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millennium-thejiaqiverse · 6 years ago

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Chapter 1: The “Angel Plague”

Summary: Inspired by a real life fungus, I present to you the “angel plague”, (a very unofficial name, taken from the shape of the mushrooms). Miles is even infected by this fungus when he’s at school (probably not in the way you’re thinking of). He is rescued by the mysterious young woman from Chapter 0–but her identity is no longer a mystery in this chapter... well, only partially.

“Alright, this is the spot, into the water,” Rose cheers, “way to go everyone! The green flag is not more than 300 meters away in the mangroves, we’re almost there, stay safe!” “Oh, great... gosh you’re loud.” Tyler roles his eyes as the team holds on to the float they built whilst waist deep in water. Tinaye sighs and gives him a pat on the shoulder, “C’mon, let’s tie our float down.” “Last check, we have enough fresh water, handy tools...” Elly checks with everyone, “and we’re right on time; yup, we’re all set.”

Miles cannot really pay much mind to the group assignment, he cannot stop thinking about the cancerous plane, and the mysterious young woman who fueled it.

“Watch out for crabs and alike, just a heads up.” Rose calls out to everyone, poking a stick at the path ahead. “Are we there yet?” Tyler impatiently follows her footsteps. “We have enough time before the tides rise, what’s even the rush dude?” Remarks Adele. Before Tyler can make an annoyed grunt a shadow dashes over their heads, closely followed by Miles’s yelp. “*gasps* Miles!” Rose stops. “Woah are you ok?” Ryan quickly rushes to his aid. Barnacles, of course. “That was stupid, I got startled.” Miles shakes his head. Just as he says this some bird noises sound from above. “Ooh, the pied imperial pigeon agrees with you.” Nick winks. “Cut it out!” Miles snickers. “Sit down on this plank for us Miles,” Tinaye pulls out a wooden plank from his pack and lays it down onto sturdy ground. “We’ll just check your leg,” Ryan calmly gets to work, “Nick, would you take a step back? And watch your step please.” “K I’ll let you two do your thing, take care of my boy!” Nick swiftly backs away. “You’re lucky it’s just a small bruise,” Ryan sighs, “but this will still cost you some points on this assignment, be careful.” “Thanks, I know I need to pay more attention.” Miles agrees. “Ha, looks like the nerd is not always perfect! Now he’s slowing us down!” Tyler boos at Miles. “Hey!” Nick crosses his arms. “Tyler!” Ryan retaliates, “we’ve still got work to do, so the next thing coming outta your mouth better be useful! I’m being serious!” “Pff, fine!” Tyler throws his arms up in defeat.

After that is more wading through the mangrove growth, keeping hydrated and in the end climbing a tree to fetch their flag.

“Is this it for today?” Adele asks. “Yes, we’ll carry on further tomorrow.” Elly confirms. “Wow it’s so easy working with you guys, my last team sucked so hard.” Adele comments. “Haha, we liked you too girl!” Rose smiles. “That’s nice to hear, well I’m going offline.” Adele tells the team. “Catch you tomorrow!” Nick waves to her, “so what about the rest of you? Shall we all log off?” “Finally!” An answer from Tyler. “Sheesh, Ty...” Nick frowns.

After taking off their VR equipment (i.e. everything they experienced was simulated for the assignment, including Miles’s bruise) and exiting the group projects hall, Nick sprints up to Miles.

