kraken though."

> Randoon_the_Wizard: I'm going to start calling you Ninefingers.

"Stoooop," she laughed. "Okay, clear the air. What do you want to know?"

> Stormfront66: Why did you do it? You almost died.

"That's what life is. We do what we have to until we die."

> Randoon_the_Wizard: This life stuff sounds horrible.

> Neopets64: She didn't have any good options anyway. I watched the broadcast.

> Neopets64: And so can you. So we can get back to the revenge arc.

Marie nodded and dusted off her hands. "Thanks for caring, guys."

The storm was rolling in. Her hair whipped around her face, loose ringlets batting her cheeks and forehead. Her bandoleers were reassuringly full, for all the good they would do. She would spend all her magic on one shot, and . . . then they'd have to see.

Gallant followed close behind her. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. Comforted? Protected? It wasn't Gallant's fault she was having a crisis of soul.

"From up here I should have a good view, she said, "But unfortunately we're going to be using 'sympathetic principles' for this ritual, so I need ocean water."

> Randoon_the_Wizard: I've been looking, and nobody's ever played with ritual magic before. Was that your 300 level perk?

She nodded. It wasn't much of a reveal.

> Randoon_the_Wizard: I'm gonna be grinding for a while, then. Sympathetic baleful polymorph here I come!

She smiled, and negotiated the crumbling chalk cliff face, looking for a way down.

She stumbled. A strong hand caught her.

A second arm joined the first as he set her on her feet, and she turned and hugged his big stupid armor. "Best present ever," she decided, fiercely. Whatever else she was feeling, she was going to lean into Gallant. Appreciate him for what he was.

Dammit.

–––❖–––

The wind was frigid. Marie had always loved storms—loved them the way only someone who never leaves the microclimate of a Hab can. It was majestic, too big to understand much less control. And if it was also wet and cold that wasn't the end of the world.

Marie had always loved storms—loved them in the way that only someone who has never left the microclimate of a headset can. Storms were majestic, too big to understand, much less to control. And if it was wet and cold out, that wasn't the end of the world.

The ritual circles waiting, she lit the candles. The rising wind should have been a threat, but she put them each under a glass bowl. They would do. They would last, for now. As much as Ghostlands was a great simulation, it wasn't that detailed a simulation; covering flames didn't put them out.

It was time. She took the final step, sat down in her circle, held the pail between her knees, and poured the potions into it. The pail flashed white with frost, vaporous condensation billowing out like a dry ice fog. And in the bay, the water grew cloudy. The waves grew still. There was a sudden crackling snap, and ice stilled the bay. Beyond it, where the ocean was still liquid, the waves frosted up and over, their now-solid neighbors sheathing a thin film of sea over top the new iceberg. It was frozen solid down to the bottom, so it could not float.

She didn't receive any sort of notification for the death of the Kraken. She wasn't surprised. A being of that grand scale would take time to die. The storm was blowing in earnest now. The Kraken's own magic was pulling the storm into existence. Marie kind of liked that. In mythology, the Halcyon, the bird which would lay an egg in the middle of the ocean on a floating nest and calm the waves, had always intrigued her. A perfect idea, like a mothering, peaceful figure, much different from the more barbaric, less complicated beings which made up most of mythology. It seemed fitting that her favorite mythological creature had been inverted by the depths of Ghostlands to make something brutal, freakish, and violent that brought the storm with it instead of bringing peace.

And now, she was going to kill it.

The storm raged down around her. Sheets of gray water—perfectly clear rainwater, but refracting the light of the steel-colored sky, of darker white cliffs, of blowing green vegetation, a lowering sky. Her robe was plastered to her. She was cold; holding a bucket of ice didn't help, but she stayed in position. If she let go, the ritual would end, and she wanted it to die.

There was a snap. She looked down in the bay. The ice was clear now, as happens when you put water on top of ice. It was amazing visual clarity. But then, as ice freezes, it does shove out all those little impurities. Perhaps the devs knew that, or perhaps they just cheated and made all ice clear. It didn't matter. Huh. Interesting thought. Could you do frozen distillation in Ghostlands? she made a mental note.

Deep in the ocean, she could see it cracking. A house-sized eye stared up at her. Hundreds of arms, two of the longest ones unthinkably vast, and one of the two longest ones was currently working its way out of the ice. The Kraken was not dead. The Kraken was fighting back.

She heard another crack. The tentacle was near the surface now. There was blood in the water—blue blood. Except for the blood, she thought. This would call for lesser octopuses to swarm, maddened by their master's injuries, into the waves.

