The Circuit was as unrelenting as ever as Ekstrom tried to follow a new set of symbols today. So far she’d been able to come up with a rough key for what she thought they might have meant, but with the limited places she could access it was hard to tell whether she was right, on the right track, or completely wrong. Still, she was trying her best. The lack of progress was a little…really frustrating, but that, more often than not, served as more of a motivator for her once she was able to decompress a little.

Which she had by way of laying heavily into a sandbag at the gym, multiple days in a row. One of the trainers had actually expressed concern for her, and told her to take at least a one day break to recover before coming back. She sort of did–she clobbered a youma, instead.

Refreshed and reinvigorated by that, though, here she was again, trying to solve the puzzle that was her Wonder.

She paused at a random symbol along what seemed to be a wall, which was slowly blinking as though waiting for someone to touch it. By now, she knew what that meant so she quickly jotted a note of what the symbol looked like and what it was doing–she would have made a note about where as well, but as far as she could tell it was just a long…long corridor in the Circuit–before tucking her journal away and turning her focus to the symbol.

“Here’s hoping,” she said as she tapped the symbol. It steadied as soon as she touched it, and when it faded away it was instead replaced with a familiar, faint outline of a hand. Relief washed over her at the sigh, and she pressed her palm to it and focused. Rather than a door revealing itself, though, to her slight surprise what she got instead was two slot-like openings in the wall, just below her hand.

She’d only seen this once before, after all, and it was in correlation to a very peculiar drive that she kept on her at all times. To have security on a door match that piqued her interest that much more, and she unhooked the Master Keys from her belt, holding on in each hand as she slotted them into place and again focused.

A familiar warmth welled up inside of her, manifesting in the form of those same glowing data lines that she encountered on her very first visit. They sprang out from the center of her chest, ran down along both arms, into the keys, and finally into the wall, tracing invisible lines along it before disappearing behind the door that was now etched into the wall. The Squire replaced the Master Keys on her belt and moved to stand at the middle of the door, held her hand out, and focused for a moment before gently pressing into the rectangle at the center.

There was an audible click, and the door pressed inward first, then hissed quietly for a moment as it moved to the side and out of sight.

The Squire stepped inside and didn’t even notice as the door closed behind her, too caught up by what she saw.

The room was so dimly lit that it was actually hard to see, the only light being a faint glow coming from the data lines on the walls. The walls were overflowing with them, though. Data lines of all Mercurian colors, big and small, long and short, running over and into each other. It was almost like a picture of energy, flowing and very much alive.

Ekstrom wondered at that for a moment, the idea that her Wonder was alive, as she was. Maybe not in exactly the same way, but alive in some way.

It brought a small smile to her face, and her worries about the how and why of everything she wanted to accomplish faded into the background. It felt right to think along such lines, and she walked further into the room with surprising peace of mind. As much hope as she’d felt all this time to one day restore power to her Wonder, for the first time in a long while she could actually see signs that justified that hope right before her eyes.

As she settled into the center of the room the lines seemed to slow down until they all came to a stop. Glancing around, she wondered for a moment if that meant something, as she’d seen something similar before…

The sudden and rapid movement of the data lines was almost enough to disorient her, but she managed to keep her focus, and she watched as they raced to her. If she had found this room first she might have been scared, but she welcomed them with a bright smile and closed her eyes as they covered her entirely, enveloping her in that same, familiar warmth.

Reminding her who she was, that she belonged here, that this was hers. To restore, to build up, to protect.

And admittedly, she needed reminding sometimes, because she was still learning and growing and coming into her own as a knight. As she took a deep, calming breath, she felt the warmth rush into the center of her chest, starting out as a small dot and expanding slowly into the rest of her body, and when she finally opened her eyes the room was pitch black around her but she felt perfectly safe and at ease.

Enhancement Acquired

Enchanted Weapon


She set her lips into a small smile, then murmured a quiet “thank you” before turning to head back out into the Circuit.

