Luca DR
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27 – Time-reversed preparations (1/2)
🕑 Added 2023-05-18 16:33:58 +0000 UTCAlbert walked under the shade of the tall fir trees with the utmost care not to make the slightest of sounds. In the distance, thanks to his enhanced senses, he could first sense and then see the golem standing perfectly still near a large rock outcropping. It was drooping slightly, with its head tilted down and its arms to the side, as if powered down. Yet, even with its curved stance, it was taller than the moss-covered great stone near it, tall enough to perhaps even be able to see above the crown of the trees. There were cracks and small irregularities in the stone it was made of, as well as little indentations and reliefs. Colors reflected on its surface where the minerals in the stone caught the sunlight and scattered it, while the central section was dark and plunged in shadow. The thick arms were covered in armor, as were the legs and the back of the monstrosity, upon which a small head rested almost comically.
Above the clouds raced across the sky, at times obscuring the light of the sun and plunging the valley into a chill shadow. The wind swept the land, fresh and cool, within no trace of the contaminated air of death from all around the secluded valley. If seen from space, Albert imagined this little side of heaven to look like a small green scar in the side of a barren grey and brown planet, hidden behind a veil of thick ever-present clouds.
Albert returned to the present with a frown, regaining control of his mind with ease thanks to all the mindfulness practice he had been doing. Seeing the golem powered down was strange, especially with what the elves told him about its erratic behavior. Or perhaps this was indeed part of its erratic behavior, and it was simply resting between cycles of death and destruction. Or perhaps the golem activated when it detected movement close by.
An easy to prove idea. He just walked towards the golem in [Bullet Time] until he was in line of sight to confirm that he was right. Because as soon as the golem saw him it powered up, and filled the air with the grinding and deafening noise of stone moving, churning and sliding plates of basalt, and the beating of the core deep inside its armored body. In a matter of moments it was once again ready to go on its hunting spree, fast and deadly, tearing trees and uprooting the vegetation of the valley, uncaring of the terrain and of the rivers it needed to cross as it gave chase.
Albert made use of the opportunity to lure the golem away from the elven village towards the edge of the valley, leading it towards a glade. He ran until suddenly the chase came to an abrupt end, more or less where he wanted it to. He discovered that as soon as he was far enough away the golem simply stopped chasing him and powered down, no matter where it was. Which meant that – erratic behavior notwithstanding – Albert could delay the fight as long as he wanted. Nonetheless it was going to be a tough fight, but already some interesting ideas were coming to mind, some of them involving the Hazegem and time travel.
As such, content with his machinations, Albert set up camp on the slope of the nearest mountain, where he could clearly see the golem below. He made a little fire by shooting a fireball at a small stack of wood and sat down: it was time to finally crack teleportation.
***
The idea about teleportation is that space and time are constructs of the mind. Quantum mechanics was onto something already since the times Einstein was alive, later proving that the universe is not locally real and that the so-called spooky action at a distance the scientist so dreaded was as real as real can be in a non-real universe. Other-Albert would have a lot more to say about this, devolving into another one of his rants no doubt. Real-Albert was surprised to find that he didn’t really think of those as rants thought, and rather looked forward to hearing more about it. Perhaps he was becoming like Other-Albert.
Still. All this proved to be necessary but not yet sufficient to figure out magically powered teleportation. There were signs that Albert was making progress in the field, but with how little the skill video explained the process it was hard to quantify how much work it was going to take before the skill was ready. He could blame the other Albert for losing himself in useless chatter, of course, but not only had the chatter been quite useful, there was also the pride in not wanting to admit that without a video things were hard to do, and so Albert just kept at it.
Night came with no sign of the golem ever becoming active. Albert was about to call it a night and sleep, having also hatched a plan in case he didn’t see the golem in the glade anymore by the time he woke up. But before that, he decided to try one last thing to get teleportation going, one last idea that came to mind right at the moment when he was about to quit. Thus, much like it happens with youtube videos when bedtime nears, Albert found himself stuck in the loop of discarding ideas, deciding to call it a night, and having new ideas to test for entire hours.
There is a part of the brain that kicks in when one is bored, or engrossed with a task that does not require much thinking like preparing to go to bed. It’s called the Default Mode network, and it sets the stage for the kind of deep thinking that a teenager with access to a phone and magic is not usually engaged in. It drags things up from the conscious and the subconscious, letting the neurons fire in full problem-solving mode without interference from structured thought. It is the very mechanism responsible for the many ideas Albert like many others got while in the shower, and it is the same mechanism that gifted him with the eureka he so badly needed right now.
