A massive magic circle hovered high in the sky, lighting up the te evening cityscape as a multitude of aerodynes flew around, along with rge amounts of emergency services and military poputing the streets.
Sarah & Norah, both being princess-carried by two soldiers, were unceremoniously loaded onto an aerodyne as the engines spooled up, getting ready to take off into the sky.
Norah stumbled slightly as the soldier let her down on the ground. She made her way into the aircraft, with Sarah following close behind.
“You kids be safe, alright?”
“Right.”
The soldiers turned, running off to their colleagues as the aerodyne’s doors closed, leaving them sitting in the military aerodyne’s cargo hold, along with a couple of soldiers.
One of the soldiers turned to the two girls, his expression hidden beneath his power armor’s helmet.
“Hey, get your seat belts on.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
They rushed to get their seat belts on, as the aircraft began lurching off towards the sky, flying off into the evening with its passengers.
△▼△▼△
“We’re coming to you with breaking news, fresh out of Nyg?rd, with the military issuing an evacuation order for the area around Bergen Technical Gymnasium, where a disordinate amount of energy has been channeled into a single building. We’ve got our technical correspondent, Lars, on the scene, who can give more details about the ongoing situation.”
The view switched to a man standing in front of a holographic police barrier, the letters [CLOSED AREA - DO NOT CROSS] leaving no room for misunderstandings as to the reason for their presence.
“Thank you, Isabelle. The current situation was discovered approximately 42 minutes ago, as a grid technician was alerted to an extremely elevated power draw going straight to the school’s workshop building.”
The man gestured behind him, pointing his hand in the general direction of the mass of military personnel that nearly block the view of said building entirely.
“Details as to what exactly caused this extreme amount of power draw are still unknown, as the military is still investigating. However, according to figures given by the grid service, the building has drawn around 2 quadrillion joules of energy, which is a simir amount of energy as that stored in a tactical nuclear weapon with a yield of approximately 475 kilotonnes of TNT. If the energy were to be released, it would level most of Nyg?rd, dealing a massive blow to the city’s barrier defences from within.”
Isabelle, appearing in a window beside the view of Lars, spoke again. “And this stupidly rge amount of energy went into a single building? Is that even possible?”
Lars thought for a second.
“...As far as current technology goes, it should be entirely impossible. There is a reason that these kinds of energy scales usually only are relevant when referring to entire cities or nuclear weapons. It doesn’t take a physicist to realize that fitting that much energy into a single building should be impossible… Hold on, something’s happening!”
A group of soldiers came out of an aerodyne, carrying a rge metal container between them.
“...That’s a containment unit used to transport dangerous, highly energetic objects. And the soldiers appear to be entering the building with it.”
“...What kind of implications does this development have?”
Lars’ expression shifted, portraying deep concern. “It could mean that whatever caused this situation is small enough to fit into the containment unit. Which doesn’t make sense, especially with the immense amounts of energy involved… Maybe a significant portion of the energy leaked out to the environment… No, that would…”
Lars stopped, as he spotted the soldiers leaving the building, the containment unit now glowing softly as they rushed towards a man in an SMB uniform.
“They are exiting the building now, and it seems like the SMB has arrived on the scene. Whoah-”
As suddenly as he appeared, the man grabbed onto the containment unit, a magic circle appearing beneath him as he vanished in a fsh of magical light.
“...And he teleported away. Figuring out what exactly is going on by ourselves would be nearly impossible, so we will have to stay tuned for an update from the government. This situation is awfully anomalous as it is, and anything we can come up with is nothing but specution.”
Isabel nodded. “Right. Thank you for your time, Lars.”
The scene shifted back to the newsroom that Isabel has been sitting in since the start of the broadcast.
“We will continue giving updates as the situation unfolds, though any concrete developments or answers will have to come from the government themselves. Thank you for watching NetNyhet, we hope to see you again soon.”
The livestream cut off, as the people in the room rexed, no longer feeling the pressure of the millions of people that were watching them. Though, a trace of unease remained in the room, as the sudden situation had abruptly interrupted the daily lives of the people living in Bergen.
△▼△▼△
Man, this pce is fucking cold.
“So, do I just leave it here, or what?” J?rgen asked, standing in the middle of a white expanse, with the rge containment unit resting on the snow before him.
<
“Yeah, yeah. Pricks are probably going to be grilling us for not putting it on the moon. Yeah, put an unstable… thing, with enough power to level a whole fucking city, on a space pne to send it off? Knowing the Americans, they’d probably threaten some poor bloke into flying the pne, were they in the same situation.”
A chilling wind swept through the frozen pnes of Greennd, J?rgen barely being protected from the -50 degree winds by his SMB uniform’s temperature control systems.
<
“Yeah, probably shouldn’t be sticking around. I’ll get back to this little sucker ter.”
A minute after he had appeared, J?rgen executed yet another spell, the magic circle swirling around his feet as he yet again disappeared in a fsh of magical light, the space around where he had been moments ago noticeably twisting before easing back to its normal state.
