Aster - Prologue & Chapter 1

Prologue: Travel Hazards

 It was a stormy night in the North Atlantic and a Captain was guiding his steamer through the waves, with a serious and calm face, while at his side, a well-dressed gentleman was looking at the horizon with a nervous face.

"Traveling to Avalon at this time of year is never easy, at least we won't have to fear pirates, this further within the Hy-Drasil belt of islands, on a night like this. Right, Captain?"

"Not so much Mr. Drayton," replied the Captain calmly. "While it's true that most wouldn't have the balls to try out in a storm like this, the worst of them love it. Steam Zeppelin patrols do not leave the Avalon docks. Besides, it's easier to avoid sea guard patrols and, if a ship goes missing... it was the storm. "

"I'll definitely be happy when I see the island lights," Drayton commented, as looking even harder to the horizon.

After a time, too long for Drayton's taste, amid huge lightning that ripped the skies, the lights and silhouette of the island of Avalon were revealed. Like an isolated colossal pillar of black rock, rising more than 2 km above sea level. As the freighter approached, the details became more visible in the thick rain.

"Impressive as ever, good thing I don't have to climb stairs from Wooden City to Upper City," Drayton commented to the Captain.

Then a huge bolt of lightning seemed to hit the upper east corner of the island, with a great flash and a loud roar.

 I hope the storm has not affected the vertical subway, Drayton immediately thought, wondering if he would have to use one of the inns in the port city.

"Only an hour behind schedule!" Said the captain, while looking at the pocket watch, which was marking 10 pm. "The storm didn't delay us as much as I thought it would.

"The important thing is that we arrived in one piece," Drayton replied, looking relieved to see the harbor.

"And luckily it looks like the storm is subsiding to a downpour; it will be easier and faster to unload your cargo, Mr. Drayton." 

"That's good too. The sooner we're done and I can sleep the better, but remember to be careful when unloading the cargo. You know it would be a disaster if your freighter or the port were…damaged," Drayton said, hesitant to choose the last word.

"Yes, that's why you sought out the best smuggler, and that's also why I charged double and upfront." Answered the Captain, with an arrogant smile. 

 Chapter 1: The Awakening

Avalon, an island of ancient mysteries, whose unusual shape of a wide and tall pillar of black rock in the middle of the ocean, gave rise to myths and legends. It was being buffeted that night with lightning and strong winds of a storm, so common to its population that the most part of then slept carefree, without imagining that, that night, the storm would awaken something that would affect everyone.

One lightning bolt, among many others, ended up hitting a house in ruins, in an abandoned part of the Upper City. Something unimportant at first, but this bolt made its way through an old and forgotten electrical conduit, to a closed and dark chamber, partially flooded underground and in a thunderous flash activated machines, long forgotten, which, faced with the immense energy, overloaded, but even so, with tenacity they tried to fulfill their programming.

Moments later, a cylindrical capsule opened, revealing inside a humanoid figure, trapped by cables. The figure fell forward, disconnecting from the cables and going straight to the ground, its impact against ground cushioned by the water before sink completely.

Silence and darkness returned to the small room for a few moments and then lights coming from the being began to illuminate the environment. Slowly, the humanoid figure rose from the waters, getting on its knees, with the water a little above the waist. It looked curiously at his own hands as he raised them, as if to understand that they belonged to him and discover how they worked.

The being's vision was hampered by warnings taking up a large part of his field of vision:

Alert multiple system failures, it said and followed by a list of failures, some of Software informing that they were being repaired, others of Hardware, showing parts that were no longer functional.

"Corrupted database, low main battery and reserve power level seem to be the most critical points," she said in a beautiful female voice as she cleared her vision of the warnings with mental commands.

"But what... who am I?" What place is this? She wondered as she looked down at her hands and then around.

"What are these machines? Machines... I know they're machines, but I don't know what they're for… and I didn't even know that word existed... until I saw them..."

"A table, a metal shelf, tools ..." She continued to identify what she saw in the small chamber, illuminated by her light.

"The database! That must be one of the effects. I hope I can communicate with others... are there others? Beyond these walls is there anything?"

She got to her feet and surveyed the surroundings, but there wasn't much to see.

"So many questions, doubts, but priorities. First, I have to secure my... Life? Existence...? Can I say I'm alive if I am...? What I am? Am I a machine?"

"No, wait, I don't have time for this, I don't know how long I have until run out of power. What I am won't matter when I run out of energy."

She checked the machines, however, any energy they had already had been depleted. Then, she checked every part of the small room and realized that if she wanted to continue to exist she would have to find a way out. Moreover, the only way-out seemed to be a large metal door, raised off the ground just above the water level, with no doorknobs or locks, which took up most of the opposite wall to which the machines were located.

Facing the door despondently, she said:

"The big hinges show that it opens inwards, the problem is how to open it. Doesn't look like I can break it in using force."

She looked around again, looking for useful details.

"It has what appears to be a lever or electrical switch on the side and a motor built into the side wall that I supposed it's to open the door," she described to herself, "but without power it won't work."

Standing in the dark in knee-deep water, she watched the battery power level drop from 38% to 37%. She checked the spare batteries, 10% and 12%, and looked again at the motor on the wall.

"Either I use my last energy to activate the door's opening mechanism, which may not even work anymore, or I spend the rest of my existence... waiting for the end."

Then she filled herself with determination:

"To beyond that door or die trying, standing here lamenting I won't!"

