Riana Maren
The Great Extraction, Part One
This particular story begins where many of the stories of the mad scientist of Errings Rising begin, in the dark, dank depths of the makeshift laboratory carved out of the remnants of a torture chamber, provided willingly by the guild ace Sanguine and likely mildly tolerated-- or even more likely completely forgotten about-- by the Queen. Riana considered this all a blessing, for she was therefore able to complete her work in relative peace and quiet, where the constant nattering, trudging and movement of the castle around her while the guild took care of their liberatory operations. Needless to say, the woman much preferred the calm and serenity of the dimly-lit room that she had claimed as her own. A series of hardlight holographic screens projected their low blue glow and illuminated what of the room she needed to see. There was a certain kind of eerie calmness to all of it, when the only noises to be heard in the room were the low whir of fans that evacuated air from the computational devices scattered around the room that managed the insane thought power that gave life to a myriad of devices, operating everything from research and development to live delivery of projection models as Riana created the next great scientific wonder. The only other real sounds in the room were the sounds of rapid hammering of fingers upon keys as Riana stared deeply into the screen that rested before her eyes and the occasional creak of her chair as she adjusted herself, fidgeting absentmindedly as she worked through the next problem that was going to claim her psyche. There was the occasional exhale of air as Riana reminded herself that she did in fact need to breathe like any other mortal person, which was an unfortunate thing for the poor sack of flesh to need to do in order to sustain the brilliant mind that it carried inside the hard bone shell that was her skull. Other than that particular requirement, everything was all but silent, with no distractions, no interruptions, and no other people around. In short, this was absolute heaven. Ri could not have asked for much more in terms of ideal conditions with which to work on her next and possibly greatest project yet, for she was diving into research that she had never had contemplated previously.
This particular day, Riana had made considerable effort to re-arrange the laboratory into something that she’d be able to use; a makeshift medical table had been created in the centre of the room, with sufficient strapping to hold down any patient that decided to become unruly and struggle against the work that was going to be done. In truth, it was mostly an old torture slab that had been retrofitted with enough equipment to hold it perfectly horizontal so that someone could lay on it and Riana could study the subject that was upon the table. She’d outdone herself in that particular regard, considering her usual form of human experimentation was to put the barrel of a weapon to someone’s head and pull the trigger just to see how well the blood and brains splattered on the wall behind them. It absolutely was sick and twisted in her world, but hey, this was the way she liked it.
Instead, she was very focused on the streams of data that were forming in front of her, which she was beginning to read. Across four monitors, she’d accessed data on so many different kinds of power drive and energy shielding that she’d encountered in her time - now, however, this was entirely different for her. She was going to need to kick her research up about one hundred notches to achieve her next goal with correct results, and this was going to be the way she did it. This was going to be the start of something titanic for her, on a scale that she had never actually thought possible. The depths of space were a wonderful place, and Riana was earnestly in preparation for the potential to explore it; first she could consider the solar system in which Earthland resided, and then see about stretching far beyond the solar system in search of something new and great. Part of her honestly considered finding a new world in order to permanently colonise and start a brand new life in some far-away place so that she could start afresh and build an entire planet in her own image. Did she have the power, and potentially resources, to begin doing that? Absolutely yes. However, before she began on that particular adventure, Riana had more she wanted to achieve here in Earthland. First, to rub all of the things she had learned, built and done in the face of others, and exploit them for the resources that they had available. Secondly, it was far easier for her to expand her magical prowess when she was surrounded by others that could also demonstrate magical abilities. Unfortunately, this alone was a viable enough reason in her mind to stay; when she could accelerate her learnings by being in areas permeated with ethernano and speak with those well conversant in its applications, it was far easier for her to understand the depths of the magic that she herself wielded. Despite how much of a bore that seemed to the mechanical scientist, it was such a necessity in her time and her line of work. She could not plumb the depths of the lacrima she had acquired without the assistance of others, which brought nothing but irritation to her psyche. She wanted to be entirely self-sufficient, but even here, she simply could not; her understanding of the manipulation of ley lines and magical energies was as of yet insufficient such that she could validly write a thousand page treatise on it. Even if every bone in her body screamed out that she needed to leave this place and begin somewhere new where she could finally have the peace and quiet that she so desperately craved, the logician in her told her that this place was where she needed to be. For now.
