Self Induced Amnesia

The infusion of knowledge made my head spin, it took quite a bit of effort to keep myself alert as my surroundings changed. I vaguely remembered bits and pieces but it was all so hazy from the amount of knowledge that was put there. My head throbbed and one of the new thoughts came to the forefront of my mind, it was information telling me that basically my brain wasn't evolved enough for the amount of information it held and I needed to quickly use this new knowledge to pull some old knowledge out for safe keeping. I was hesitant to pull it out, knowing that there was a loss every time it was done, but as if anticipating my thoughts some schematics came to mind that showed me a lossless system that could be constructed using some natural materials, most of which seemed to be close at hand. Indeed, almost everything I needed was here in this sheltered area I found myself in. It was a small crevice hidden between some rocks that were rich in resources, more than enough to construct what I would need, the only problem was I found that I had nothing to work with. My own nakedness shocked me, I had never known a jump to remove all possessions and yet here I found myself with nothing. Once the shock passed I was once again aware of the increasing pain I was going through, my head felt like it was going to explode and I needed to act quickly. Once again the necessary knowledge came to mind and I got to work gathering the things around me that I would need.

It was strange as the first device came together, it was like watching my body on autopilot yet I knew exactly what it was doing. It was like I had done this before and it was so familiar to me that I could do it even in my sleep. As the progress continued moving forward, first making the tools then the technology I became less and less aware of what was going on around me. The pain was so great that nothing mattered but following the directions I had in my mind. I hadn't realized how quickly technology could be created with the right knowledge of the materials you were working with, though I knew some of them I had never touched before now. It seemed like hours working through the pain, but when the final device was activated and most of my life previous to these events left my head I was aware that only perhaps 40 minutes had passed. How had I done all this so quickly? I wasn't sure, perhaps there was something I knew at one point about making myself move faster but it was gone. I knew that I had previous knowledge and that it was in this ingenious little chip that I was now holding and that I could not have this knowledge back until I could find a way to contain it again, perhaps the secrets of my quick work were contained in it and perhaps not, someday I hoped to find out. Until that day I needed to keep this little device safe, and so I quickly used the tools I had to create a container to hold this precious thing and keep it safe from harm.

With my head clear I quickly took note of my surroundings. Outside of the safety of the rocks was a small forest and a field beyond it. The rocks made up part of a huge mountain that I found myself standing at the foot of. I inspected my surroundings as best I could to make sure my secret spot was safe and carefully put my tools away before venturing out into the woods. I would need many more materials to make the things I would need before venturing forth into this world and I knew they were likely to grow among the trees. My mission was clear, I had much work to do but would need to make contact with the natives to get their help in completing all that I had to in time for the events that were to come. It was strange knowing what the future would hold and having instructions from myself in order to prepare for them, but they didn't detail every step, which was good as I had to learn all the knowledge I was to put into my own head in the future.

Being in the past was strange, I knew I could do so much damage here and yet I had to be here in order for the future to be what it would be, at least that's what I was assuring myself of in the knowledge infusion. I wished I could once again have the knowledge of the future but it would probably kill me to take it all back now. As I contemplated the situation I had put myself in to ensure my own survival I finished gathering up the various plants I needed and returned to my work area. The plants would create fibres and cloth for me to then create clothes from, then my appearance should be less of a shock to the natives when I found them. It didn't take long, the tools I had made before worked easily with these raw resources to create some simple pants and a shirt, I wouldn't need shoes as the beings of this planet embraced nature and all that it provided. I had also constructed a backpack to hold my belongings, they seemed a bit heavy, which surprised me, I would have imagined that I carried such tools often and yet my body, though strong, seemed to have never carried the burden in such a way as to have it slung on its back. As I made my way through the forest I gathered up some fruits to take with me, I also made sure to stop by a small stream and fill my water bag from it, it would be a long journey to reach the closest town, I just hoped the knowledge I had of this world was accurate enough to lead me there safely.

NEWS: Moving Forward

I have written the next post in the story, it will show up tomorrow at midnight, I am assuming that would be my time which is Mountain Time. I will not be continuing the daily posts, that is just going to be too much work to keep up with and so I will continue the story at my leisure. I actually do have some idea of where I'm going with the story this time, so I hope it is still enjoyable to read and hopefully I can fill the path to my planned destination with lots of little twists and turns for our hero. As always, I enjoy seeing your comments and thoughts about my writing, so please feel free to discuss.

