“Overlay 62-16 direct observation. Report the first.”

  “Commence.”

  “Overlay process and impacts on local sentient and non-sentient species within expected parameters. First instances of generative Arcanic Release Points observed, identified and catalogued. First instances of primary species Arcanic Evolution observed, identified and catalogued. Five exceptions outside of normal parameters identified, one of which is among appointed observation targets.”

  “Detail appointed observation target exception.”

  “Mature male of primary species has achieved fourth degree of empowerment and remains stable.”

  There was a pause as this information was digested, analysed and considered. In a ‘typical’ Overlay event, most primary species survivors would achieve the first degree of empowerment, but few would progress beyond that due to lack of opportunity, knowledge or access to empowering entities. Third degree empowerments were rare to the scale of one-in-millions. Fourth degree meant a confluence of events, intent and good fortune that were exceptional even in the most benign of situations. This would bear further observation.

  “Report: Bearer of Codex.”

  “Immature female of primary species. Direct offspring of previous observation target. Second degree connection to Codex. Contribution to superior entity generation is proceeding within expected parameters.”

  Nothing significantly outside of expectations there.

  “Report: Detail instances of generative…”

  “Arcanist Prime!”

  Although the monitoring team were not ‘in a room’ in the traditional sense, there was nevertheless a stunned silence. In their collected memories, never before had the Arcanist Prime been interrupted.

  There was a moment, thick with anticipation.

  “Report.” The word was sharp, bitten off. The tone and delivery promised an unpleasant future if this indignity did not have truly incredible justification.

  “Ah… Arcanist Prime. Previous report no longer accurate. Observation target is progressing to fifth stage of empowerment! Current evolution… is stable, with fluctuations within expected parameters! How can this be?!”

  The monitors – although strictly speaking not requiring the drawing of breath in their current incarnations – nevertheless seemed to draw in shocked breaths at this breach of decorum.

  “Achieve clarity, Observer! Direct proximity observation directive, de-prioritise other targets until resolution of fifth degree empowerment is resolved. Notify immediately if intrusion occurs.”

  “Understood Arcanist Prime. Transferring to direct proximity observation. Report ends.”

  “Matt? What’s up?”

  “It seems like a funny time to be playing musical statues.”

  “Matt! What is….”

  The voices faded into the background, all of Matt’s focus concentrated like a laser on the crackling energy arcing across the room from the locus to his outstretched hand. Still several feet away from the distortion, he was struck by how clearly he was perceiving it. Not just with sight – though this fifth locus was fully visible and giving him “Star Trek nebula” vibes – but with other senses beyond the five that he had grown up with.

  Bracing himself for the expected explosion of pain, Matt was shocked as instead there was a feeling of acceptance from the energy coiling within his core. With previous attunements – even as recently as the one just this very morning - the pain had burst into his body like the proverbial bolt of lightning. This felt entirely different. That had felt like a forced intrusion. This was a clean connection, like plugging in a familiar old appliance. A completed circuit now performing its intended purpose.

  The surprise this engendered was swept away by the sensations flooding his awareness. Every sense seemed to merge together into a single, cohesive experience. The pinpricks of light – or maybe energy – that he had sensed when attuning to the locus at the church were now connected with trails of light. Flowing motes which sailed along paths of brilliant radiance. With a sense of wonder he realised that these pathways were infinitesimal in size, but somehow were clear to his… sight? Glowing threads perceived as mighty rivers. Threads he might reach out and touch…

  He sensed rather than saw beacons of energy in what might translate to close proximity. Some were bright, radiating what felt like pure positivity. Even within this he detected nuanced variations – though of what, there was no indication. It was all so new, so utterly alien that there was no frame of reference. No means with which to begin to understand the vista of feeling and intent laid out like a grand tapestry. There was no sense of movement, but it was as if reality itself changed to reflect a new position. Like an old movie, jumping between frames to create a juddering movement – but with the perfect fluidity of a clear mountain stream, caught in a series of snapshots of natural perfection…

  Other beacons drew his attention. Less prominent, but no less noticeable. As if nothing could escape this newfound awareness. Feelings Matt could only describe as negative overwhelmed many of these, their radiance guttering like a candle threatened by an errant draught. Others were…

  Hostile.

