[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/FM92P8l.png[/img] [h1][color=ed145b]Sarah[/color][/h1][/center] Just as she turns to leave, Sarah is aware of something... happening. She pauses, looking around, but then it happens... [quote] "Sarah.." a familiar, singsong voice chimes into existence, "Sarah, are you there?" An image of Asra appears in Sarah's peripheral vision. "I'm back, oh good, I'm back!" The Fairy giggled in happiness.[/quote] Sarah is half-tempted to consider this yet another miasma-induced mirage, but at this point she's just glad to get some extra information about who and what she is... and why did she wake up in a capsule in a cave? [quote] "You must've found the sword then, good, that is so good. I was worried the Wizards had failed. There is so much to tell you, so many things have happened. Where do I start? From the beginning I suppose. I'm going to run out of time, so I'll tell you everything I can before my power runs out, you had better sit down."[/quote] Sarah pauses, but takes a seat, if only to rest her legs. She didn't have much time either, but she supposes a few answers would be worth it. What followed was a long, confusing tale about a lost civilization, a Dr. Drake Logan, and the keys to uplifting and advancing a civilization, only for it to collapse when the very key to its salvation became the instrument of its doom - Harbinger. Seems like whatever ancestors she had, they had chosen... poorly. [quote] "Before I went offline I was part of a protocol knows as the Oracle program. You see, for Dr. Logan's science to work perfectly the human body needed to be perfected, just like having a clean circuit within a computer. Oh, you don't know what a computer is, well, that's okay, believe me when I tell you, human's have bodies full of dirtiness. You, however, you were made perfect, in the image of a god. You were grown to channel Biogenic energy through your body without resistance, so what you channel is pure." "You need the circuits to aid you, until you learn for yourself. The circuits are the Swords. They were designed to link to your body and allow you to channel your internal life energy into matter. This sword will allow you to channel your energy into lightning, as you can already feel. Every sword has two boosters that you can find, a battery which will double the amount of power you can focus into the weapon, and a bracelet, which will allow you to pull from Harbinger itself and release destruction 100 fold of what you could normally. Your kind alone are made to be trusted with this power.[/quote] She was... created...? Created to be perfect? Was she just some craftsman's creation, made to fulfill a purpose? The possibilities left Sarah a little uneasy, and she almost missed the bits about the biogenic energy within herself and the use of the sword as a... focus? Yes, [i]focus[/i] seems like the best term for it. It still feels weird for Sarah to have a fully developed vocabulary without the lifetime experience of developing and improving it. Still, the idea of having woken up with only a name, no memory of herself, and now a destiny to fulfill was a tad intimidating for the girl. She certainly didn't [i]feel[/i] like some perfect being. If anything, she imagined this is what a scared little girl would feel. Though she felt it was unnecessary for Asra to insult her creators by calling the humans 'dirty'. For if Sarah is supposed to be some pure, biogenic-channeling superhuman, what did that make her creators, one who could not channel that energy nearly so well? Sarah wanted to have words with them, but somehow Asra unintentionally insulting them was mildly amusing. [quote=@Maglar] "I've run out of time, find others like yourself Sarah, find others, and find more of the swords. Learn to use their power. The wizards will help you, they...." *SCHZITZ* "...an evil has reached out to Harbinger..." *S@CT!$ZCH*... "deeper in the caves you will find... "!SK$#ZTCH@%$. . ... As suddenly as she appeared, Asra was gone, and Sarah was once again left alone in the caves with her companion Pip. [hider=SYNOPSIS] Sarah has learned about the history of the Oracles and the swords. Now she has an understanding of how to use the sword and why it works. She also has a hint as to the fact that she was created in the pod to be a perfect, god-like creature. Also, Our lady spider is chomping down on some poor towns person, I recommend you hurry, you may be able to save the little person from their death, maybe. Good luck!! [/hider] [/quote] Sarah wants to call out to Asra, to tell her to keep explaining more. However, Asra had made it clear her time was short, so Sarah glumly accepts the fairy's hurried farewell, and hopes to see her again so she could ask more questions. For now, she has to get out of the cave, and figure out what this Harbinger business is. [color=ed145b]"Come along, Pip,"[/color] she tells her companion. [color=ed145b]"We need to get going. The sooner we leave this cave, the better. And we need to warn Master Thunderfist about these creatures..."[/color] [color=orangered]Pip barks in agreement, and hurries along besides her, wagging his tail. It's good to see New Master in good spirits like this.[/color] However, Sarah quickly realizes that while going into the cave was easy with the sense of the sword leading the way, going out was going to rely on memory and careful backtracking. To her chagrin, she had misread a path and found herself someplace... unpleasant. It looks and feels unpleasant, like a home for all those creepy little spiderlings she ran into earlier. It's then she hears something, like something biting down, and a weak struggle and moan. She feels a shiver down her spine, but something was telling her to hurry, to find the source of the sound. It wasn't going to be pleasant, but she needs to be there. [color=orangered]Pip looks up at Sarah and whines anxious. He can smell... many things. He can smell the spiderlings, thicker on the ground and more in number. He can smell their foul nest, the home where there'll be much more of them. He can smell something even worse, like a bigger and meaner version of them. But then he realizes he can smell... the villagers! He sniffs the ground a few times to make sure. Yes! It's faint, but he's sure. The villagers were here! Maybe the spiderlings took them? He looks up at Sarah and barks, then looks in the direction of the nest, alternatively growling in apprehension and whining uncertainly.[/color] Sarah, coughing on the miasma, notes Pip's behavior; he seems both anxious to go ahead and afraid of something. Part of her is afraid of what she'll find there, but Pip wants to go, or part of him does, anyways. She grips her sword, and feels the biogenic energy flow from her into it. She is at least better armed this time. Better to move ahead with caution. What she finds horrifies her; people suspended in thick, sticky webs, dazed and moaning when they can be heard, or limp and apparently lifeless. Were these the people from the village? Did the spiderlings do this? And if so, why? Or was there something else in here? She reaches out to feel a hand to make sure it's not another hallucination - and to her surprise, it isn't. The people are out cold, but not dead. She goes in deeper, motioning to Pip to stop growling as they hurry along, trying to find where this cavern of horrors ends... ...and then she sees something that could be described as a nightmare made flesh...