– [ ] –

Thankfully making her way back out was as easy as stepping within range of the door. It opened automatically for her, and following the key that she’d put together got her through the Circuit and back to her quarters in a matter of minutes. She was getting better, but there was room for improvement. There would always be, so she left the thought there.

Lulu was snoozing when she walked in, and Ekstrom was just about to power down when she noticed that the panel on her computer was up. It caught her attention because it wasn’t like that when she left, so she approached curiously and took a seat at her desk. A window was open on the screen, and a cursor was blinking slowly.

Waiting, maybe?

So she started typing.

    Hi…?

After a few seconds, she got nothing, so the Squire wracked her brain for something, anything, to maybe ask. Closing her eyes for a long moment, she sifted through her memories to try and find some kind of clue. Her eyes snapped open when two words came to mind, from a vague memory of a conversation from her past.

    Are you the Code Piece here?

After a few seconds, she watched in utter amazement as a reply was typed into the window.

    Correct.

Ekstrom felt her heart literally skip a beat before it started to beat nearly as fast as her thoughts ran through her mind. She wasn’t able to get a whole lot from the memory; at the time she had actually flashed through several memories at once, and it had served as a reminder of her learning experiences with her mentor, and the bond that they shared and mentor and mentee rather than as an actual learning experience. It took her a bit to gather her thoughts, and eventually she was able to type out the most important question (at least to her) of the bunch.

    Could you tell me exactly what you are?
    I think I get the gist, but hearing first-hand is always better.

    The Code is a source of infinite power throughout the universe, broken into smaller segments to prevent corruption or abuse.
    A Knight protects its Wonder, and the Code Piece entrusted to that Wonder.
    In exchange, the Code Piece grants the magic you use to do so.

    If you need more information, I will see that you have it.
    But this is ‘the gist’.

It took a bit before the whole response came out, but she read and reread it a number of times before deciding that there was more there that she maybe wanted to ask about, but that was enough for now. She had at least one other important thing she wanted to ask about.

    I've been looking for ways to restore the power here and I feel like you're the best one to ask at this point.
    Any ideas?

    Have you been through the Circuit yet?
    There’s a room dedicated specifically to controlling the power.

    I was hoping you wouldn't say that.
    Any faster ways besides through there?

    No.
    Th–

The screen flickered then, and Ekstrom held her breath, watching and waiting and hoping that it would start typing again. Sure enough, after a few seconds the screen flickered again, and the typing went on.

    –ere’s a reason this Wonder has been protected so long in the absence of a Knight.

“That’s…not helpful at all,” she said with a little frown.

    Are you sure?

She took the following minute of silence as a non-response, so she furrowed her brows as she tried to think up another, more helpful, question. With any luck it would be a little more forthcoming with information if she asked the right question…

    Do you have a guide or something for the symbols in the Circuit then?
    There's so many... I haven't been able to figure them all out.

    Have you been to the Knight’s Quarters?
    You should be able to access it.
    Check for a record there.

    I have, but I haven’t seen anything like an instruction manual with that kind of information in it.

Besides, even if she had found something, it wasn’t like she could actually read any of it. She was about to type more when the screen flickered again. Thankfully the Code had more to say, and it started typing again shortly after another flicker of the screen.

    You may need to rely on other information there.
    This system is old and fading.
    I do not have the energy to sustain this connection.
    I will need time to recover from this.
    I can answer once more so make your question count.

    Restore the power quickly if you can.
    We may speak again.

She felt a surge of urgency at its words, so she quickly thought about what would be most immediately helpful and typed out the most logical next question.

    And what symbols should I follow to get to the room in question?

    ••

    ′
    ⩩

And then the blinking cursor faded, and she knew the conversation was over.

Sinking back into her chair, Ekstrom blinked almost dumbly at the characters on the screen. She recognized them from her runs through the Circuit, though she’d never taken any routes using them before. If the Code said there was more information on these symbols available in her quarters, then that was definitely something she had to find sooner rather than later.

“But first,” she said, staring down the symbols the Code had pointed out to her. “I gotta go back to the Circuit.”

1697 (gdocs; Ekstrom only)
Backdated to 8/16/24.