The Union of the Sun
Temple of the Gates
It was another ordinary day in the Temple of the Gates. Priestesses carried out their duties, mainly in the kitchens, to prepare nutritious and filling dishes to feed those in need.
Large cauldrons were pushed out of the wooden structures, each filled to the brim with food, while additional ingredients were rolled in by the cartload.
A flash of light signaled the arrival of a machine, shattering the day's monotony. The priestesses and workers ran away in fright, fearing that it could be an attack by the neighboring nations or another fracture.
Thump.
It took a step, roughly twice the size of an ordinary human. Metal plates grounded against one another, carrying its oversized, cylindrical chassis forward with a small quake.
"I wish to speak to the High Priestess." A flat and mechanical voice delivered each word with precision, as the sole optics in the machine's small, rectangular head glowed during every utterance.
"F-for?" she stuttered, throat bobbing in as her arms trembled inside the
A blue tendril, with a three-pronged clamp at the end, dislocated itself from the clawed arm of the robot, reaching behind to bring out a metal box.
Taking it with hesitation, Nemuri almost dropped the box with her shaking hands and put it on the ground to avoid damaging whatever was inside.
Her trembling fingers managed to press the button in the middle, and the white, metallic box opened with a hiss, revealing a sentum scroll container inside.
A container engraved with a sigil, only used once in history, but carried great significance to the temple and the people of the world as a whole.
She gripped the purple crystal cap, unscrewing it to check if what she sought was inside.
Removing the scroll inside with reverent care, Nemuri was certain now.
"The Scroll of Arrival. How?"
"Irrelevant. I require translation."
"P-please wait for a second." The machine gave no indication of anything, but Nemuri quickly took the box inside, returning with an older woman.
Hair the color of ripe peaches with several gray strands blending in, tied to a ponytail, a mature, motherly woman nearing her fifties held the scroll in her hands, regarding the towering construct before her with none of the fear her subordinates exuded.
"Welcome to the Temple of the Gates. This way, we should speak in private," she invited the machine inside.
The comparably small head of the machine nodded, the move as mechanical as its steps, and followed the High Priestess Yumiko inside the auxiliary kitchen.
—
"What does your owner want with the Arrival Point?"
The single eye of the machine constricted and then expanded again before it took a step back. The thick plates over its chassis slid open, moving over each other, and then slid back one by one, revealing a glass tank inside with what she would hesitate to call the remains of a human.
Even in the dark green liquid, the living corpse with no forearms or legs beneath the knee, skin with glowing lines stuck to bone, and a look of agony in its reddened eyes could be seen.
Translucent tubes were attached to the remaining body parts, while a mask enveloped most of the head, continuously pumping a viscous green substance.
Yumiko turned her head to the side, closing her eyes and covering her mouth with the back of her miko attire.
She felt pity for the man inside and a great revulsion for whatever had turned him to this state.
Death would have been preferable in her opinion.
"Was it an accident?" she could not help but ask.
"Experiment gone awry. No solution exists on this planet. No time to traverse the stars. Require translation. Consider the scroll as goodwill."
What a remarkable display of goodwill it was, the location of the Arrival Point, regarded as holy by a part of the spiritually inclined, cursed by the rest, and sought by the governments for the potentially limitless gains that could be acquired through it.
"You believe a cure lies in finding it?" The Arrival brought many things to this world, but all were random.
The dying man inside the tank would not discover the solution he sought unless he had a means to extract it from the clutches of the multiverse.
"No other option available."
"The location has to be kept secret," and the oaths she swore to help those in need be damned; if this man proved to be untrustworthy, she would rather burn the scroll than translate it.
The eye of the machine glowed, projecting three different screens before her.
She would have been impressed by the technology, but the recordings took all her attention.
A laboratory with a half-machine human carrying the flag of the Kelmar Kingdom on its shoulder, an assassination order targeting Terena Ulves, a whistleblower who had exposed the Union's plans to weaponize Lorne, and the prime administrator of the so-called republic screaming at his ministers to proceed with the megacomplex that would leave thousands without a home.