And then it broke free. Just the tentacle. The tip, now unobscured by the frozen sea, quested around madly before hooking over and driving down like a pile-hammer. Smash! Smash! Smash! Now two tentacles were out.

Marie realized she hadn't prepared a contingency for the circumstances in which it just got out of the ocean. She sent a quick IM: "I may need covering fire."

Another tentacle. It was bleeding in torrents, its body now beginning to be forced up and out, leaving a crevasse slimed with milky blue behind it. One of the towing feeders, the great cable-like tentacles, slammed into the cliffside, securing a handhold—a tentacle-hold—and pulling with a body as strong as a ship's hawser. It was going to climb the cliff, and then she would die.

The storm raged, and yet overhead, she could see the jewel tones of the Captain's Bounty circling. The requested assistance materialized. "Where do you want them?" asked Julian.

"Just don't let it climb," she requested.

Beside her, Gallant gave her a little touch that meant 'I'm still here'. She registered it but didn't have time right now.

Lightning fell from the sky, slamming into the giant bulk of the cephalopod scaling the cliff. Nothing. It loosed a towing feeder again and again, and it just climbed.

"I need you to hit it harder!" she sent. "Can you do that and keep the storm under control?"

"I don't know. I'm going to try." Lightning flashed again and again. The clouds began to close in on the airship. Her magic was fairly limited.

"Focus on damage, then," requested Marie.

The airship's fire became more erratic. Lightning slammed down. Marie dropped a potion of acid fog. It did no visible damage. It stood to reason that a Kraken wouldn't be particularly vulnerable to poison, but she had to check.

And then it happened. There was a crackling sound. One of the ventral sails snapped free, fluttering down. The eye was almost at the edge of the cliff now.

"Save your ship!"

"No! I've got this!"

"You can't do both! You'll burn out!"

Marie watched, slightly numb, as a red, piping-hot ember—her friend's flaming remains—fell like a shooting star toward the frozen ocean surface.

"I can't do anything else, but I can get you home." Jaz wasn't asking a question, but Marie was committed now.

"I'm finishing this." She turned to Gallant. "Retrieve my gear and look after my horn. That's all. Please." She hung the horn around his neck. "If I get hurt, use this," she instructed.

Gallant stepped back. She looked to the sky. "If you want to give me a storm, I'll take that storm and fry him with it!"

Tentacles were now questing to the top of the cliff, slapping aimlessly like someone searching for keys on top of a fridge. Gallan shoved her to the side, severing a tentacle tip which had been aiming for her. She knitted the skeins of power together with her new skill. The interface was complicated, but she could see this becoming another go-to. It was more like an invocation of existing powers and themes than a point-and-click spell. Just like them to leave the most immersive stuff for high levels.

A lightning bolt the size of a house blazed from the sky. It struck the Kraken and the cliffside. Chalk fused into quicklime, which burst into acrid fumes. The ground beneath her feet gave way, undermined by the conversion, and Marie and the Kraken were both falling, with chunks of cliffside, from the clifftop to the frozen sea surface far below.

Marie wasn't done. She had thought about this. She cast Slow Time. Time was passing for her at one-sixteenth speed. That was the equivalent of having sixteen times as long to fall. That was enough time to cast another spell: Time Shield. The shield formed around the base of the two feeding tentacles, shearing them away through the force differential between a perfectly unmoving cross-section of the tentacles and the part that was connected to a free-falling body. Even the Kraken's own might couldn't stand that amount of force on that tiny cross-section. Blood fountained, and its gigantic blue eye was revealed. It narrowed, locked on her.

Now you know you have an enemy, she thought. Her eyes clouded. She was wracked with pain from the earlier quicklime, the fumes making her eyes burn and white over, like looking through milk.

Gallant blew the horn.

She was healed. She had a full potion rack again. She was still falling. Timers were reset. Excellent, excellent horn, she thought. She cast Time Shield again and sheared off another tentacle cluster. With nothing better to do, she threw potions. They were small, but maybe they'd get that last little bit of health down. She drank her Featherfall at the last possible second.

The last thing she saw before her feet touched the ice was a humongous tentacle shearing, tearing a chunk of ice free from the frozen sea. Slow Time, meant to allow her to think of options, didn't help. There were no options. It just let her experience being squished like a bug over thirty seconds instead of instantly despawning.

She'd dream about being crushed to death for a while.

She was in a bad mood when she made her call to Gordon. Probably a mistake.