  The first identifiable sensation burst out of these, flooding into an aura around each. A constant throb of need. Of hunger. Here and there, clusters of these hostile presences were tightly grouped, creating a concentration of… not evil, but something antithetical to peace.

  It’s all so confusing… Matt’s mind started forming coherent thought again, desperately trying to make sense of the chaotic deluge of information.

  He felt the energy reach a stage of completion, the arcing connection to the locus fading. Newfound power merged from the stream into the gently circulating source inside himself. Physical sensation returned – just the slightest hint of a nerve firing. Then another. Soon, a new cascade of information flooded into his consciousness, like senses awakening for the first time into the hubbub of a city street. He was overwhelmed, struggling to catalogue even the most familiar sights and sounds, staggering as muscles cramped up. Muffled voices cried out in alarm, but these were eclipsed by a horrid tearing sound. Matt looked up sluggishly, as above his head the air itself ripped apart in a jagged breach. Beyond this an ocean of darkness rolled, bulged and collapsed.

  Matt’s eerie extra-senses screamed a primal warning as a presence emerged from this ocean, arrowing unerringly for the breach. Swiftly eclipsing the animate darkness, it was power without form. Magnitude without size. The promise of annihilation without reason.

  Frozen before this advancing doom, Matt became aware of other presences. Hidden, but now revealed in a burst of intangible energy. Two beacons, prominent beyond anything he had yet seen – with the exception of the looming entity approaching the tear. One felt passive, neutral. It seemed to take in all around it without touching or influencing in any way. The other…

  …was pure intent! Matt realised, a moment of clarity crystalising in the chaos of everything. It reached toward the rift in the air – not with hands, or even definable movement – but with a focus of manifested power. He saw threads beyond counting flowing from this power, wrapping around the rift and constricting it, snapping it closed as if it had never been. Another expression of power seemed focused on sealing the area, rendering it inviolable.

  For an instant more, Matt perceived the two entities. Beacons of light, of contained power, greater but also more alien than those he had sensed earlier. He could feel the weight of their awareness settle on him, then they were gone.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Lara’s cry made Kira jump as she sat leaning against the headboard of the bed. Carry hurried through the door from the next room.

  “What is it Lara?” Carry asked in concern.

  “It’s gone now, but it was right there, in the corner.” Lara pointed to the other side of the room.

  “What was?” Kira asked. “I didn’t see anything.”

  “It was like a light, but felt… I dunno… more?”

  Carry and Kira wore identical expressions of confusion. There was no sign of anything in the room, and the patch of wall Lara was pointing to was exactly as expected.

  “Could it have been you getting used to Oswald’s thing?” Kira asked. Lara had been enthusiastically updating her friend with details of the things she was now able to make out. The rays of sunlight filtering through the windows, motes of dust dancing in the air currents of the room. The individual lashes on her friend’s eyelids. But just as often, she contradicted herself, changing the description of a particular feature as it became clearer.

  “No Ra! It was there. I saw it, then it was gone, like it blinked and didn’t come back.” Lara replied, her tone adamant. This was what their group of friends called her ‘honest voice’. An undercurrent of determination used when something important to her needed to be said. It was never made up, and always thus far truthful.

  Carry looked around in consternation. The cats had been restless while lying around the girls but now seemed totally at ease.

  There’s so much we don’t know now, she thought. How are we supposed to know what to do?

  She laid a hand on Lara’s hair, brushing back an errant wisp. “Well, it’s gone now, so that’s the main thing. It might be something that only you can see though, so please let me or one of the other grown-ups know if you ever see it again, okay?”