Miles is now thinking hard about his bday dreams, mindlessly walking forwards. “Hey Miles, what’s up?” Nick nudges Miles with his elbow. “Huh?” Miles jumps a little. “Tell me! What’s on your mind?” Nick presses, “is it your bday dream?” “Yeah, it’s nothing major, do you really want to hear it again?” Miles laughs. “I’ve known you for more than 10 years, I am positive I know everything about you, like how I can just tell something’s different with this last dream!” Nick is very confident. He’s right, but for one Nick never knows about all this “magic” stuff, however that must remain secret for safety reasons, Miles thinks. Only Nick’s constant begging does make Miles tell him about a little of what happened, “... just like that, she woke up, stood up, and before I could react disappeared along with the whole place. I barely got out before all is gone myself.” “Dude, what?” Asks Nick, “that was your dream?!!” Well, it was not exactly a dream, part of it was very real, Miles thinks to himself but decides to go along with it, “yeah, just a regular dream...” “You’ve got to write this down! Like as a novel or something, your dream is crazy stuff! Good stuff!” Nick says with excitement. “That’d be nice, but I don’t want to forget everything else and type away nonstop like a lab monkey all day,” Miles can’t help but think of his writer dad, “guess it’s not my lifestyle.” “Pshh whatevs,” shrugs Nick, “you coming to the cafeteria today?” “Nah, I’ll be in the lounge as usual, I really need some rest.” Miles replies. “Well ok, don’t let those dreams get carried away.” Nick teases him. “I won’t!” Miles says as they go their separate ways.

A few students are napping in the lounge already. Miles finds an empty spot and climbs in for a nap, he gets tired and needs sleep too often, much to his annoyance.

As soon as he’s asleep, Miles exits his body as he usually does—the best way for his physical body to unconsciously recharge when at the same time his consciousness has the freedom to carry out other tasks. With his consciousness out of his body, Miles brings questions about his bday dreams and the young woman to his mentor. While he’s getting the answers universes away, a sense of something being out of ordinary brings him to promptly return to the school lounge. Miles watches as a battered shadow person tries to take over his currently vacant body, one of their hands grabbing onto his ankle. “No, you can’t do that,” he says to them. The being turns to look at his out-of-body consciousness with surprise. “You’re not even supposed to be getting onto this plane of existence, you need to go back to your plane.” Miles tells them as he pulls them away from his body, “people will freak out when they see you, let’s get you back home.” The mention of “home” seems to freak the shadow being out, but before they could retaliate Miles is already on their plane with them. “There you go,” Miles drops them off. The shadow person gets into fetal position the second Miles removed his hand from them. “Huh, ok?” Miles is a little confused at this, “you take care of yourself.” Then he leaves and gets back to his body, not thinking much about the glittery dusts floating around that plane.

Waking up, Miles readies himself for his last personal assignment before midterms, which he planned to complete this afternoon. Unexpectedly, Miles started feeling quite sick before he puts his VR equipment on. “You good Miles?” Nick is right next to him preparing for his assignment. “I don’t know,” weirdly, Miles feels more tired after his nap, “maybe I didn’t rest well this time somehow?” “You look ill, and you’re never ill, *snickers* my mom jokes that germs and stuff burn off before reaching you.” Nick says, “my point being you should take this afternoon off and rest at home, if you still feel ill then go to your doctor. I mean, you are in no condition to nail your last assignment anyway.” “You’re right Nick, guess this is all for me today,” Miles smiles, “good luck.” “Thanks, get well soon!” Nick says as he puts on his headset.

“Afternoon son!” Max calls out from his study. “Hey dad,” Miles slams into bed as soon as he enters his room. He is ready to sleep it all off, however, a little too late for his liking he senses a intruder who’s blended in with the room almost perfectly. Not knowing who’d be there, Miles jolts up and throws an attack at the intruder, only to witness his attack pass straight through her like she’s not really there. “... You?” Miles realizes it is the mysterious young woman again, but before he could ask why she’s here, he’s already suspended in midair. Max doesn’t hear all this commotion as there’s a “bubble of silence” around the room. She then proceeds to pull something white and shining out of Miles’s body, which quickly withers and turns to dust, and afterwards drops him to the floor. “Before you sensed my presence I was going to wait till you’re asleep, as silly as it sounds now as I learnt you’ll discover me anyways;” she explains, “you were infected by a fungus that latches onto one’s consciousness in order to drain one’s life energy to produce it’s spores.” “What?” Miles cries. “Apologies if I frightened you, as I’m only here to help, I’ll be on my way as I have work to do.” She turns to leave. “How was I infected? Wait!” Miles asks. “You were in contact with its spores when you ventured to an infected dimension, the dimension I plan on taking out altogether before the fungus crosses over and grows all over this universe.” She explains in a hurry. “You can’t take out a plane like that,” Miles tells her, “some creatures might need those places to reside at the very least.” “A plane?” She raises an eyebrow. “You call them dimensions, I think,” Miles then suggests, “wouldn’t removing just the fungus be a better option? I’ll help with that.” “Yes, you’re not wrong,” she accepts the suggestion, “this will take longer than my original plan but it’ll do.” She rushes off, ignoring Miles’s offer to help. Well, feeling much better now, Miles decides to follow her and check on things; but how to repel the spores if they infect one’s consciousness? That’s when Miles hatches an idea.