△▼△▼△
I’m kinda surprised they didn’t revoke my workshop pass after that whole ordeal.
Norah was watching a live stream from a news channel on her computer, despite it being a school day, since the school had closed due to the evacuation order and ongoing investigations by the government into the incident of yesterday.
I mean, I did kinda shut down the entire district, but the SMB guys that questioned me were quick to assure me that this whole thing would be swept under the rug. Guess that also means I get to keep my workshop pass, and I certainly won’t compin about that.
“[...However, more details about the nature of the anomalous object have been withheld, as the government has moved it to a secure location in Greennd for further analysis and eventual containment. In other news, Nyg?rd is now open again, and daily life for the workers and students of the district will resume tomorrow. The incident hasn’t done any sting damage, as the anomalous object was surprisingly stable. Due to-]”
The video cut off, as Norah paused it, deciding to do something else. She got up from her chair, and sauntered over to her bed, picking up her FD headset and preparing to dive.
Well, I may as well enjoy my unexpected day off, right?
Norah donned her FD headset, lying down and rexing as the headset whirred to life, whisking her away into the digital ndscape of her computer’s lobby.
The endless expanse of the white grid met her as she awoke.
“I should really get around to customizing this pce. It’s super boring as-is.”
A multitude of windows appeared around Norah, as she began scouring file systems and copying files.
Gonna fetch the open source full realism physics simution system… The map for the little coastal town, customization tools, and of course, their dependencies…
The different files she needed began downloading or copying over to a newly created lobby addon directory, as she opened the code for the lobby itself to make some necessary modifications.
…On second thought, might want to make it a copy. Yeah, let’s do that.
Norah copied the code for the lobby, renaming the [lobby addon] folder to [custom lobby], and adding the lobby code to the folder.
And now we do the modifying on the new one.
She opened the code file, and was met with a veritable wall of text, with a high, but still inteligible amount of complexity.
Huh, professionally made stuff. Got the telltale signs of several people working on it as well. Right, let’s get this big guy running a custom environment, and addon compatibility.
The code shifted, as Norah’s bioprocessor worked together with the FD headset to rapidly interpote her thoughts and intentions into functional code. Half a minute ter, she finished up, closing the file and waiting for the addons to download into the folder.
Right. Gonna go ahead and run it once everything is together before compiling it to see if everything works.
A minute ter, the st of the file transfers finished, and Norah loaded the custom lobby… Or at least tried to.
“...Huh.”
She looked over to the error log, finding that the entire thing had crashed because of a single missing value.
…Might want to check this thing over again. I kinda did rush it a bit, even if the modifications weren’t that extensive.
△▽△▽△
The environment loaded in, pcing Norah in the backyard of a small house, with the ocean in view beyond a small waist-height hedge with a road behind it.
The small road stretched across the ndscape, a bike path pced beside it as the grasses on the dunes that were barely visible from her position swayed in the wind.
On the other side of the road, facing the ocean, were a small group of buildings. One was marked with bold lettering as DANSENTER, while another unmarked building stood nearby, connected to the same small parking lot. Beyond them, was a well known ice cream shop from the small vacation town.
“Ahh… This is nice.”
The simuted Danish summer sun shone brightly, bringing summer warmth to a Norah who usually has to deal with the biting cold of the Norwegian winter around this time of year.
Norah turned around, looking at the unfamiliar house.
…As I expected, the pce would be different in another world. This looks nothing like the old summer house we had… But I reckon I should change that.
In an instant, the entire building disappeared. Repcing the modern design that was primarily cube shaped, a new house began forming, created based on Norah’s memories of her old summer house.
A simple, white house with a gable roof, an elevated covered terrace facing the ocean, with stairs leading down to the backyard, along with a small path leading to a small gate through the bushes, and onto the road.
And now, for the final touches…
Furniture appeared within the house, along with a fgpole in the backyard. However…
Which fg should I put up there?
The Kalmar Federation’s fg would be the first choice of Norah, with her having lived in the country her whole life. But then again, she has memories of her past life, and the only reason she even picked the pce was because of it's connection to her past life.
“...”
Norah was conflicted.
What should I do here? The KF’s fg? The Dannebrog? Heck, maybe even the Norwegian fg?
“Hmm…”
Norah decided to have a look at the current Danish state fg. Taking a moment to look it up, what she found was the ordinary Dannebrog she knew, yet with a small addition to the upper left corner. Instead of the pure red that was there in the original fg, it has half of the square painted in the KF’s yellow & red colors, with the other half being in the Danish red and white. This formed a cross within the upper left square, with the cross being divided into separate triangles.
And then…
Looking down at the bck hoodie she, or rather her avatar, was currently wearing, she could see the Norwegian state fg above bold white text that said NORGE. It was mostly the same, though with a simir addition to the top left square as the Danish state fg, with the upper left square of the nordic cross having a simir Norwegian/KF cross inside.
“Hmm… Oh!”