  Lara nodded, closing her eyes and lying back once more. Kira looked at Carry with questions in her eyes, to which the adult could only shrug and smile in practiced reassurance.

  Reassurance that Carry did not feel herself.

  The feeling of security had only slowly returned after the awful invasion by the rat swarm. The thought of some stealthy intruder made her feel Alan’s absence more keenly. Leaning down, she ran a hand along Nala’s back, taking comfort at the engine-like purr which reverberated around the room.

  Now more than ever she wanted her man back by her side. Regretting the enthusiasm with which she had embraced Matt’s idea would do no good. Giving Nala one last stroke, she strove to quell the feeling of unease as she rose and looked longingly out of the window.

  “Overlay 62-16 direct observation. Report the second.”

  “Commence.”

  “Observed subject has achieved stable fifth stage of empowerment. Tier one intrusion detected and negated. Agent confirms complete seal of rift. In addition…” The voice tailed off, nervousness somehow communicating itself over incalculable distance.

  “Proceed Observer.”

  “Observed subject indicates possible awareness of our presence.”

  Hushed silence filled the not-room, as the monitors digested this supposition. Their role was one of essential control, of oversight and steering the fate of untold trillions with an unseen hand. With the myriad variations in perception across the cosmos, detection did happen, but it was to be avoided whenever possible. The revelation of the monitoring process had severe potential cultural and societal impact. Indeed, in the past wars had been fought and civilisations reduced to rubble by the hysteria accompanying the revelation of the Arcanic Council’s presence and mission. More stringent protocols and safeguards were put in place to reduce instances of detection. Peaking behind the curtain of the universe was to be discouraged. The knowledge of what lay beyond was the purview of the Arcanic Council. Great trouble was taken to ensure it stayed that way.

  “Observer. Enact second tier of non-detection protocols. Continue observation of primary and secondary subjects and report on further developments.”

  “Understood, Arcanist Prime.”

  “Agent. Assignment parameters remain constant for now. Observation and negation of intrusions. Report on frequency and tier of each intrusion. Elimination is not authorised at this time.”

  Matt turned to face his friends, exhaustion making him slump against the wall. Arlee stepped to his side, holding his hand and looking him over for signs of injury.

  “I’m fine Arl, just totally knackered that’s all. That was… a bit much.” Matt reassured his wife, though internally his thoughts were in turmoil.

  The initial experience of seeing… feeling… perceiving the connections between what he assumed were living beings had been mind-blowing. But then what followed had been straight out of science-fiction. The air torn asunder, an opening to… somewhere else. Whatever that thing was that had been racing toward the open door…

  Lastly, the intervention of… something else totally unknown. In his trance-like state, Matt had been aware of the presence…

  No, presences, he thought, remembering the distinct feeling of the roles each of the mysterious entities played. The Watcher and the Do-er.

  Urk, can’t I come up with anything better than ‘Do-er’? My brain must be fried.

  His reminisces were interrupted abruptly.

  “Mate, ’a bit much’ is not going to cut it. Don’t go all mysterious on us - what the fu… sorry Arlee - what the hell just happened?” Alan was more agitated than the others could remember seeing him in ages.

  “First you don’t get a normal zap, then you keep us waiting for a couple of hours, then other weird shit starts happening above your head. Have you just done something stupid?”

  The group were taken aback by the vehemence in Alan’s voice. The usually calm, rock-solid foundation of their group, this was the first time he had expressed any serious doubt or dissent over their actions.

  Matt was surprised at the length of time he had apparently been locked within whatever event he had been experiencing. He took in his friend’s mood, posture and expression, understanding his point of view. There must be another root cause behind this though, Alan had never shied away from the experimentation they had participated in together in the past. Crash courses in home flamethrowers, testing armour with themselves as living subjects, both had been happily – no, gleefully joined in with.