Miles goes out of body again, but this time, using the Junction, Miles sends only his physical body onto the young woman’s trail, to the other plane with the glittery dusts he’s just visited not long ago, his consciousness doesn’t go with it and stays at this plane right in his room.

She’s already busy pulling the fungus off of suffering creatures, and gathering spores from bursting fungus growths, meanwhile making sure no creature is sneaking off to another plane with this ongoing infestation. “This dimension is dangerous for you...” she says, then suddenly pauses, “you sent your physical vessel?” Hearing this question from afar, Miles controls his body to give her a nod with its head. “That’s pretty creative,” she continues drawing all parts of the fungus away from any present consciousness. Guessing what she should be up to, Miles controls his body to make a sphere of fire, meanwhile keeping tabs on the whole plane from the outside himself to make sure nothing exits. She sees the sphere and uses it burn the parts she gathered, very soon the plane is clear of this fungus.

“All done!” She calls out and extinguishes the flaming sphere, “you should have seen this—the growing fungus looks like some messed up angel wings.” Upon hearing her call, Miles quickly gets there, back into his body, “Great job, the problem’s solved.” “Yes, great job to us.” She smiles, “hello Miles.” “Hello Ray,” Miles greets her back. “Funny how we’re now introduced to each other again,” Ray says. “Yeah, considering the fact we’ve met not long before on a cancerous plane, and not to mention in a previous life too.” Miles adds. “You know about your reincarnation.” Ray is surprised to hear what Miles said. “I asked my mentor when I napped today,” Miles says, “well, I asked why I kept having the same dream with you in it every time on my birthday up until we met in person and how I think I know you, I guess I didn’t think too much about that before.” “Your mentor?” Ray wonders. “Atlas.” Miles replies. “Oh,” Ray pauses for a while, “How much do you remember?” Ray asks then changes the subject, “and thank you for waking me up back when we met face to face.” “No problem.” Miles then answers, “I know we were friendly with each other because you wanted to help me, I know you are a very powerful energy folder as Atlas had told me so; but I can probe further, your highness...” Miles probes on, “Crown Princess Ray of... hold on...” his mind blurs out of nowhere. The cause of that was Ray’s interference. “I’m sorry,” Ray turns away. “That’s ok, I don’t really have to know.” Miles shrugs it off, but she’s disappeared away to somewhere else by then. Miles sighs, lowering his head... and sees the same shadow person grabbing onto his ankle, again. “You seem to be doing ok,” Miles looks at them. After staring at each other for a while, the shadow being lets go without incident.

“So how did school go? I assume you finished early today?” Max asks his son at the dinner table. “Well, I didn’t finish my personal assignment yet, I guess I was a little too tired.” Miles digs in to the simple but nutritious meal, “that’s not a issue though, I’ll be fine.” “I’m not too worried there son, we have 2 more days before Orientation Day, I’m sure you’ll manage just fine.” Yup, Miles assures himself, finishing up this assignment is surely easier than almost dying from then having to dispel some angle-wing-shaped-fungus plague.

