Star Warden Book 2: RQ Chapter 2.

 

The Codex

Sam, Kaguya and Peace stepped out of a mirror set in a golden archway built into a wooden wall. The mirror turned into rainbow light and shrunk into a white ball then vanished revealing the wall behind it. The three had arrived in the Mystic Woods but instead of Camelot, they walked into Fort Aquarius. A ring fort built on a lake that had a beautiful view of the skies beyond the island. The fortress was busy with activity as Sam returned the rock device to one of the men-at-arms.

Fort Aquarius was used at first for converted individuals to be studied but since reconnecting with the Order of Lancelot it has expanded into a research and development facility. Thanks to the Order they not only had new weapons and armor and a growing radio network but also access to the organic material that made up Joyous Guard. Fort Aquarius new walls were all fully grown with their seeds and roots planted in the lake below them.

But the most important development was the activation of the World Mirror. It was a scaled down version of the Celestial Mirror technology. The World Mirror allowed for instantaneous travel across the planet and a network of such mirrors existed on this world. Joyous Guard had found one of these mirrors years ago and brought it to the Woods after Monmouth was liberated.

It was powered by energy from the Weave; an extra-dimensional realm that acts as the collective unconscious of the world's ecosystem. It was also the domain of Cerena in the Celestial Realm and afterlife for the Sprites. Priests of Cerena and Sprites draw upon the Weave for elemental spells. Powering technology could be done with it but the Sprites were the only living beings with the knowledge to do it safely.

Many of the Sprites were skeptical at first, they did not approve of the Weave being used in such a matter, but Sam managed to convince them to assist. The World Mirror network would give the Free Realms a quick and safe way to travel. It would create a logistical and communication infrastructure across the planet. Allowing better organization for all that still resisting the Dark Lord. The fact that it was the only power source in Camelot that was strong enough to power the Mirrors was another factor in the decision.

The last thing remaining was to find and connect to other mirrors or find a reliable way to open a mirror from any place in the world. The stone device could do that due to being Tuatha technology and it was the only one of its kind. If it was not for the extreme need to rescue Peace the device would have remained in the Woods.

Sam found it strange how it only responded to him. When he first saw it he felt a certain instinct in his head which allowed him to activate it. That same instinct he felt when he managed to absorb the energy of Daimos's electrical cage. The same thing he felt when he first came in contact with Dawnbringer. He was connected with this tech, with this world, somehow and perhaps his dad was as well.

Peace was being debriefed as the Sprites escorted Sam and Kaguya back to the Silver Spire. The Enchantress had sent an urgent summons along with a request to send any data recovered from Peace's mind to her once acquired. The escort was mostly for navigational purposes. Aquarius was someways out from Camelot and the Sprites ensured people could travel between them safely. The Mystic Woods can lead people astray if not careful and get them lost.

Many stories were told of people stumbling into the woods only to discover months or years had passed on the outside. There were also stories of those who had entered only to never leave again. There were areas of the forest trapped in perpetual starlight, or where summer lasted for years on end. One story even told of an eternal feast hall where maidens ply food and drink on a weary traveler. The traveler would become portly and sleepy, unable to resist as the Mystic Woods would devour him in turn.

The last one Sam learned from Bridget who stated she watched it happened herself. He was inclined to believe her as her story contained too many graphic details for it to be fake.

Once at the Silver Spire, they traveled through the torch-lit corridors and arrived at the grove. They found her sitting in the gazebo but slouched over with her hair disheveled. A faint smell of sweat and blood entered Sam's nostril, something he never expected from her. For the first time, Sam saw her out of her composed and controlled state and he couldn't help but blurt out.

“Ma'am you look like crap.”

Kaguya was about to object to Sam's outburst. When the Enchantress spoke. “We feel similarly.” Even her voice sounded strained.

“Enchantress. What has placed you in such a state,” Kaguya asked.

The Enchantress got straight to the point. “We traveled to Pandemonium.”

“Alone, Enchantress?” Kaguya's shock was evident.