"It will be. Current rulers are untrustworthy. Will lead to war. Undesirable."
If the man was willing to go far enough to reveal these secrets, then she could trust him to keep the contents of the scroll a secret. "Very well. I hope you find what you seek."
—
Plains of Tersus
On the continent of Asra, where the borders of the Union of the Sun, the Kelmar Kingdom, and the Republic of Netara met, lay the Plains of Tersus, the sole neutral location on the entire planet.
Meltral, once a trading post, had quickly grown into a city following the Great Betrayal, while the continent had once again split into different nations vying for control with the fall of the Virex Empire and the death of Emperor Noah Reyes.
With its neutrality guaranteed by trade and the agreement of the neighbors, it often served as a meeting ground for diplomatic issues.
He did not have the luxury to care about any of that now.
The medical suit was distorted to the indicated coordinates, far away from the city, closer to the border of the republic. A dozen drones equipped with high-intensity scanners buzzed around like a disturbed hive, seeking the entrance to the Arrival Point.
—
More drones were necessary to dig and then cut through the lead barrier, as well as to resupply his depleting nutrient tank.
Once the path was open, Thairon commanded the medical carrier down the hole, using the plasma thrusters to land safely.
The fabric of reality in this location was like a broken stained glass panel, with shards all around leaking hundreds of intertwined energy signatures from across the multiverse.
If what he needed could not be found here, then his chances were nonexistent.
That's why he had also brought an incinerator charge.
Sending drones with electromagnetic anchors for retrieval, the search for an appropriate energy type to fix his condition began.
—
Kelmar Kingdom
Glassport
Year 785 of the Imperial Calendar
In a lab complex hidden beneath the surface, a machine beeped in warning.
"Nutrients depleted. Recovery halted."
Thairon jolted awake inside the tank, as his dizzy mind tried to make sense of the words.
The nanobots permeating his body to serve an array of purposes also connected his consciousness to his computer system, and as his mind became fully aware, the scientist sought a solution.
Most of his lab was in a state of disrepair due to all the components he had to cannibalize in a bid to fix his condition, including the maintenance bots and the fabricators, which meant there was no way to repair the malfunctioning nutrient extractor.
His limbs had grown back, and the organs, while not fully recovered, would do for now.
To complete the recovery, he needed food immediately.
Activating the release protocols, the liquid inside the tank was flushed down quickly, disappearing into the drains built at the bottom, and two mechanical arms lowered him to the ground.
The mask automatically came off, and Thairon struggled to breathe on his own, something he had not been able to do for months.
Finally getting air to his lungs, he had a violent coughing fit on the ground.
His throat and larynx felt like sandpaper, dry and coarse, as his body had lost most of its volume, including the necessary bodily fluids.
The genetic modification had worked, and he was alive.
The nanobots, weighing four times as much as his remaining flesh and bone, were the only reason he could even move.
Crawling up once the fit subsided, Thairon inspected himself on the surface of the glass, too tired to use the scanners.
He looked like a starved naked mole-rat. His body has been in a state of extreme catabolic self-consumption for a year and a half now, and lasting any longer just isn't possible.
The symptoms, which started with cellular degeneration and were followed by systemic tissue necrosis, had reduced his body to a wreck.
Still, he succeeded.
Naked like the day he was born and stinking like a hospital room, Thairon crawled to the fridge. His body was in no state to consume anything, but the nanobots could break the food down to the necessary parts and repair his body, at least enough for him to start eating.
He felt like slamming his head on the fridge's door, but did not have the energy for it.
Either it was empty, or the inside was one moldy growth by now, and he quickly shut the door back once the smell hit him.
There were no canned foods or snacks, as he preferred fresh food, which meant the closest edible thing in the kitchen was the cooking oil.
—
Dressing, and every other movement in general, was torture. His body felt heavier than it was, the almost nonexistent muscles straining with even the smallest of movements, but there was no other choice.