#original #original story #original character #fatasy #mystery #magic #scifi #scififantasy #fiction #thejiaqiverse

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thejiaqiverse · 6 years ago

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Late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Again... (exploring a new art style)

I had this headcanon that KD’s head is a solid cube(a die) that’s actually soft to the touch, dunno where else to mention it, so I put it here

I have this one single story that is basically a mix of AUs itself and light crossover-ish, which I’ve been working on for a year now (gee my productivity is truly questionable), characters from Cuphead

Hey can you guess what made James ask KD his question about being loyal by reading the last parts of their convo? Share your guess if you are interested (answer soon to be shown in The Tree of Life)

I had a plan to dig into the Cuphead game before the DLC and summarize/talk about its story with a video, but maybe I should do that in written words

And I have a original short comic coming as well

Enjoy and have fun!

#fan art #fan comic #cuphead don’t deal with the devil #cuphead #king dice #cuphead king dice #cuphead devil #snake eyes #cuphead snake eyes #devil dice #ai robot #parallel universe #fan fiction #thejiaqiverse

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the-textbased-jiaqiverse · 6 years ago

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[start of Log 094]

This is a guide on... how to, magically... pizza, this is

“Log 094: The Magic”

What am I saying? That’s not what this should be... Eh! Let’s try this again...

Dear video log... dear video log, I’d like to document the... what? ...... *annoyed sigh* ehhh fine!

Log 094: The Magic

I keep it that way... I just want to make this short ramble about, magic!

Today I baked a pizza with my mind, and really, this is a big achievement. You know, Inkwell energy patterns are almost incomprehensible! Do you have any idea how hard it is to do magic here, huh? It’s a necessity to sense and know exactly what I do or there will be undesired consequences... *quietly and quickly said* and apparently I still blew it in the end even when I had a decent idea... Well, let’s start by saying this! The day I arrived at this new universe, this Inkwell place, it was the WORST! I lost the physical form I was used to because of a supposedly common Lapse, I tell you these Lapses had done worse... I got off lucky but still I felt it, this universe hated my guts, I’m furry, I look like I am supposed to be a cat, this form looked stranger the more you looked at it!!

So, how am I finally able to bake this pizza with magic? I came a long, long way.

This... magic, it’s a normal part of me that I am used to and comfortable with, like my arms, or my legs, it’s something, so, so familiar, something I don’t usually take notice in, but when it’s gone or out of order all of a sudden, I’d feel that nothing is right. The first few days in Inkwell I can’t use magic at all, curse you universe! Firstly I though of it as just an Energy-Conflict which will eventually smoothen out, but looking back I think that was not the only cause, anyhow... I told you, this universe is the worst! It’s NOT welcoming especially if it decides to disrupts my magic. I got very worried! I would have never gotten used to Inkwell, if not for how Dice taught me this simple method of somewhat regaining my magical abilities.

I would begin with an object, a medium, not specifically a wand it can actually be anything from this universe, just something to take hold of and focus on. *lowers voice* Psst, wands are cool, I was just nervous when Dice presented me a vase as target practice and told me to try and blast it, possible failure hurts my massive ego then, so me not wanting a wand was a lame excuse... and I just realized now as I am recording this log that Dice probably knew for certain I was someone that would pull this excuse five days after we’ve met... but I don’t regret it because now I have an awesome trident made with love. This sounds so ridiculous but it actually works, I started by thinking about hitting the vase, making a wild guess of how it should be done, then I poked on and altered the energy patterns I could map out with the trident according to my guesswork, and... I destroyed the vase, and the wall, and the woods, and some random hill site beyond the woods; fun fact, the hole I made then is now the cave for our casino.

And so for a long time I used the trident, for all sorts of stuff. To be honest if I were to bake this pizza with the help of the trident it would be much easier, I’m very used to the trident by now. The reason I wanted to go without it today was because I wanted more of a challenge.

John and James are jerks! So I was heating this pizza for Dice, eh the way John said all of a sudden, *exaggerated impersonation* “don’t push yourself too far, you know Mr. King Dice accepts you for who you are, even if you can’t bake this pizza the way you’d like to” HAHAHAHAHA what do you mean by pushing myself... TOO FAR, heh?!! ... typical John made something soothing sound so miserable once again by choosing the most inappropriate moment to squeeze it in!!! This is almost magic itself!