  “Alan, I promise you that… whatever that was, it was all new to me. It was very different to the other attunements, although the one this morning was a bit of an introduction. But this didn’t hurt at all like the other ones, it was more like… getting plugged into the energy than having it burst into me? I guess?

  “And when that weird wobbly thing was above you?”

  “I really don’t know mate, but let me sit down and I’ll go through everything while it’s still fresh.”

  There were plenty of questions, disbelieving expressions and outright incredulity while Matt told the group all that he had experienced. It also helped him process some of the sensations, mentally noting some key points to explore once they were all safe. Kira would possibly be able to help explain some of the more troubling later parts of the whole thing. Then he needed to get to weaving, seeing how the massively flooded reservoir within him would affect new patches he created.

  The best part of talking it all through though, was that Alan was at least grudgingly willing to accept that Matt hadn’t just kick-started the end of the world. It seemed that the others had not seen the full detail Matt had, looking through the rip in the air to the… whatever on the far side. They had seen a distortion, much like a locus. While they had all reacted with horror at what he described seeing, the intervention seemed to be thorough and complete.

  Now to find out who, or what, did that. Matt thought as they packed up their stuff and wheeled their bikes out onto the road.

  “When will they be back Aunty Carry?” Kira asked for the umpteenth time, looking out of the bedroom window while a hand tousled Nala’s ear, eliciting a contented purr.

  “When they walk in the door love.” Came the slightly terse reply from the next room, as Carry rested on the bed. The childish variation on the more familiar “are we there yet?” had been a regular refrain for the last hour or so. Even loving the girls as she did, that particular query was definitely touching a nerve.

  “They should be back by now.” Kira muttered to herself, finger picking at the cover of her book.

  “They’ll be fine Ra.” Lara reassured her, squinting out the window in the latest of her sessions to acclimatise herself to her newly expanded sense of sight. “Look at everything they’ve done, everything they’ve beaten. Nothing will get in their way!”

  I wish I felt that certain, Kira thought to herself. Outside, the road was still and quiet.

  “We’re not going back by the school again, are we?” Matty asked as they mounted up. “Those mole things got a lot closer than I’d want to test again.”

  “We could go back past the garden centre.” Arlee suggested. “Even if there are any more of those stone statue things, we shouldn’t have any trouble getting by them on the bikes. The road is under tree cover as well, so we should be safe from any kites which are around.”

  “Sounds good.” Alan said. “Let’s ride!”

  His renewed enthusiasm made the others laugh, as they headed back down the road, passing between the trees and houses. The sudden blur of motion, erupting from a row of small fir trees to their side snapped them out of the lapse of attention. A large grey form landed heavily, swatting Matty from his bike to become entangled in a hedgerow.

  Humanoid in appearance, with rugged grey skin covered in tattered remnants of what had been clothes. Easily half again as tall as Alan’s six-foot frame, even hunched over it towered above them, hands reaching forward and face twisted with desperate need.

  Alan reacted fastest, pushing off the pedals to land behind the now riderless bike. Unslinging the staff from his back he set himself against the giant’s approach, grimacing as he looked up at their foe. Arlee swerved to avoid Matty’s discarded bike, rushing to help the young man disentangle himself as he groaned in pain. Matt stumbled off his bike with a lack of grace but managed to fumble a flame-tube into line with the looming shape and let rip. The familiar bloom of bright, roaring fire burst forth, playing over the side of the large form which flinched, instinctively covering its face as it stepped back.

  As the burst came to an end they faced their ambusher, surprised as it cowered back, crouching low and covering its head with thick-fingered hands. Aside from some wisps of steam rising from the grey skin, it did not seem to have been affected much at all by the fire. One of the fingers was purple and swollen, a shining metal band constricting the meaty appendage. Matt placed a hand on Alan’s shoulder, pausing his advance. The too-small ring and tattered clothing gave rise to an awful thought. This was cemented in his mind as the giant peeked fearfully out from behind its hands and spoke.

  “Pl…please, help. Need f-food.”