It was to this end that Riana was about to engage in her newest and likely most terrifyingly difficult experiment. Many in Errings Rising knew that Riana was master of a particular lacrima that gifted her with not only an understanding and mastery of machines, but what many did not know about that particular device was that it was not from Earthland. It was, in fact, entirely extra-terrestrial, hailing from an unknown world in an unknown part of space. It was the discovery of this lacrima that not only inspired Riana in the pursuit of further and greater sciences than her career path was already projecting her on, but it had also bestowed unto her the truth of a dark, potentially deadly, and incredibly exciting secret: there were in fact other forms of life out there that were sentient (which, to be fair, many people already knew), but some of them were trained in the projection and manipulation of ethernano, that was present on other worlds. The lacrima that she had obtained was proof of this; it was the remaining power of a long-lost king of another world, the culmination of his spirit, knowledge, essence and being given mechanical form until it came to Earthland years ago. It had imparted unto her the knowledge of manipulation of machines, weaponry and most importantly granted her the ability to seamlessly blend magicks and metals, so that she could create constructs of terrifying proportions. This was something she had kept close to her heart, rather literally, but had never truly plumbed its depths for every tiny piece of knowledge that it contained. As far as she was aware, while she had awakened the vast majority of the lacrima’s secrets, there was yet more that she would be able to discover were she to study the lacrima in greater detail. This was something that she absolutely intended do to, for she was a woman of science and would leave no stone unturned in her great and unyielding pursuit of knowledge.
In fact, she could recall when she had originally discovered this lacrima like it was yesterday…
It was a dark, mid-winter night; the light blossomed as it reflected from the moon, shining amidst a blanket of bright stars. Together, the heavens began to shine down on the snow banks surrounding the not-so-modest home of the Maren dynasty. Four pairs of eyes beheld the firmament above as they settled in around a crackling fire, setting up telescopes and star-gazing equipment between them as they prepared to document the movements of the distant stars above them. This was a routine ritual for the family who prized the sciences above all; Mikhael Maren was a man of repute and erudite lore, who studied in far-away countries - and being Pergrandian himself was beholden to the wisdom of many collective years of intense and high-tier study. His three daughters - the eldest, Alexis, of black hair and intense green eyes whose stare was nothing short of vicious as she quoted ancient knowledge as if it were simply reciting the alphabet; the middle, Allaina, who had already been accepted into the Pergrandian army in order to serve as a junior officer while she commenced her way through officer training school, of fiery red hair and the same bright green eyes as her older sister; and finally, their youngest, Riana, almost identical to her older sister but with far more respect for the sciences than the one she resembled most. Together, the family routinely went out to study the heavens, particularly on cloudless nights such as this - while their mother, who had passed some years prior, had also appreciated this activity, it was one of the incredibly small number of things that they could do as a family.
However, it did not take a genius to appreciate the family dynamics within five minutes of setting up - ser Mikhael was already setting up beside their eldest, with the two red-headed daughters both separately setting up their equipment from the others - though Riana was by leaps and bounds the furthest away, barely close enough to the fire to receive of its warmth; the girl of barely twenty years of age was not interacting with the others as she finalised the movement of her telescope to position itself around the heavens and prepare for the task that was about to unfold for them all. Her father paid her absolutely no mind as he assisted Alexis with her set-up as she nattered on about what she was studying at the prestigious university she was in the process of studying her doctorate for; meanwhile, the stoic Allaina was close enough to the others to overhear the words that were being said and even to participate in the exchange, but certainly far enough to prove where she stood in her father’s eyes. The man, as cold as ice and respecting only the achievements of his three surviving family members, was proud only when they made achievements. Yet, no matter how hard Riana strove to prove her own success, it was met only with rebuke and scorn as her older sister had typically prepared an achievement to eclipse it within moments. This was the dichotomy of the family Maren - science and knowledge above everything else, and contributions to the world to prove the family name stronger the only currency that could be exchanged for approval and affection of any kind, despite such affection being entirely absent from the vocabulary of every single one of their hearts since the day they lost the fair maiden that was the mother of the three daughters.