Me repeatedly shouting “PIZZA” was actually not baking it. Probably because I don’t use spell words, different types of spoken spells combined with some awkward body movement like *moves around to give examples in background* “abracadabra”, “wingardium leviosa”, or in this case, “PIZZA PIZZA PIZZA!” Eh... spoken spells have their own pros and cons, for me pros usually being fewer than cons, now it’s confirmed. Though shouting “PIZZA” was not at all a useless move. Guess Dice meant for me to get the stress and rush out of my system as I shouted “pizza pizza pizza” first rather than doing the baking.

Oh yeah, through much hardship and Dice’s step to step coaching plus encouragement, this one day I FINALLY moved on to this new level... Just two weeks before I am finally able to shoot fire out of my fingers without the help of the trident. It would have been way cooler if I could actually breathe fire before in Sugarland, but that’s another story entirely... Because it took so long and was so hard for my foreign self to calibrate according to the Inkwell environment, I lost it. That day I could light our stove, I screamed, then ran around lighting every inch of my way.

Not one word could get to me! I almost burnt the casino down to the ground if I wasn’t stopped by force HHHHH good times...

Blasting stuff with fire... all that out of the way, I concentrated on that pizza. John is effecting my level of concentration just by standing there so first I made him leave. Deep breath, center myself, energize, bake it well, and...

That pizza was unbelievably efficiently done, the first perfect pizza that came out of my hands, there was not a single glimmer, not a single spark no nothing, just the perfectly evenly baked pizza, which was gone in a flash, a literal flash... I blew it!

EHH!!! Isn’t it always supposed to be... I mean when you harness some energy from your emotions... the more your feelings build, the stronger your magic gets? Here’s my question now, why, does crushing on someone screw things up instead... *blush* uh I hope Dice skips this crappy entry entirely this is embarrassing to look at! Perhaps such a sudden, unpredicted blast of emotions is always too much to handle no matter who you are.

I ended up making lasagna in the end, BY HAND...... Sometimes I wonder why I don’t just ask Dice to whip something up for me instead... I mean science something up instead of me pathetic attempt of making magic here in Inkwell. His techie stuff, like this video log, and the trident I keep with me almost all the time, covers more than what I can do with my, *sigh* Inkwell-restricted magic anyway.

Oh right, I suppose learning to harmonize with a universe right from the minute you get there is the real idea behind my magic training...

Hey thankfully I didn’t persist on “the guide to pizza” as the title, because you end up with Lasagna instead, completely off topic!

*suddenly busting in* “How was you lasagna “Boss”?”

“Aye! I’m busy!! Make your own logs John so you have something to...” *cut off*

[End of Log 094]

I decided to make this look like an unstructured video diary thing, Devil didn’t explain every magical terminology/concept, because when one is born with magic they tend to forget there are those whom don’t know as much about magic as they do, besides there is also going to be communication obstacles if there is a difference in terms

Refer to thejiaqiverse to see Devil’s intentionally very-average-by-design human form, keep an eye out if you are also a fan of Detroit: Become Human

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thejiaqiverse-planniverse · 5 years ago

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#comic #pocket universe #fictional world #thejiaqiverse #breaking the fourth wall #oh ya

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millennium-thejiaqiverse · 6 years ago

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I hope this path of time travels diagram clears stuff up? (3 time travellers, and there’s Ray just hanging out in the background for now)

I stuffed lots and lots into the first 3 chapters of Millennium, general world construct (VR assignments at school—a little info on how schools work in Miles’s home universe, etc.) and as much as possible on magic (I admit all the time travel, dimension/plane travel, universal structure such as volatile or cancerous planes of existence and so on added together is hard to wrap your head around). Millennium in the whole is just a tip of the iceberg of this big story I have planned.

Miles Millward, one of our protagonists (?), is a student of Atlas. Atlas is one of the members of the Honorary Court (the Honorary Court is generally speaking a group of special people with huge responsibilities and play major roles in the Jiaqi-verse).