She nodded. “To investigate a theory. We had the Sprites looking into all the reports of the Dark Lord's sorcery. They found no accounts of any Abyssal energy, demonic tones, or leftover artifacts of the traitor Tuatha. When the Champion informed us that the Dark Lord was an artificial intelligence. It gave us pause for thought and brought forward an idea we would not have originally considered.”

“You think he found some way to get his hands on the same magic Kaguya uses?”

“No. We believed he found something else, another way to gain magic. Depending on how one uses the word. So we left to investigate his mainframe to confirm or assuage our fears while also determining its defenses for a potential future attack.”

The Enchantress stood up and returned to proper posture. Her hair set itself right as her face shifted to stoic composure. She summoned a simple wooden staff with a large flower blooming from the top and waved it across the waters. A large crystal ball rose from its depths.

The ball filled with an image of a massive complex covered wall to wall, ceiling to floor, with something not quite metal but not quite organic as well. It pulsed like a heartbeat and shifted like it was breathing. The image began to play like a movie finally stopping when it reached a large box object attached to the wall. It had a gold surface and some crystals sticking out of it where buttons would be, otherwise, Sam and Kaguya had trouble describing it. Looking at it also caused Sam's head to get fuzzy and he felt that instinct once again, which made it clear it was Tuatha connected.

“What you see before you is a Codex Terminal. A piece of Tuatha technology that was lost to the mists of history. Considered myth by the highest members of the Celestial Faith. This is where Daimos's true self is hiding. His mainframe and robotic bodies are no more than avatars of his will.”

The Enchantress put a hand up before Sam could ask his question. “We will show you.” She closed her eyes and in a split second all three of them were in a black empty space. Lines of code began to form and the environment became blue. A humming sound similar to computer startup music could be heard while millions of holographic screens lined with code surrounded them. Circles, squares, and triangles floated in the sky or appeared on the ground at random.

They were now in the Codex. A quantum supercomputer network created by the Tuatha via direct manipulation of dark matter, the building block of the universe. Powered by dark energy that transmits tachyons on quantum strings that make up the foundation of the physical plane. All of the network hardware were non-physical multidimensional constructs and thus could exist even if the mediums in the physical plane were destroyed.

Due to its nature, the Codex could take a piece of Cyberspace and map it over the local reality of the users choosing. Creating the pocket dimension that Sam and Kaguya were currently standing in.

“Wait should we be on the network?” Sam kept the practical side of his brain running. He knew he could not let down his guard just yet. “Daimos might see us.”

“The terminal is set to private and not connected to the greater Codex. We are safe here.”

The child half of his brain took over as Sam took in everything. He was utterly speechless as he was the first human to know about the Codex and the first to enter an extra-dimensional space. Kaguya was in awe at the technological marvel she found herself in and did not sully the moment with petty words. The Enchantress respected the silence and merely altered the environment again. She re-created Sam's childhood home in Reno and place them in the backyard with the stars shining in the black. The seamless transition and the sensation of a gentle night's breeze on his skin would have fooled him into believing this was reality.

The moment stretched on for a few more minutes and then their business resumed.

The Enchantress continued explaining that the Codex had the ability to alter physical reality through its calculations. One known use was for terraforming worlds, no need for physical machines when one could just write a program. Once executed the Codex would manipulate the matter and energy around said planet to the program's exact specifications. It was this level of power that deluded some Tuatha into believing they were gods and led to the civil war and fall of the Tuatha.

“Wait, why would the Tuatha then take advice from the Abyss? Surely they wouldn't listen to the dragons if they believed themselves, gods.”

“The story that is told is not the whole truth. The Abyssal dragons did not sneak into our universe. They were invited in by the fallen who believed they could be controlled through the Codex. But we digress.”

Eventually smaller devices were created to draw energy and data from the Codex to project into the physical realm for personal use. Instead of drawing upon the Celestial Weave to create fire, one could just download the fire application. The Celestial Mirrors were another one of these inventions. Called Bifrost Gateways by the Tuatha, for their word for dark energy was translated into English as Bifrost. They created stable portals into the Codex allowing faster than light travel by converting an individual or starship into a compressed data packet.