Why not just do all of them?
And Norah did exactly that, duplicating the fg pole twice to make three fg poles, with the fgs of the KF, along with the state fgs of Norway & Denmark, appearing on the fgpoles, gently swaying along to the simuted wind.
And that’s the complete environment! Though, there is a little extra to do here, since this has to be my lobby, and thus my window into other applications, along with the rest of the net.
A metallic ptform appeared in the middle of the back yard, a terminal sitting on top of a pedestal, ready to be used for intuitive access to the digital world.
Alright then. Now, there is one st thing to do.
She walked up to the terminal, and scoured through the settings of the FD program, finding the designation of the default lobby environment.
And done! Now this is the default environment. I’ll load directly into this pce instead of the boring infinitely tiled expanse!
Norah twirled around, feeling the gravity, the feeling of her foot sliding across the metal surface of the ptform, along with the air passing around her.
This is so much better than just being a vaguely human shaped entity in some featureless pne. I could probably even use this as my main simution space. Could also bring in other people, with how the lobby works… However, there is one scenario where I’d want the default lobby environment.
A wn chair appeared, as Norah flopped down into it.
I’ve set this lobby instance up so that if it crashes, I’ll load into the normal lobby instead of just being kicked out immediately.
Crashing in a FD application is usually not very pleasant, especially if the developers didn’t set up proper crash handling. You’ll just instantly jolt awake for a second, before being whisked away a second ter as your lobby loads. It’s something people call dipping, as you dip into consciousness for a moment before being forced back into FD, and I’d really rather avoid it if at all possible.
Norah rexed further, leaning back in the padded wn chair and adjusting her sitting position, making herself comfortable.
△▼△▼△
Magically formed bullets of light smmed into the ocean with great force, as a certain blue haired girl flew around, knocking spectral training drones to kingdom come with both powerful magical attacks and magicule imbued fists.
Another drone came flying, trying to get a lucky shot in from behind. Instead, it was met by a foot traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of sound, annihiting the spell holding the drone together, along with the projectile it was about to fire.
She stopped in the air, halting after her aerial drop kick. A magic circle appeared as a spell was formed, calcuting the positions of the enemy drones and forming projectiles with according parameters, targeting the simuted combatants.
In a fsh of magicule radiation, the spell executed, as the projectiles rocketed towards the simuted enemies, with enough bullets hitting their mark to annihite every st simuted enemy in a massive fsh of chaotic sparks.
With all the simuted enemies dispatched, she disengaged her combat state, her aura going back to an ordinary environmental radiation output as she floated down and nded on a small yacht.
“Well done, miss Kromberg! As usual, your efficiency and power are steadily increasing with your usual training routine. However, again, you should be mindful of the manifestation process. It might not be very appealing to you, but do study up on manifestation theory for next time, alright?”
“Alright!”
Sarah continued on past her magic tutor, barging into the interior of the yacht she currently found herself on.
Ugh, more studying. Why does it always come back to that? I’d much rather be doing things practically than writing a bunch of crap onto some document, or even worse, reading some boring ass book.
She plopped down on the sofa, rexing as she brought out her phone.
“[This is your captain speaking, your aerial transport back home is en route, and will arrive in 5 minutes. Remember, we are always happy to serve the Krombergs, and bring you the most comfortable boating experience possible. Thank you for your continued patronage.]”
Well, of course nothing good sts forever. As much as I’d love to fly around and smash drones into oblivion an entire day, that wouldn’t exactly be healthy for me. I’d get magicule burnout within a couple of days, and then there would be no more fun aerial battles for at least a few weeks. Ugh…
Sarah leaned to the side, flopping down and rolling so that she was lying on her back.
But hey, at least I can just game when I get back home. Nothing beats the real thing, but simutions don’t give you magicule burnout! And you can py with friends who would otherwise be way too weak to py with you in real life!
She continued pying the city builder game on her phone, pcing down buildings in a neat pattern to create an aesthetically pleasant city skyline.
Time blurred as the 5 minutes passed by in a fsh, her being alerted to her transport arriving by the sound of muffled jet engines approaching her location.
Well, better get going.
She flipped upwards, flying through the air for a second before nding on her feet and sauntering towards the helipad, where an aerodyne sat, waiting for her arrival.
“Miss Kromberg, your transport has arrived. Do you have any luggage?”
“No. Let’s just get going.”
She walked up to the open door, climbing inside and plopping down onto the luxurious leather seats, settling in with familiar ease as the pilot entered behind her, turning towards the cockpit.
The aircraft’s jet engines roared to life as the aerodyne lifted off, flying over the ocean towards the city that was still far out of view.
“...”
Yet, no matter how much she tries to distract herself from it, despite the reassurances from everyone she knows, that same nagging feeling of something not quite right was still yanking at the back of her mind.
Norah… I hope you’ll be alright.
She looked out of the window, peering over the ocean as they flew high above it, the occasional boat coming into view as they raced across the sky.
Tasriel