Chapter 13

  A New World

  Maia stirred awake, squinting against the morning light filtering through the cracked pane of her cabin window in the Dame.

  A soft buzz hummed in her vision, her overlay flickering to life, icons shifting and drifting in the periphery. She rubbed her eyes, trying to shake off the remnants of sleep, when a strange pattern of symbols caught her attention, pulsing faintly in a shade of deep blue.

  That was weird, her overlays never alerted her to anything first thing in the morning like this. They usually only reacted to different types of technology. At first, she thought it was some glitch in her overlays. Her control device that she normally kept over her ear was just by the bed and she reached over to reset it. Then realised it was already off.

  What the hell?

  That can’t be right, she was seeing the overlays, it couldn’t be off?

  She bolted upright in her bed. The Arcanum system! She hadn’t seen it since she was a kid. Her father had set it up, calling it a “guide” for her scrav-powers. Over time, though, she’d practically forgotten about it. Her father barely mentioned it anymore, only occasionally asking if she got prompts for anything related to her powers. Otherwise, he’d left it alone, as if waiting for something—some signal she’d never picked up on.

  But now, here it was, waking itself up after years of silence.

  She sucked in a breath. These were her scrav-powers. This was what her father had meant every time he asked what her overlays told her about her abilities. She vaguely remembered seeing it once, ages ago, back when she was too young to make sense of it.

  Shadow Dash and Phase Evade. She couldn’t recall ever doing anything that matched those names before.

  Curiosity flickered in her mind, sparking a thrill she hadn’t felt in ages. Maia slipped out of the Dame, her bare feet touching the dry ground, the sun hadn’t yet scorched it and it felt cool underfoot.

  The Arcanum system pulsed again, displaying a faint, translucent map in her vision. It marked landmarks she hadn’t noticed before—a cluster of stones overgrown with desert moss, a trail of faint footprints leading out toward the horizon. Even the temperature shifts of the land came alive in her vision, layers of warmth and coolness undulating like waves, all insights she hadn’t realised she could access with her overlays. With a thought the map receded to a corner of her field of vision.

  “Everything alright?” Matthias asked. He was already busy packing up the Dame to get back on the road.

  How much easier would her journeys have been if she’d had this all along? The system seemed to sense energy patterns in the landscape too, overlaying subtle traces of life that appeared as faintly pulsing light. It was… extraordinary. She couldn’t believe she’d let this tool lie dormant for so long.

  Slowly, Maia extended her hand towards a clump of thorny brush nearby, watching as the Arcanum displayed the plant’s life energy. Beneath the ground she could see its roots pulsing with a gentle green light that mirrored the rhythm of a heartbeat.

  Her scrav-powers tingled faintly at her fingertips, responding instinctively to the information in front of her. She didn’t drain the life this time, only hovered on the edge, marvelling at the energy coiled inside each twisting branch.

  “Ohhhh Archons!” Maia blurted, her voice bursting with a mix of awe and exhilaration.

  “What is it?” Matthias asked, concern written all over his face as he hurried toward her.

  “This is what the Arcanum system could do this whole time?” She spun to face him, her eyes bright with excitement. She felt like she'd just uncovered a hidden treasure.

  “Um! Hells yeah, I do!”

  “Has it always done this?” Maia whirled on her father, barely able to contain herself.

  “What are you talking about Maia?”

  “This!" She gestured at the floating Arcanum text boxes, still glowing faintly in the air around her.

  “I can’t see your overlays,” Matthias pointed out.

  “Oh… right.” She instinctively reached up to her control to enable sharing, only to remember she hadn’t even put it on. But as if reading her intent, the Arcanum system responded, and the displays became visible to Matthias.

  "Huh," he grunted, nodding with mild appreciation. "Impressive… mine doesn’t do this.”

  “These look like notes from someone called a Lead Ecogenesis Archivist. You know what that is?” Maia asked, eyes scanning the detailed text.

  “If I were to guess,” Matthias mused, “some Verdant researcher? They surely did a lot of research on our planet’s flora and fauna… we’ve salvaged a lot of data archives from all Verdant junk over the years. Maybe a lot of this data’s just been buried in those that we never got around to digging through.”

  “Flora and… fauna,” Maia repeated, eyes narrowing as an idea struck. The Arcanum overlay cast Matthias in a faint, pulsing purple light—similar to the green aura she’d seen over the plants. Curious, she extended her hand toward him, and the floating boxes fuzzed and shifted, new fields flickering into appearance.

  "Whoa…" Maia breathed, eyes widening. "What’s ‘Sacred Ravager Vessel’ supposed to mean?”