So, they began to turn to the skies, one by one. It was simple to track and plot the movements of the stars, and that they did; notes were scrawled and calculations performed to ensure the skill of tracing the movements of heavenly bodies was kept entirely sharp. Riana had already begun to shiver and freeze; being so far away from the warmth of the fire they had set up was both a mistake and a chilling rebuke to the fact that she and her family mixed as well as oil and water. Her father had never shown her any kindness, especially given the fact that she had been indirectly responsible for the death of her mother at such a young age. That retributive scorn had never left his psyche, and yet still he assigned the blame of an accident to a young girl - so much so that she was slowly but surely pushed away inch by bloody inch from what was rightfully hers. Resentment was the only thing on her mind - to her father, to her sisters; her achievements were entirely her own, and she was absolutely not ever going to assign any of her intelligence, learning or academic integrity to any of the things that she had learned growing up in the Maren family.
Instead, she turned to the skies. They did not care for her, and she did not care for them; they simply existed, cold and unfeeling, uncaring for those who observed its patterns and motions. That was the way Riana liked it, now. It was impossible to have your heart broken when there was simply no heart to break in the first place. No emotional attachment. It was the simpler route. This exchange of study and knowledge was little more than a transactional learning experience and Riana was all the happier for it. So, she gazed. She plotted the positions and the movements and speeds of the brightest celestial objects, silent as the skies she watched. She kept her own notes in her own way so that the others could simply not read it - and for all the time that she spent with them, only Allaina had even bothered to spare her a single glance as they began to work - but did not bother to speak. That bridge was already burned to little more than charred embers, which was something of a shame. The divisive rift between the entire family as their father played them off against each other to see which could achieve more and bring his own reputation and glory higher had cost them all incredibly dearly by this point in time.
However, as Riana had set herself up first and been performing the first plots while they spoke, she channelled that efficiency and had already performed past the others. Their banal chatter had proven to allow her to witness something that the others did not see - the first streaks of a heavenly star shower that was beginning to rain down across them. She saw the first moments of the streaks across the skies, the beautiful tails of rocks breaking the atmosphere and burning away brightly in the frictional heat of the outer edges of the aether a beautiful reminder that it was only mother nature itself that provided joy in this world, that the laws of nature were the only cold comfort in the hellish nightmare landscape created by mankind. She cast her view perfectly skyward and, without telling the others, bore witness to the celestial event that was unfolding before her very eyes. It was so mesmerizingly breathtaking that she watched, and watched. No telescope was required to observe this.
However, one thing caught her eye in the star shower; one object seemed to leave a longer trail than the others, before it broke away and plummeted towards the snowy earth nearby; it was likely a five or ten minute trek to get to the location nearby their family home, but there was no mistaking the fact that some object had broken away from the others and made contact with the ground. It was in that instant that the rest of the family began to pay attention to the star shower, and were joyously celebrating the event together as they watched the stars. Without another word, Riana turned on her heel and left; she’d seen the object and, as far as she could tell, the others could not. Fortunately for her, the fact that she’d need to walk through the house gave her a simple, ready-made excuse for the moment one of her sisters noticed her leaving–
Which was right on cue.
“Riana! Where are you going? Watch the star shower!” commanded the powerful baritone voice of her father, whose orders brooked no argument– except her level of spiteful defiance was far greater than many gave her credit for. More than once, she had found out the hard way that this attitude got her into trouble.
”I commenced watching it before you and have taken sufficient notes. I require the restroom,” came her rebuke as cold as the snow around her. Yes - she was going to be pretending to go to use the toilet, while she slunk away with a sample jar and a hope in her heart that she had discovered something else. Perhaps she would be able to discover something that would help her in her quest to outshine her sisters once and for all.
