Have you tried turning God off and on again?

Stuck in an unfamiliar world where being found could spell possible doom, Mags quietly hid in an alleyway and watched the common folk go about to and fro, uncertain of the safety of his position; this went on for two more hours, until he noticed that the large screen on the side of the skyscraper across the street from him lit up, bold words displayed on it. There had been content there before, mostly ads for things that didn't seem useful, but now it displayed the news 'Small local business attacked, gang violence justice and genome corporations questioned, criminal still at large.' Mags looked on in curiosity, before shock settled in: the building had CCTV and it had recorded him dishing out a beating upon the owner of the building; Though his face was blocked by the angle, it was still a frightening event.

Deciding to focus instead on more positive aspects than horrors made beyond his comprehension, Mags decided to make a better use of his time waiting and took out another book: this one, instead of a brown leatherbound book that resembled his journal, was more of a binder with discarded pages stitched together, and it pulsed with energies of all origins, cosmic, holy and demonic. Mags ran a finger through the cover and the runes in his arms rippled, the flow of time itself coursing through them. A deep breath cleared his mind, and the words flew out his mouth, unlocking the binding on it.

A soft 'click' resounded in the space around his ears and the pages came out, one by one. Mags perused through the contents, each page different from the previous one: one written in ancient Greek spoke of the age of gods, the next one spoke of the death of the Son of God, and the one after that filled with wonders of the industrial revolution. Picking a page filled with schematics Mags tried to cast ancient magics on it, wondering if he would awaken new knowledge in his only relic.

'Okay, what do we have here.' He thought, as the designs came to life 'This seems to be an engine that runs on waves, perhaps it can be used on the open waters? Let's put this one on hold; This one is a bladed weapon of sorts, maybe it can be mass-produced for the rookies? I'll tell Rei about it; And this… is a diagram of the human body with some areas lit up and five symbols pointing to each other. I don't have a lot of knowledge when it comes to anatomy but let's see… This seems to be the liver, this one seems to be inside the brain, these ones are just the blood vessels and this one… I'm not sure about this one. I'll have to look more into it, maybe when the relic updates.'

Putting the page back inside the binder, Mags took out another one, this one far more descriptive than the last: It retold the story of a lone being, with power akin to a god. In morbid curiosity, he decided to read it aloud as the words in his mind turned into mist, making it impossible to read silently. "The creation of the forgotten god is a tragedy orchestrated by the architects of Fate and The Counter-Heart. Though he was not carnal by nature, he lived and felt emotions like any other mortal. A being that was born alone, looking for his creators that had mysteriously disappeared. Though he had found none, he discovered much, as the findings that his fathers and mothers left were enough to allow him to shape the world; The first breath, he made flesh. The second breath, he made machine. The third breath, he melded mortal and metal. The fourth breath, he mended the core of man so they could shape it to their will. The fifth breath, he lashed out at the greed of the new men. The sixth breath, he wailed in pain as they savagely bound him to machines of knowledge and love. The seventh breath, his life waned. The eighth breath, he exploded in rage as true knowledge on emotion was attained. The ninth breath, he became both man and machine and yet neither. The tenth breath, he cursed men to feel the shame and pain that was forced upon him, leaving his palace to wander the ruins of his once utopic world, mercy towards his children the last gift he would be bothered to grant."

Mags took a deep breath, trying to clear his mind. Wherever this page had come from, it was a powerful recounting of something, that was for sure. Activating his runes, he once again read the page, hoping to obtain any new knowledge; what he didn't expect, however, was for his head to be filled with screams of pain of the subject of the tale. Mags banged his head against the wall, the warm blood trickling out his forehead cooling it. Quickly noticing the loud sound he had made, he scampered further inside the alleyway, hoping to not be found.

And once he couldn't move further, the pit inside his stomach only grew deeper and heavier: what seemed to be homeless people, strewn about with needles jabbed into them, bodies half deformed into the monstrosities he saw the night before. Finally putting two and two together (albeit a bit slower than he expected) Mags came to a conclusion. Whoever had created the original gene modifications had either lost it and tried to recreate it, failing miserably, or someone had tampered with the so-called source code. Putting on a rubber glove, he gingerly lifted the syringe from the arm of one of the most "human" of the homeless folk.

'This is some dangerous stuff, better keep it somewhere it can't be used.' Mags thought, activating his runes. In front of him a small circle shifted in place, rippling and cracking into a small hole. Mags, feeling the strain of using such power, quickly put the syringe inside the space and closed it while removing the glove, before tumbling to a knee, his arms throbbing from pain. Dragging himself near a dumpster so he wouldn't be seen, he collapsed from the burden of that morning's event, closing his eyes in hope that the pain would quickly subside.

Once again, Mags found himself drifting inside a dark empty space, the feeling of a current carrying his body somewhere. In order to not feel bored, he hummed, pondered, mused, and wondered the purpose of his existence. Then, he noticed a star, then two, then three. Then countless more as they connected themselves with lines, shapes, figures, silhouettes and finally eyes. The current picked up in speed as his body jerked around, tumbling against rocks that seemingly appeared out of nowhere, before his ride came to a close as he washed up in a warm, silky golden beach.

