Sophie Strange in the style of Abstract Expressionism, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.
Chapter 14: Memories can't wait
Mikla metropolitan area, Confluence dimension
Year 42 of the Confluence Republic (local time)
It occurred to Sophie that she might attempt to locate the devastated city she had witnessed in the Chamber of Memories. She Recalled her memory of the sequence, then used a Divination flow to attempt to locate an urban area with the same characteristics. The Divination looked through all Confluence cities, consuming quite a lot of energy in this fruitless search, then repeated the process for the late Classical-era cities of the ancient world. Sophie was about to abort the flow as it started searching through simulation worlds, thinking she had wasted enough energy on this, when it found a match. The city was named Mariupol and was located in the Erd simulation.
How might it be possible that something from a simulation would show up as her memory? Sophie was confused. She looked through the history of the place, finding that Mariupol had seen war on several occasions. With a few more simple Divinations, she analyzed the uniforms of the soldiers – apparently, they were invaders from the west, during one of the many horrible wars in this sad and broken simulation world. This particular one was called World War II, which made Sophie think of some horror movie sequel – always, in some demented bid to impress viewers, grander and more horrible than its predecessor. She tried to imagine the scale of future sequels, feeling sorry for the poor Erd sims.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Sophie had no idea how to move forward with this, and in any case she was running low on energy. Instead, she decided to waste some time, seeing if there were any new movies she had missed. Appropriately, someone had recently released a fifth installment of the Elder Rule horror series, this one called The Return of Soth. It was about Soth attacking people to steal their bodies, hiding out in a secret base, and somehow infiltrating Confluence society to establish a bridgehead for a full onslaught. Or was there someone even worse behind him?
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In the Chamber of Memories, Sophie is a young boy living on the streets of a brutal and violent city. He struggles to find food, is despised everywhere he goes, lives through many traumatic experiences, and eventually ends up in a life of petty crime before dying violently. Like most of her memories or dreams or whatever they are in this chamber, there is no trace of magic in this boy’s world.
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The day after, energy somewhat replenished, Sophie traced the city from yesterday’s visit to the Chamber of Memories. Feeling wise, she started with the Erd sim. There was a match: New York, 1970s and 80s local time. Sophie wasn’t particularly surprised; somehow, she knew that.
Sitting back, feeling like something is about to break, she allowed her mind to rest – the same way she does when she is traversing the Chamber of Distractions. Just rest, be passive, embrace silence.
An insight appeared: she could do the same thing for the urban area she visited in the shadow dimension. It would be more difficult, probably, because she had only seen a small slice of it, but it should be possible. She Recalled her memory of the visit and constructed a cityscape from what she had seen. Then she Divined it, starting once again with the Erd sim. She found a match: Kuala Lumpur, probably early 2020s local time.
Huh. She sent a message to Olz Hap.
Sophie the dimensional traveler in the style of Gustav Klimt, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.