A ten minute trek from the house revealed the landing site of a meteorite; covered in mineral stone and fragmented all across the small crater that had been created through the snow drift that had formed over time, Riana felt her hopes die as she leaned forward to collect a sample of the rock to study it for future knowledge and, perhaps, analyse it to see if it had any traces of any rare minerals laced through its structure. However, as she took a knee to collect such sample with freshly gloved hands, she noticed that there was something buried slightly inside a piece of space rock - it was a triangular object, with one red, one blue, and one green corner, with a black main body and a strange inner light that pulsed every time she observed the item in question. This pulsating piece of arcana was something that Riana absolutely did not recognise and, in a moment of weakness, instinctively reached out to grasp the small object, despite being ignorant of its origins, whether it was radioactive - any thought of caution was thrown out the window as she gave herself over to the chase of a fantastical object that presumably had landed itself here from the depths of space; this was a thing and an opportunity that she could not pass up, particularly if it gave her an edge over the rest of her family. This was a discovery that she absolutely had to keep secret from the others, and as she reached around it with spindly fingers to pull it free of its stony prison, she could feel the warmth of the object against her skin as she clasped it with one hand.
It filled her with confidence to know that her fingers had as of yet not melted away to touch the object. One mighty tug and the item was free from the stone; it was a little bigger than her hand, perhaps the size of a compact disc. Instead of a hard-edged triangle, its surfaces were rounded, and she felt that it lived with the knowledge of something otherworldly, as a voice began to whisper into the back of her mind. It was very faint, almost as if she was hearing the voice of a man across a large, empty field - the most bare tendrils of sound that she did not understand. All she knew about this item was twofold - one, this discovery could absolutely not be shared with the others at any point for any reason; two, whatever knowledge or secrets that this thing held would be absolutely incredible. She knew that this strange object hailing from outside Earthland would contain something that was no less incredible than the star shower that it had rode in upon.
As she eventually returned home, she took a brief moment to visit her bedroom to stash the strange foreign item away for future study, and then carried her sample of space stone with her so that she could provide a ready-made excuse to her family. As she did return, shivering and cold, to the fireside, the broad-shouldered man awaiting her return towered over her and sneered down at his youngest daughter. She could tell that this particular piercing gaze was designed to test her, and to analyse her reaction from how she answered the inevitable query he posed to her. Everything to him was a test. He poked and prodded and chided and goaded every last reaction from them as much as he could with simple reason to do so; this was no exception and he would in fact have the answers he sought by the time he was done with her.
“Where have you been, Riana?” he asked, venom dripping from every word. There was almost an unspoken threat there - and she knew that if there was, from past history, he would absolutely carry it out. She already had received at least one beating from him in the last few months; the wounds from that still smarted and had only barely healed. Any form of perceived insubordination was met with a swift rebuke, often with the back of a hand. Riana had learned this the hard way - all three of them had. He would not suffer such impertinence from them without a reply in kind.
”My apologies, Father. I noticed a meteorite fell near the house, and went to get a sample for future study. I am not hopeful for the outcome of anything new, but it is something worth examining.” She had to bite back a sigh that would give away her irritation at the questioning, but she held it all back and maintained a stony expression. Her sisters watched on with similar expressions on their faces; they too had learned to lock it all away in the presence of their father in order to preserve their dignity. It was not a great situation for any of them, yet they all persevered through the challenge no matter what.
Without hesitation, Mikhael snatched up the sample that Riana held in her hands, raised it to his eye level to take a good look at the contents though thin-framed glasses, and then looked down upon his youngest… as he always did. This was the game he played in order to push them to their limits and then beyond them; he was not a man who played for kindness, nor for love; he played the game of station-climbing and needed his daughters to understand that, especially as women, this could be a cruel world - their own achievements would be as dust without a strong family name to support them and he would not have them fail on his watch.
“Your initiative is to be commended,” was the only remark the stoic man offered her before stomping away back to his station, the sample still in his hands not to be returned to his daughter. Yes, she had completed some form of noteworthy task, but even then it was insufficient for him. Everything she ever did was always insufficient. Even the praise that melted from his mouth always seemed so hollow and fake; she knew it was, and by now along the trajectory of her life she knew that it absolutely was. More than once he had taken credit for the work of his children to the faces of his peers; no matter how hard he pushed them to breaking point, he would always continue to do so. It was the very reason Allaina had decided that academia was not for her and that military life was far more suitable for her needs; it took her away from the clutches of the man they called their sire and allowed her to stand on her own two feet, despite the initial protest that he had given her. Eventually, he used her as a bragging point, that she was serving the Empress well, and that her achievements would only serve to further the family’s name and prestige. It was little more than pointless vainglory.