I am also hoping to eventually include other tidbits of the goings on of Sorven in the future as well, perhaps a bit of in-game blogging such as the numerous mining logs I see except encompassing a bit more. I will tag such posts as In-Game and the posts pertaining to the story as Story to make it easier to follow the different things I write about. I have also created a Sorven Twitter account so you can see his accomplishments, I don't know if I will use that any further than just in-game activities, but we'll see, there are always many possibilities. Anyway, I hope you all stop by tomorrow to read the latest part of the story and also continue reading the future posts that will come as well.

NEWS: Taking a Break

Well, I feel I've done pretty well with the story so far. I have decided that today's post offers a nice opportunity to take a little break in the story and I will take advantage of it. I cannot say when my next post will be, but there will be more to come at some point in the future. I do hope you have all enjoyed the story so far and will enjoy it when I start it back up again. If you have any questions you can leave a comment or send me a message on either the Entropia Planets Forums or on the Planet Calypso Forums. When I start writing again it may not be every day, we shall see what I decide when I get it going again.

Destiny

It was strange, the symbols seemed to be directions and I felt that they were specific directions for me. They instructed me which technology to take from the tables and where I needed to go with each particular piece. I informed Nira and Ambri what I was reading and that I wanted to see what would happen when I followed them, they advised me to be careful and then continued their exploration of the other items that weren't needed. I made my way around to different chambers within the ruins, placing the pieces of technology that each room, with its hidden instructions, required. When I put the technology in its hidden slot the power in the room shifted, activating the item that had seemed so dead or unfinished. It was clear that the process was turning on a much larger piece of technology that had to be hidden away. Every time the power shifted in a room new instructions were shown to me and I continued on to the next task, eventually finding my way into a chamber that had been sealed off completely had it not been reactivated by my tasks. Once I entered this particular room my thoughts about this place changed completely.

I had thought this was some very ancient civilization that had destroyed itself, but that clearly wasn't the whole story. There were no hidden symbols in this room, I understood the technology well enough to know what I was dealing with, my question was, how did this technology get to be in a place this old? I had Ambri and Nira join me before doing anything more, it was just too strange to have this thing sitting before me. When they arrived they were as shocked as I had been, they had seen the schematics for this technology before, I had shown it to them when I was designing the next generation of this stuff. It sent a shiver down my spine though, I knew what the instructions were asking me to do but I didn't want to, I had no idea if this would add or subtract from my being, but there was really only one way to know for sure.

We checked everything we could, trying to confirm that it would add, it appeared to be so but there was so much technology that was hidden from view that we couldn't be absolutely sure. Ambri and Nira both volunteered to try it instead of me, but I knew that it was meant for me. Something had designed this and knew I would be here and follow the instructions and find myself in this position. So all I could do was sit and activate the single button on the chair. Once the button was pressed my head was filled with images, symbols, translations, tons of things that were familiar yet alien at the same time. The technology of this world quickly became so clear to me, how it was made, what it was for, what I should be able to do with it, and most importantly to me at that moment, what the energy device had been and how to reseal the thing inside of it, however the information didn't stop there, it kept coming. Years and years of history filled my head, things that had been done in the past, but not memories, more like instructions for what needed to be done, I wasn't sure what it was all about until the last bit of information entered my head, as it came in I knew what was going on, but it was too late, my sitting here in the chair had caused the rest of the facility to activate and now that I had the information my fate was sealed. I quickly tried to react but all I felt was the familiar sensation of being translocated.

Hidden Things

All about this chamber were tables covered in various stages of projects. Some involved studies of the creatures that had lived upon this world, others were clearly studies into botany and the properties of the plants. There were some technological projects as well, however they weren't at an advanced level that would show that the civilization here had constructed the containment device. I spent some time marveling at the skeletons that were constructed, the creatures looked so fascinating, I wished I could have seen them when the planet had more than just plant life on it. The technology was simple in its construction, it was evident that all of it had been hand made and worked as finely as the tools could shape the pieces. There appeared to be the makings of time devices and different optical enhancers as well, one of which changed how I saw the room. With the glasses on, that surprisingly fit my face, I could see the lines of energy flowing through this room. The door was distinctly dark, no energy was flowing to it, while the lighting in the room was much more evident where it was coming from. Though it wasn't a crystal technology it appeared to have some very similar properties. Following the flow of some of the lines I could see another location that was very well hidden where one should be able to control the door to this room, however I also saw some hidden symbols in the energy patterns that I felt were much more interesting.

I had just about finished translating the symbols when Ambri frantically reached out to find where I had gone. I realized that she had returned to the door and when I wasn't there thought something had happened to me. I responded quickly and said I'd have the door open in a moment. So without having finished my translation I went to the control location and opened the door, then removed my glasses so I could see the world in a normal way again. Once the door was open Nira and Ambri quickly rushed in, they stopped quickly in their tracks however when they saw everything that was in this chamber. They had many questions about what I had discovered and how I had opened the door, all of which I answered to the best of my ability, still unsure of what some of the things were. When I got to the part about the glasses I made my way over to the table and grabbed some for them to use so they could see what I had discovered. Once they slipped them on they stopped listening to me and instead started looking at all the wondrous sights there were to see when you wore this little piece of technology. I took advantage of this time to continue my study and translation of the symbols.