He did consider calling Kael or Skyler to help, but he also didn't want his little brothers to see him in this sorry state. Already, he had refused to allow them in for the last year when the effects of the cellular degeneration and necrosis became evident.
Through the pain and difficulty of it, he had managed to get into clothes, which were oversized for his decrepit frame, and completely hide his body.
—
Lying down on the floor of the elevator as it rushed to the surface, a choice made entirely because he was in no shape to use the distorter to teleport himself, Thairon made his way to the Golden Telam.
It was a good idea to have it built close to the surface entrance of his lab.
One of the oversized muscleheads hired as guards called out to him, demanding that Thairon stop, as he was unrecognizable in his current attire, but the VIP door opened for him, and the man bowed with a thousand apologies.
Reacting was a waste of energy he could not afford, so he continued to walk, taking the stairs to the third floor, where he had private dinners.
An elevator would have been useful now.
"Welcome, welcome, dear sir; you have been away for so long, I had feared the worst. Your favorite dishes are already on their way. Do you desire anything else?" Lerus, the head chef of the restaurant, arrived right behind him as he stepped through the door.
"Everything," he gritted out, suppressing the urge to scratch his burning throat.
Lerus was caught off guard by the demand and even more by the coarse and dry voice, "Everything, sir?"
"Every edible thing you have. Bring them all. Now. No more questions." He could not waste any more time answering the man's questions.
"Yes, yes, of course."
—
The waiters carried a literal feast into the private floor, dishes from all corners of Asra, and he could not even salivate.
In fact, he did not have the strength to chew, nor the proper stomach acids to break down the food.
"Leave."
Lerus muttered a quick "enjoy the dinner, sir," while pushing the staff out of the private dining room and closing the door behind them.
Thairon pulled his hand out of the hoodie's pocket, laying his bony hand on the large, juicy steak, and the nanobots in his body leaped out of his skin like a hungry kezu, breaking the slab of meat into microscopic parts, and retreated back as another wave came out.
Bit by bit, the food on the table disappeared while the machines repaired his body one muscle strand at a time.
—
Consuming all the available food at the time took hours of work, but as he needed fewer nanobots to compensate for his bodily functions with each morsel, the process gradually sped up.
When the plates were spotless and the water jugs empty, he lay his head on the table, passing out with a groan.
—
Thairon woke from his food coma with a gasp.
His stomach was rolling, and he felt the urge to puke while his saliva glands worked overtime. His condition had improved marginally, but more nutrients were necessary.
At least moving without the nanobots to assist was possible now.
"System diagnostics," he muttered, and the nanobots constructed a crude holo projector.
The hive had used the waste from the food to bring the swarm to full operational capability and to refill its fuel reserves.
Internal organs and the cardiovascular system were back to 100%, but the muscular system only recovered to twenty percent of its previous state.
"Nax, tell them to bring more food," he spoke aloud rather than relaying the order through the neural bridge, since it took less out of him.
"Understood." The AI system relayed his acknowledgement through the bridge, straight into his remade mind.
The voice of his Neural Architecture Extension was glitchy, repeating the vowels while the pitch was all over the place.
He had to fix him, too, along with most of the laboratory.
—
His feasting spree had the chief worried, and while he would appreciate it any other time, now was not the time. He wanted to eat as much as possible before heading down to the lab to sleep for the rest of his recovery period.
The second course, just as lavish as the first one, was gone in the blink of an eye, and as his muscular system was being repaired one strand at a time, the nanobot swarms caused his skin to bulge and stretch, filling his sunken body with flesh.
He could feel his strength return with each passing second, and the nanobots became less necessary to keep his body from falling apart like the Lekonem.
His appetite sated and the necessary nutrients taken, Thairon pushed himself up, feeling the previously baggy clothes feel a little snug.
Ignoring the waiters and the chief, he entered the restaurant, took the hidden elevator down, trudged to his bedroom, and let himself fall on the bed.
He was asleep before his head hit the pillow, and it would take him a while to wake up.