I added some little twists to existing mythology as you will see XD

All of them established their own thing (Atlas’s theory on “unreality”, Atropos’s skill with the intricate web of fate) and they are then tasked to work their own fields. Believe me none of the above is a easy job.

Well, I’ll leave you with this for now

@cadewrites See you soon in Chapter 3

#fantasy #illustration #magic #mystery #original #original story #character design #atlas #atropos #thejiaqiverse

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millennium-thejiaqiverse · 6 years ago

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Chapter 0: A Pilot

chapter 0 link

#watercolor #original #original story #fantasy #mystery #original character #new concept #magic #traditional art #illustration #thejiaqiverse

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millennium-thejiaqiverse · 6 years ago

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Chapter 2: Past, Present and Future

Summary: This chapter is possibly the longest and most challenging to write in the Millennium series (I hope), because there are not one but THREE different time travelers each on their own merry way, one of them being a god. I tried my best to organize all the stuff from the past, present and future (no pun intended) for this to be easy to read. Hint hint, the main focus is still on Miles, main events are in the same universe on the same timeline, and the main points in time are one cool summer day (Miles’s past), then the day before Orientation Day (present), and a cold winter night (further in the past). Let’s see how the present shapes the past, which shapes the future thereafter (ties to Chapter 0’s cancerous plane of existence).

This is the last part of the 9th personal assignment, after more than a month’s hard work, Miles is more than ready for this stage.

Doing a last check then taking off when instructed with his small self-built aircraft, Miles relaxes a bit and smoothly makes the journey to the finish line—a small nearby airport. His class tutor is already waiting for him there. “I knew you would excel on this assignment,” the tutor says, “your results and feedback will be in on the 2nd day of next week. Good luck with your midterms!” “Thank you for the extra day of good weather conditions Ms. Sonmi, thank you so much for your help and understanding.” Miles goes to the tutor after parking his aircraft. “Of course, you were on sick leave Miles,” she says, “everyone has one of those days.” “Yep, one of those days...” to battle a parasite fungus that could kill you. Miles can’t help but think to himself as he replies.

It is around 18 in the VR simulation when Miles finished but in fact 22:26 in real life (he had also spent lots of time with his team to complete their group assignment). Miles goes to the toilet to freshen up and prepare to take the shuttle home.

“Heyyy...” Jason Finn Lee was looking into the mirror above the sinks when Miles enters the toilet, he quickly turns to greet him (but things get awkward fast because this guy can’t remember Miles’s name to save his life). “Hey Jason,” Miles breaks the awkward silence, walking to a sink to wash his hands. “There’s my favorite redhead! How was you day?” Jason inquires. Miles answers while washing his hands, “Well, I’ve finally got everything done. It was fun flying an aircraft for my PA (personal assignment), over some fields, and some red maple trees...” “You’re so organized man, my assignments are a mess, and I’m so stressed over midterms!” Jason just starts rambling on.

Miles’s mind wonders off. He thinks of the red maple trees around his parents’ house—well, it’s just his dad’s house now; Miles has a tent he would bring out to the maple trees every now and then, he remembers he used to carry this tent out there everyday when he was about 4 or 5, and hang out there for hours. Miles again recalls that one day, that day he had the strange encounters when he was 5.

That summer day started as normal, little Miles finished doodling some cartoony multicolored trains in his tent, he was walking up to the front door of the house to bring in his drawings when he just had this feeling he had to see something. He looked, only to see someone almost identical to his 5-year-old self, a little Miles #2 but with torn up cloth, leaves in his messy hair and an unexplained look of sudden realization in his eyes; he looked on as little Miles #2 ran to hide in the tent, pulling the zipper shut. He was about to go to the tent to confront this strange kid...

Right now, Miles’s recollection is semi-interrupted with utter silence and a feeling of dread his 5-year-old self had experienced at that very moment back then on that fateful day. “Jason?” Noticing that Jason has abruptly stopped making a sound, Miles looks over to him, only to see an apparition grabbing onto the nose and mouth of his struggling schoolmate.