Sam got a chuckle out of hearing that. “Will wonders never sense. A faster than light zip file.”

It was clear to Sam why Daimos would be considered a sorcerer. The Codex's technology was nearly indistinguishable from magic, Arthur Clark's third law made manifest. There were only three known limits; that it could not raise the dead, create sapient life, or alter time. But these cosmic limits did not stop a skilled programmer from overcoming someone trained in the mystic arts.

“What I would like to know is why did the Codex not stop him. I am sure the Tuatha installed security measures to remove rogue or malicious data.”

“They normally would, your Radiance. However, Daimos entered through a recognized terminal. If Daimos kept his presence hidden then the security programs would be fooled into believing it was an ordinary program not detecting his Abyssal code until it was far too late.”

Sam shook his head in disbelief. “Wait a minute so the reason we have to deal with alien Skynet is because someone forgot to logout?”

“A small mortal error can lead to large consequences. There is the possibility that this terminal was deliberately left open for Abyssal agents to use. That or Doctor Daimos managed to decipher a means to re-activate the link.”

“Either way. Once he got in he most likely made his own private network inside cyberspace and started building his resources. This explains that freak storm that knocked out Castle Bailey's sensors and why Solarium's tech turned against them.”

“The good doctor.” Kaguya could not have said the words with more bitterness. “Also uplifted much of our technology in the first place. It would not surprise me if he left various backdoors in our systems. Similar to the ones he had installed in the palace during the coup.”

She slammed her fist upon her thigh. “We allowed ourselves to believe that we could not be attacked due to the advancements were given. Our hubris cost us dearly.”

Sam put an arm around her. “Your family was grieving and nobody even knew the Codex existed. Much less that Daimos was going to rise from the grave as a demonic computer set on revenge. It was nobody's fault.”

Kaguya took a deep breath. “You are correct. Logically.”

“Hey, Sunshine.” Kaguya giggled as she was caught off guard by the use of her childhood nickname. “You feel that smile you're putting on? I want you to keep that in mind as the smile you are going to wear when we delete Daimos once and for all. That is an order, sailor.”

Kaguya's smile grew ever brighter and she saluted him “Aye Aye, Captain.”

If the Enchantress was not in the room she would have thanked him for cheering her up with a kiss. Sam on the other hand did not care who watched and kissed her anyway. The Enchantress herself kept quiet at the display of affection, beneath her stoic exterior she was glad to see that their relationship had not suffered during the war.

They would need each other in the trials to come.

Once Sam moved away he turned back to the Enchantress. Kaguya was blushing heavily but if that was from the kiss or the impropriety of the public display of affection she could not say.

“So, I'm guessing we can't just reboot or shut down the Codex?”

The Enchantress shook her head.

“No. Of course not. That would be too easy.”

“There is an easier solution to our dilemma, we will write a program specifically designed to eliminate him. A program that will need to be installed and executed in the Well of All-Stars where the Command Matrix is located.”

The Command Matrix serves as both the firmware and operating system for the Codex. It also houses the source code which allowed anyone with admin access the ability to alter it and thus the Codex at large. Its exact location in the Codex was unknown and under an always updating encryption process. The Dark Lord could not brute force his way past its defenses

The only people who had full access to it would be the holder of the Cosmic Ring. The Enchantress summoned an image of a white ring with a large photonic crystal embedded within. It was the user interface for the programs in the Command Matrix and thus only the High King of Eden or the Hand of the King could use it.

The image of the white ring changed as it split into eight rings. Each one a different color of the rainbow with the eighth one being a light gray. Then each of the rings changed into a compact disc that shared its color then slowly became a uniform color. The Enchantress explained that the Hand of the King divided the program of the ring and hid them in Spellscrolls to keep the Command Matrix out of the hands of the traitors.

For the past year and more Sam had been looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. He couldn't find it but he knew it was there. Now he had a pathway to that light, those eight rings, those eight discs. The path would be long and arduous but he didn't care, the fact of the matter is he know how to get to the light.

He would lead everyone to the light and banish the darkness.

Chapter 3

Chapter 1