Riana, however, now had something that might just turn all of that around. Her personal fortune was about to change, and she did not know precisely what it was she had stumbled upon - it was the one thing that was going to change her life, permanently, irrevocably, and forever. It was going to push her past her boundaries - beyond all human boundaries, even - and make her into one of the greatest scientific minds the world had ever seen. First, however, she simply had to unlock the secrets of the device she had claimed as her own. Then, she would achieve greatness. No matter what her sisters did or thought, she would stand on her own two feet without the support of her family’s fame and glory,
The simple recollection of that memory was always enough to simultaneously please her and make her blood boil. It was such a pertinent reminder of why she had cast aside her family, never to speak to them unless absolutely necessary, and also why she had cast aside humanity as a whole - no matter how hard one strove, someone was always going to be present to take credit for someone else’s work and stomp on an actual achievement until it was little more than dust in the wind. This was an abhorrent thought to the scientist, whose work had eventually taken her out of her homeland of Pergrande and out to Fiore; half-Pergrandian herself, born to a Fiorean mother, Riana had eventually come here to be far away from her family, given that the likelihood of two renowned Pergrandian scientists and a Pergrandian military officer would ultimately keep them locked in their homeland for a considerable amount of time to come. Even now, she was simply here to study and further her knowledge of magic. One could not expand magical knowledge in Pergrande after all - it was tantamount to heresy, and absolutely frowned upon by just about everyone present in its society. Even though their Espers existed as masters of psionics, these were different things entirely. Now, however, was the time for her to buckle down, finish the study of the item that she now knew as a lacrima, and unlock the final hidden mysteries of the thing she wished to know the depths of. There was no diffidence, no hesitation; Riana would undoubtedly need to conquer the depths of knowledge that this item brought to her, despite having claimed so much of its hidden secrets for herself. No, there would undoubtedly be more hidden within its shell, designed to be discovered by someone who had already contemplated the depths of knowledge held within this. If it were her, she would never simply just lock away the items in a single repository; she would put the quality content away where someone who had the wherewithal to search for greater knowledge could eventually find it if they used lateral thinking skills. Riana knew that this would be the way a true jealous king thought to himself, for he knew that while the scion of circuitry had done his job and done it incredibly well, there was absolutely no way that he would consider anything less than a true maestro of his craft to be ready for the actual knowledge that he purported to keep. If that was true, then the Pergrandian scientist was going to have to delve deeper into the mysteries of the lacrima in question.
She leaned forward in her seat, brow furrowing as she contemplated the streams of data that slowly scrolled past her eyes. Much of it consisted of the technical readouts of devices that she had compiled, with some highlighted sections of the document that lent itself to the prowess of the Gunfuhrer; while Riana’s knowledge had been almost sufficient before, this secondary repository made her so far advanced that even Pergrande was no longer on her level. However, she was unwilling to share her technology with others - and if even Her Imperial Majesty came knocking and requesting the data that she had, she would unhesitatingly turn her down. No, this was for her, and her alone. This knowledge was to be reserved for her, where only the perfectly curated mind that had so devilishly protected that knowledge could access it. As such, everything that was found here in data form was not connected to any external network. None would be able to access Riana’s stored information without being directly connected to that network as she was; the subcutaneous link she had created with her artificial intelligence had guaranteed that. Jealously, as the King before her, she guarded her secrets so that none else could learn them. It was the cycle of destruction that had led that king himself down this path, yet Riana was intent on not repeating such a critical outcome - truthfully, she would not be able to maintain her silence forever, but there would be nothing to hold her back once she had finally accessed the final drops of knowledge that this little triangular device held. Riana was intent on this. She would not be stopped, no matter the cost. This had been her promise to her younger self when she had acquired this lacrima, for she had sworn on her own life that she would be the greatest scientist this world, or any other, had ever seen - without the help of her family crest to illuminate her path. She had to stand on her own two feet or die in the attempt. There was no other way.
But for there to be no other way, Riana was going to have to take drastic action.
MEL @ WW