She walked over to the engine to analyze it, it was made of brass and copper and the chances of it still working were good, he just needed to figure out how to transfer the power. She turned her attention to a square of rusty metal on the same wall where the engine was, she had already seen it while looking for energy sources that there ran thick cables, one coming from above and entering a closed metal box and from that box came three, two towards the engine and one towards the machines.

"Two leads, hopefully one positive and one negative, otherwise it's going to be hard to figure out how it works. I'll have to cut them open to find out what they look like under the insulation".

She turned to the metal table against the opposite wall to pick up a saw, which was among other tools, noticing that they were all too crude to build any of the machines in the room; she also noticed a worn and stained paper that had escaped her attention. before, which read in the few un blurred words:

"You were right, it was a mistake trying to finish No. 6, I should have left sooner..."

"...they destroyed the transmission tower... ", "...this letter... "," ...the entrance to the ruin.", "...I've already sent almost everything, it's just..." , "...come and get me quickly...", "...secret dock..."

"I'll be happy when I have time to think about something other than finding a power source and can try to answer the ever-increasing list of questions!" She picked up the saw and went back to the wires.

After giving up trying to open the metal box and finally sawing the two cables, she found that the most likely thing was that one was positive and the other negative, but it was impossible to tell which was which.

"It will be trial and error in the end," she said, putting the saw aside.

"Now the hard part. Disconnecting my main battery and connecting the cables, while using the spare batteries.

"Better transfer power from main to reserves first". When trying, however, an error warning appeared, it was impossible to transfer the energy. "Couldn't it be the easy way?" said her.

Then she extended the main battery compartment out of her chest like a drawer.

"Lucky that, at least the information about how I work, hasn't been all corrupted".

She disconnected the cables that were connected it to the battery, starting to depend only on the reserve ones, and improvised a connection to the cables of the wall.

Joy flooded her when a red light came on in the engine and then a green one and then a red one on the electric switch next to the door. The door system was still working and she got the cables right by first try. However, when she tried to reach the lever, she could not, the cables were short and if she tried to reach, they would disconnect. There was no way to get the battery out of her chest and to make matters worse, the energy in the spare batteries was draining away too fast, at a rate of 1% per second, something was wrong with them.

In desperation, she tried to reach the lever; she just had to lower it to open the door, a small and simple movement, but could not reach it, not without releasing the cables and cutting the power to the door. With desperation mounting and the batteries draining fast, she grabbed the saw for extra reach. She hit the electric switch lever with a quick, hard swing, bringing it down.

The red light turned off and a green one came on, and a loud crack was heard, but then, darkness swallowed everything and after the sound of something falling heavily into the water, it was the turn of silence to swallow everything, to the point that it seemed that nothing was left in the world. As if, that small room had never existed as well everything that had happened in it and that everything had disappeared in the silent darkness.

For a time that might as well have been an eternity or a mere instant, everything remained unchanged. The darkness and silence, invincible, covering, like a shroud, everything that the little being, who had fought so hard, had done until that moment. But the silence was broken by a slight creak as the door opening and a trickle of light, coming from beyond the door, pierced the darkness and illuminated the chamber.

In the dark, on her knees and hunched forward, she finished closing the battery compartment in her chest and began to relight the external lights on her body. In her field of vision, she saw the energy levels: thirty-four percent of the principal, zero and two percent of the reserves.

She looked towards the door and saw that it had worked, but as soon as she got to her feet, she saw the door slowly begin to close. With a scream, she jumped desperately, grabbed the door and went through it. She soon calmed down; happy that she no longer would be trapped in there. The first thing she noticed then was the uneven floor, which, being higher than the one in the previous room, was not covered with water, the floor covering had been almost completely torn off exposing the pure rock, and, when she looked up, she noticed that the walls had the coating even more torn off.

"Walls...more walls, will there always be other walls?" She regretted shortly before realizing that the environment was lit by a light that did not come from her, but from a source above, in the ceiling.

As she looked up through a square opening in the ceiling, she saw the sky, the clouds, and beyond them the huge Full Moon and beyond the stars.

"So infinite!" She exclaimed amazed and hypnotized by the beauty of the night sky, remaining motionless for a few moments.

"As long as I can, even if infinite walls are in my path, I will follow, because, apparently, there is always something beyond."

Revived by the sight of the sky, she looked around and noticed in one corner a ladder that would take her upstairs.

"Better get something to wedge this door and get some tools, they might come in handy.

She turned to fetch the tools and slammed her face into the closed door.

"I hate this door..."

The door blended in so well with the rest of the stone wall that it seemed to have disappeared as if by magic, and nothing in this new room seemed to have the function of opening it. She tried to push, but the door would not budge.

"I can't use any more energy to open it again," she said, turning away from the door.

The staircase led to another room as bare as the last, although the floor and wall coverings were relatively intact. The door leading to the stairs that she climbed up from, was destroyed and was apparently disguised to look like a simple wooden cupboard. She then followed to another staircase that also went up.

Reaching the surface at last, she found herself in a desolate place, in what appeared to be the ruin of a house in the middle of a quagmire or perhaps a swamp, which, except for a single dead tree beside it, lacked any vegetation.

As she explored, she discovered that in one direction the floor ended in a great chasm with a distant sound of crashing waves and in the other direction, in the distance, a wall of rock, but what looked like a path up and beyond the top could be seen, even further away, towers and chimneys lit by yellowish lights.

"A city! Now it's easy, just one direction and nothing impassable on the way", she said in excitement­. "It's ­Just find someone to help me. It shouldn't be that hard to find a source of energy to recharge and finally have some answers to my growing list of questions".

It wouldn't take long for her to find out that it wouldn't be that easy.