| Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1, and Google Gemini Pro, powered by Lyria 3 |
Mandica has become a ghost. She sat in a cool-looking chair where a helmet
read her brainwaves, and generated an authority profile for her. Now she can
go anywhere she fancies, and the automated systems won’t register her as an
at-risk organic human. That doesn’t mean she’s going to run head first into
danger, but it gives her that option. The other normal humans are limited
here, and she doesn’t want that. She wants to be free. That’s why she risked
everything just to come to this planet. Trilby is gone now, so she is alone.
He said that he had to get back to where he belonged, and kind of made it
seem like wherever that was, it was a secret. She doesn’t know much about
his backstory, just that he’s been all over, and since they first met, he
has spent a lot of time on and around Bungula and Proxima Doma, which are
Earth’s nearest neighbors.
She’s looking over the modified prospectus that he compiled for her, and
finding herself gravitating towards the red zones, which he said were way
too dangerous for someone with only one life to live. The green ones sound
boring. In one of them, you pretend to be a pioneer. Like, okay, she likes
period pieces, but that’s way too much work for no gain. The reason real
pioneers did all that was because they had to. Why are you trying to go
back? Anyway, like she’s one to talk. She has an unhealthy obsession with
medieval times, particularly the legend of King Arthur. She should have
explored this information while she was still on Earth, but it looks like
there was nothing to worry about. She searches for the keyword
Mordred, and finds a dome called Loegria, which is the realm where
Arthur lived, as well as Merlin, Guinevere, and the Knights of the Round
Table. It looks fascinating. She’s been cosplaying as Mordred’s lover for
years, but that was only one companion. This is a whole immersive world for
her to explore.
She’s about to tap on the link to map and schedule her vactrain trip, but
then she notices something. At the bottom of the page is a carousel showing
other similar domes that she might be interested in. The main dome here is
literally called Castlebourne. It’s not Camelot, and is in fact, not an
adventure dome at all. It’s where the big boss lives and works, along with
his staff. No, thank you. If she’s ever gonna get caught, it’s going to be
by running into a bona fide administrator who knows that she’s a fraud
because she wasn’t at the end of the year party last year. But the third
recommendation. It’s called Mythodome. She taps on it, and starts reading
about it. This place sounds insane. It doesn’t limit itself to only one
Earthan mythology, but just about all of them. All these gods and creatures
coexist in the same environment, and have evidently figured out how to
reconcile their contradictions naturally. The NPCs genuinely believe that
this is all real, and there is no world beyond the walls. She has to see
what that’s like.
She taps on the VISIT NOW link...and it takes her to a pre-registration
form. Oh, no, this is a problem. She can physically enter any dome, and pass
through their internal security systems, but she doesn’t actually have a
genuine identity. She can’t input her name, and she doesn’t even
have a Castlebourne Visitor ID number. Trilby said nothing about
this, but this isn’t the right route. The way she gets into Mythodome is to
schedule the vactrain herself and walk in without warning. She knows that
she can do that. That’s how they got to Capital yesterday. It takes longer
than making a schedule ahead of time, but when you’re potentially traveling
to the other side of a whole terrestrial planet, it’s not that big of a
deal, and it’s her only choice. Is she ready, though? Is she ready for this?
Perhaps not quite yet. The prospectus gives an overview of what being in the
dome entails, but another link leads to this whole subnetwork of pages,
talking about all of the mythological beings. It tells her how the stories
unfold in the real world, and how these contradictory entities intermingle
and adapt to a shared universe. The AI, Thistle can prepare her for what
she’s about to face.
She taps on that, and asks it to generate a syllabus. She spends the next
two weeks taking a self-directed crash course on the subject. She absolutely
does not learn everything there is to know. Scholars could spend years
studying this environment. She believes that some academics actually visit
Mythodome specifically for that purpose, with the intention of publishing
papers and-or teaching classes that have never existed before. This is
enough for now. If she doesn’t place a boundary here, she may never, and she
will never actually get to go on her first adventure. So she shuts off the
tablet, drops it on Trilby’s bed, and leaves.
To her surprise, a vactrain pulls up for her as soon as she taps on the wall
interface. Usually, someone going on an impromptu trip would have to wait
longer for the right train and right route to be available, but it zooms up
like it knew what she was going to ask for. There is no train schedule. It’s
based purely on need and interest, and a version of Thistle is constantly
shifting it to account for more information. Others, in fact, are waiting on
the platform because theirs have not arrived yet. But the transit token on
the pod’s display matches the one that the system assigned her. It’s an
express train, though, which is very weird. Maybe admins always get those?
But no, because she and Trilby didn’t have that the other day. They still
had to change to connecting trains. As she enters the private pod alone, she
looks back awkwardly at the waiting legion, but none of them seems bothered
by her skipping the line. Immortals—they have no sense of urgency. She will
never understand it, and honestly does not want to.
The pod takes her directly to Mythodome, instead of via a hub first. She’s
in the intake plaza now, and about to head for the main entrance when
something catches her eye. That transit token should have only been relevant
to her trip here, but she sees it on a hologram on the wall, along with an
arrow pointing to the left. She’s hesitant to respond to it. But for the
briefest of moments, the hologram changes. The words
THIS WAY, MANDY flicker just long enough for her to see, but
hopefully not long enough for anyone else to notice. She follows the
directions away from the main entrance. She has to. If she’s
already been caught, then walking in the opposite direction isn’t
going to insulate her from the consequences that they have in store for her.
It’s going to delay them at best. The lights take her to a different door,
which leads to a set of stairs, which leads down to a tunnel, which leads
her to a second set of stairs, and a second door, but this one is
horizontal. She walks back up and opens the trapdoor to find herself on the
edge of a forest clearing. It is incredibly beautiful here. It reminds her
of her favorite spots on Earth; the ones away from all the crowds.
Suddenly something races overhead, from one side of the trees to the other.
It comes back, but is higher in the sky this time, and barely visible. There
are a number of things it could be, like a Fury, a Roc, or even a Cherub. Is
this it? Not even a month into her trip, and she’s already about to die?
When it swoops back down, she starts to see that it’s a man, and the wings
look almost artificial. He lands gracefully on the ground before her.
“Mandica Kolar, thank you for accepting my invitation. I’m Daedalus.”