Under the Ruins

Unfortunately the sleep had not been very restful. Apparently we all had strange dreams about the place we were in and as such didn't sleep as soundly as we had desired, though it was odd that we all had had the same type of dream. After discussing it for a bit we figured out where the dream had taken place and went there. Some quick searching in the area revealed what we had all witnessed in the dream, the entrance to the lower levels of the ruins. We packed up what we believed we would need, some of which had been shown to us in the dream, and went below, hoping that what we had envisioned wasn't just a chance thing but would actually lead us to what we were seeking. In the dream everything had been so clear, for some strange reason we had known where we were going and it was the same for us now as we began our descent into what should have been the unknown. The light we used came from a crystal torch we created, we had saved a few sizable chunks of crystal in case we needed to develop some very specific technology and this, though not advanced, was specific enough. We used a basic energy to charge the crystal, it provided a white light for us to see by without any side effects, such as the heat or cold we had gone through before. It was all very strange as we continued our journey, we knew where we were going though we should have had no ideas about this place at all. Becaues of this I kept my guard up and Ambri sensed my apprehensions about the visions and remained alert to the things around her as well.

The various chambers were fascinating and we passed through them as we each had in the dream, our focus was to find the end that we never saw when we were sleeping, there would hopefully be time later to check out the rest of the things that were down here, but for now our curiosity drove us forward. As we turned the last corner we remembered in the dream we came to a very large door. Pressing upon it revealed that it was closed tightly and far too heavy for any of us to move it, so we began looking around, trying to figure out how it worked and what would trigger it to open. Unfortunately none of us had reached this point in the dream, so there were no hints to go by except for the items we had brought with us, however none of them seemed relevant to the problem. Taking a closer look at the door revealed very fine lines and patterns etched into it, along some of the lines were symbols in the language of the people of this world and so I got to work interpreting it all while Nira and Ambri continued their search for other clues.

Their search ended up taking them pretty far away when I started to understand how to work the door. They didn't hear me either when I yelled and so I decided to go ahead and get it opened, I knew they would come back eventually. Using one of the energy torches we had created I traced the proper lines to form the symbol that would activate the control mechanism in the door. Having done so the symbol I traced illuminated and the door opened slowly and quietly. Once it had opened fully I proceeded forward into the chamber, which responded quickly to the light I had and illuminated with the same type of energy, though there were clearly no crystals present. As I looked around the enormous chamber I didn't hear the door slowly close behind me until I felt the last bit of air flow stop. I turned around quickly and saw it was closed, there were also no lines or symbols on this side for me to trace and so I knew I would have to find a new way out, though I would worry about that once I explored all the wonderous things I saw around me.

Clearing the Ruins

It seemed our ploy was quite successful, the ship had not shown up yet, which meant we either kept ourselves pretty concealed or the fake ship was still going strong. It was hard to tell how long the ship would last, we didn't have time to watch the energy decay before we deployed it. We had found plenty of time to go through the ruins, however nothing turned up that helped us determine how to fight our enemy. We learned much of a rich culture that the people of this planet had lived, but nothing of any sort of technology that they possessed that would have eventually led to the creation of the device we had studied. It was good that we still seemed to have more time, our next bit of exploration would take us into some of the deeper parts of the ruins we had been wandering in. The entrance wasn't obvious, but we knew it was there. We had dared to activate some scanners to tell us if there was more to this place than what we saw, and the scans showed us some caverns going deep beneath us.

Clearing up the plant life to see if we could find the entrance was very time consuming, some of the plants had sharp thorns and so it took us awhile to carefully cut through them. We even employed some burning techniques to clear it up when we had made sure it wouldn't spread further than we intended. All in all the ruins started to look pretty clean as we continued our search. As the day started to turn into night we went back to the ship to get some rest, it had been an exhausting day and we still had a lot of work to do to figure out where the entrance was. Once we had all sat down for a simple meal we began discussing the various things we learned about the civilization that had lived here. Each of us had found a different part of their history and, though it was all fascinating, there wasn't much useful information about what they were capable of or how they designed the ruins that we were exploring. When we finished our meal I double checked that all of our technology was off, save for the one simple device that would detect and alert us to any gravitational fluxes. After I was sure that everything was set we all turned in and got some much needed sleep.