“... The ghost!” Miles stammers, “not again!” Distorted frozen face, hateful eyes, it is the same apparition little Miles’d seen moments after seeing little Miles #2 that day! “You! I know what it means to see your doppelgänger!” What they said as they charged his younger self echos through his mind, “you are going to die!”

Miles is in shock. This apparition is very dangerous! Jason cannot breathe, he tries to fight back, but the apparition isn’t effected at all. Seeing the apparition hurting his schoolmate, Miles immediately snaps out of it and throws the apparition off of Jason then keeps them at bay, and as soon as Jason caught his breath, Miles pushes him out of the room, taking his memory of the attack and planting a sense that he’s done his bathroom trip on autopilot. “Ah, you’re stronger than I thought,” the apparition speaks. “I’m taking you off this plane of existence!” Miles says as he restrains them.

On that cool summer day, after little Miles was jumped by the apparition blocking his way home, he gave up on confronting little Miles #2, dropped his drawings and darted off running away from them. “Why would it turn out like this?! Everything is horrible!” The apparition screeched and chased after him with a machete, “why must I suffer? Why must we part? The love towards her was so much yet you’d never get to spend a life with her! Never even said ‘I love you’ before leaving!!” “Leave me alone!” Little Miles was very scared, he went off the neighborhood roads and ran into the red maple woods—bumping into low branches and tearing his clothes—straight to a cliff. “Stop this futile attempt to get away child, die for me!” Waving the machete, the apparition taunted him, slowly passing through the trees, “you are horrible, let me end this.” Running a little ahead of the apparition, little Miles’s legs were giving out, at that moment he wished so much that all this wasn’t happening and he was back at the front door, going back into the safety of his home—

—Suddenly, there he was, out of the woods, but at this strange train station, not at home. Parked at the platform he stood on was one of the cartoony trains he doodled whilst imagining it making a stop in the yard of his home some day. With no idea where else to go and this train being the relatively more comprehensible option, little Miles boarded it to test his luck. And before he knew it, he was there in the yard of his home again, and he saw “little Miles #2” going to the front door with some drawings, except he didn’t have torn cloth and... little Miles suddenly realized there was no doppelgänger little Miles #2 at all, it was just himself all along—somehow he time travelled through that strange train station! Remembering this was when the apparition would charge his past self, little Miles ducked into the tent and shut himself in, hugging his legs to wait it all out.

Right now, Miles is once more traveling with a train through the Junction—his strange train station—to the past. The apparition gave up on fighting him (they decided they are powerful enough and didn’t need to hunt to gain more power at that moment), escaped his grip and went on a volatile plane to crawl their way back in time to quote on quote “end their suffering from its beginning” (despite Miles telling them this is not how time travel works after he realized the apparition didn’t recognize him at the moment), so Miles now needs to track them down and make sure they don’t cause a ruckus for nothing.

Boom, the train shakes as it enters a field of light, Miles stops by to see what that was about.

This is a freezing snowy winter night. Miles meets a gang of robed sorcerers maintaining an intricate puzzle box of their design—a cluster of volatile planes of existence piled at one spot, like an invisible labyrinth, imprisoning a sacrificial lamb, a girl, pleading for her release. The sorcerers are repeatedly chanting something in Latin, something along the lines of “take this innocent sacrifice and bring forth the apocalypse”, classic stuff. Miles enters the puzzle box attempting to free the girl, it is clear this puzzle is not just a day’s work: Each plane there is built by the ghost who haunts it, judging from their robes they are from the same society of sorcerers, Miles has to fight constantly to survive their attacks. Miles plans to pull the girl out of the puzzle box before she is sacrificed, but after going through some layers of this puzzle, he realized this whole thing has to be torn down in order to free her—she would somehow always be on a different plane than Miles, and Miles’s magic is limited by the structure of this puzzle box therefore cannot reach through to her. Time is running out, her organs are bleeding, Miles blows the puzzle box apart, weakening the sorcerers around it tremendously; he heals the girl, she runs off screaming as soon as her feet touches the ground, scared out of her mind.