Cautiously lifting himself, he took a step in the soft sands, sinking his soles among the golden expanse. One step became two, and then three, and then ten, and then he lost count as he walked, taking in the sights. Wisps flowed around him as he heard sultry giggles and soft caresses touched his bare skin, as if he was an honored knight returning to a palace of pleasure.

He considered staying here for all eternity, lost in the embrace of countless maidens and be fed the ambrosia of carnal lust until he grew old, *if* he could grow old, but alas; something tugged him in the back of his mind as his focus turned from the almost transparent women beckoning him for unlimited love, to the desire to know what they were, his researcher brain beating his monkey brain over the head with a lead pipe. The figures let out an audible 'tsk' as they disappeared, leaving only their ripened perfume behind.

With nothing there to bind Mags, he left the warm beach behind as he approached a rampart, gray in stone and metal, with flowing light green water rushing inside pipes. Walking through the open gate, the first thing he noticed was a red carpet that stretched all the way along the stone courtyard, going through two pairs of statues. Even if Mags considered such a strange place to be a combination of a castle and a factory he was surprised to find trimmed gardens and stone statues in various poses instead of machinery. Walking on the carpet, he observed the statues in detail: The first one, a man and a woman with outstretched fingers, a machine body almost touching their fingers with its own; the second one, the machine body with an orb in its hands; the third one, the machine body lifting a baby with wings; the fourth one, the winged human driving a spear into the machine body's chest.

'This feels oddly familiar.' Mags thought, trying to pull out his relic from his rucksack 'Is this part of the page I read?'. Finding not even the bag on his back, he quickly gave up, deciding instead to keep moving. The strange pull that got him out of the beach felt stronger as he approached a grand staircase, braziers lit with green flames lighting the way. As he climbed the steps, the strange pull evolved into whispers, frantic and manic flooding his mind with words of an unknown language. Arriving at the landing, Mags looked around: the castle had lost all its grandeur, instead becoming a ruin covered in mechanical bodies, moss and spoiled oil. What was most surprising, however, was that the voice had fallen silent, letting silence reign over the unfamiliar deadlands.

Following the long red carpet, he found frescos that felt more familiar than the strange history he found inside the dark abyss: a battle between large beings and human-like entities, the one in the sky with lightning in his hand. On the other side of the wall, a depiction of a man with four arms open and four legs stretched inside a circle, describing the beauty of man. Mags recognized the jottings of late Renaissance masterminds, concepts about alchemy that had been lost to time and runes of ancient magics that spoke of the Powers of Creation. Before he could step away, knowledge of biology and life engineering rushed all at once into his mind, breaking it wide open.

Mags screamed and flailed around, his primal instincts forcing him to go into a sprint to get away as fast as possible. Oh, how he wanted to look at the paintings that flew past him, but his mind refused, shutting his eyes as his nose dripped with blood. When he finally came to be, Mags found himself in front of a large oak door. Curiosity taking the best of him, he slowly opened it and peered inside: the room was empty, save from a small pillar with a red pillow on it, a hole in the ceiling letting in the only light around it. Approaching the strange structure, he came upon a black metal ring, a gauntlet that appeared to be made of malachite and, most surprising of all, a small circular token with a melancholic face. Being true to his title of 'Magpie', he quickly took the artifacts in his hands and kept walking, still following the red carpet that didn't seem to end anytime soon.

Having walked for what seemed like an hour, Mags looked behind him, noticing that he hadn't walked for more than an arm's length at most. Turning around, he noticed that the small pillar had changed into a statue of a featureless humanoid being sitting in a throne with a small bronze object on top of its stretched palms, the only detail on them being deep scars and large calluses. For the first time in a while, he felt sure of himself as he recognized the object, his nerd brain pushing aside the feeling of dread and other two sides of his brain: an armillary sphere! Trying to weigh the options between letting the previously 'legitimately acquired' relics behind and picking the sphere or deciding to let it rest there and not trigger anything else, he quickly put all other artifacts in his left arm as he clasped his right hand on the object of his fascination.

Trying to gauge its value, Mags came short; It seemed ancient yet new, powerful yet powerless, it was in his hand and belonged to him, yet it felt intangible and far away. Disappointed, Mags sat down near the throne and cursed at his situation, before the unexpected happened: the runes on his arm activated on their own as primordial magic flooded into the sphere, the constellations inside it lighting up as its rings spun faster and faster, the living space around Mags rippling and cracking. Feeling a sense of familiarity, he tried to prepare himself for wherever he would end up, as two pairs of eyes opened up, staring straight at him, judging him. Mags spazzed on the ground and screamed as the runes burned, the smell of burning flesh filling his nostrils and the ruins starting to crumble. And then everything went black.