  “It’s us. Scravs. But Sacred Ravager Vessel is a bit of a mouthful,” Matthias said tightly. She watched his gaze flick over his profile, his shoulders relaxing as he scanned it.

  “‘Overreliance on Life Drain abilities,’” he scoffed. “My ass. I barely use ’em.”

  “Why is so much of it locked?” Maia asked, frowning at the restricted sections marked as [Locked].

  “Hmmm,” he rubbed at the stubble on his chin, “It says the data is coming from a mix of what your overlays already know and can see, plus info the Arcanum system has stored. So, a lot of this is just scrav basics and assumptions. But it’s… surprisingly useful.”

  “Yours doesn’t do this?”

  “No,” he tutted, “would be pretty handy if it did… I know that the Verdant designed the Arcanum System to supplement scrav abilities, that it works with them. Maybe your Life Drain ability is a little different to mine. Could be that it’s feeding you info on your target’s state when you focus on them.”

  “But I’m not draining you.”

  "Not fully, no. But there’s a small, subconscious connection when you focus. I’m blocking it easily, so there’s no harm, but… yeah, you’re pulling a bit.”

  Maia stumbled back a few steps, the text boxes vanishing as a look of horror swept across her face.

  “I was… I was trying to drain you?”

  “It’s okay… like I said. It was weak, and I’m blocking against it easily. Likely another reason why so much of that information was locked from your senses. We’ll only make a little distance today and focus more on practising your abilities. Give you more control.”

  Maia wasn’t so convinced. She felt disgusted at herself that she’d been subconsciously trying to life drain her father. The thought terrified her. What if that had happened with Nix or Lani, or anybody else? Someone who didn’t know how to shield themselves from her.

  But that train of thought only further cemented it in Maia’s mind that she really needed to figure out how to use her abilities properly… Even if that meant absorbing the life from a few plants to figure that out.

  "We’re in no rush today, Maia,” Matthias gave her a steady, reassuring look. “Take your time with it. Control comes with practice.”

  She nodded apprehensively.

  Maia followed her father back to the Dame. She tried to shake off the nagging guilt, focusing instead on the road ahead, of what was waiting for them in Lindrao. She’d learn to control her powers. She’d always known that she would one day need to.

  As she climbed into the passenger, the engine roared to life, her father firing it up. The wheels crunched the earth as he drove away from their camp.

  Maia’s gaze drifted to the desert stretching beyond them. It wasn’t long before her mind wandered back to the Arcanum and its functions. Despite the realisation of how it was gathering that information, she couldn’t deny how useful it was.

  As if in response to her thought process, the Arcanum overlays appeared casting faint, pulsing colours over the landscape. There was far more life than she'd ever noticed before—subtle greens and golds, small flickers of blue from hidden patches of moss or hardy shrubs clinging to survival in the sands. Tiny notes of moving patches red which she figured were likely small animals. SHe thought then about insects and microbial life her vision became dominated by swirling colours. Okay, don’t focus on the microscopic life then. It returned back then to more obvious lifeforms. She was beginning to realise the Arcanum system was very adaptive to her own thoughts and intentions. Showing her overlays only relating to what it thought she wanted to see.

  They passed a cluster of cacti—highlighted vibrant green by the overlay—and she opened her palm towards them, but she was too far away and moving too fast for her abilities to make a connection, so no information appeared. That was okay, there would be plenty of time later to toy with that.

  She watched, mesmerised, as these patterns of life dotted the wasteland, each pulse of energy unique… intricate.

  Something else caught her attention in the wasteland. A strange dark shape, barely visible, flickered at the edge of her vision. The light that this thing seemed to pulse with was not exactly light, but with a kind of dark energy. As if pure blackness could radiate a light. It felt like a deep absence in the spectrum of life she was beginning to see. The shadow seemed to shift and twist as if aware of her gaze.

  She blinked, trying to focus on it, willing her overlays to bring it into view. But when she looked again, it was gone. A shiver crept down her spine, the sense of being watched settling uneasily in her chest.

  "Maia?" Matthias’s voice pulled her back.

  “Yeah, ba?”

  “Want to pick us a tune?”

  “Oh yeah… sure.”

  [Now Playing: Losu Track #26: ]

  Maia tilted her head, smirking at the unexpected prompt. She hit yes and was flooded with information about the track. Losu, as it turned out, had been a Cultural Archivist for the Verdant and had been tasked with recording and archiving music and songs across their world.

  She skimmed through Losu’s notes, detailing where he’d found this specific song, the names of the musicians, the history and origins. Even Losu's thoughts on the tune’s cultural impact. Maia felt a surge of fascination as she read the archivist’s musings.

  Grinning, she sank back into her seat. For her, this was going to be a very interesting drive today.