“You fool! You thought we didn’t know there would be time traveling fools like you who’d try to stop us?” Says the one who seems to be the head sorcerer with a weak but stern voice, “the apocalypse will be upon us regardless of you efforts. My daughter’s innocent soul is just one of many sources of the energy we’d use to grow our cancerous dimension, the energy you supplied to our labyrinth before destroying it was needless to say far more than what a few souls can provide, the cancer will now root on our universe and thanks to your little retaliation you kickstarted this process! You have achieved nothing! Oh well, another pawn of the Court will cease to exist in our hands!!” Miles has to think about this, meanwhile he’s just looking at the sorcerer. “Be surprise you idiot!” The sorcerer gets angry at Miles’s lack of proper reaction. Miles carefully words his sentence, “I can tell you first hand that your efforts here are not in vain.” “Hah,” the sorcerer lays his head down, “people will thank us for doing this.”

Just what kind of maniac would sacrificing his own daughter? Walking in the winter snow, Miles thinks to himself after he’s a distance away from the scene, “at least I saved the daughter and she’d be alright, that wasn’t all for nothing... wait, that reminds me—the thing, the real idiot I’m here to watch!”

A gust of summer wind blows through the air. Making sure the apparition wasn’t in sight anymore, little Miles ran through the front door, slamming it behind him. “Miles? Is that you?” It was his mom coming to the door. Little Miles panicked, he wrecked his clothes and he was a mess, mom would be so mad! That was when everything stopped, leaving little Miles puzzled. “This is quite an unconventional first meeting.” a voice came from the living room, “Don’t be alarmed Miles,” the words brought a sense of calmness, little Miles walked into the living room to see a man looking out of the floor to ceiling windows, “I’m Atlas, some guy who carries the cosmos. Good job throwing that thing off your trail.” Everything around them was frozen in time, little Miles saw his mom on the stairs, about to turn the corner to the living room. “Atlas? A titan?” Little Miles asked. “Yes, that’s me,” Atlas turned to face him, “furthermore, the information about me you downloaded into your head is quite correct—I must admit that’s a pretty handy way to acquire knowledge.” “But what about that angry man who chased me?” Little Miles wanted to know more, “he is strange.” “The apparition you encountered breached the veil which separates your plane of existence and another volatile one, and I’m here to capture them.” Atlas gave him an answer, “however, that’s not the purpose of our meeting. Miles Millward, you have a unique talent with magic. A long journey of self discovery and learning lies ahead of you, this journey wouldn’t be easy. I cannot tell you you’ll have no worries or fears in the future, but I will be there for you when and only when you need my help. You know where to find me, in here.” He gestured to his head. The next thing little Miles knew was that everything was back to normal, his mom greeted him with a raised eyebrow and a “what were you up to?” regarding his clothes and hair, Atlas was nowhere to be seen.

The snow is falling. “This is my chance,” the apparition bursts through the redwood gates of a mansion. “Stop it right there!” Miles yells. “There you are child, having fun lost in your thoughts?” The apparition takes notice of him. “For the last time, you can’t change what you wanted to change no matter what you do here! Think about it!” Miles tries to reason with them. “I’m not listening!” The apparition taunts him. “What in the world?” A maid has rushed to the broken down gates. Miles quickly shrouds himself and the apparition from her sight, not wanting to scare her. “I don’t know why, but you think of me again and again,” the apparition roars to Miles, “the more you think, the more you wonder about me you’d feed my power! I just never thought we’ll be here this soon. Now I’ll finally get what I want no matter what!”

“Eric?” A voice from the landing facing the gate, “Eric where have you been?! You can’t keep chasing after some ‘supernatural’ nonsense and running off disappearing like that, I worry!” That’s when Miles noticed a lady rushing down to a figure that appeared at the gate during this mayhem. “Yes, there she is,” the apparition cheers. Miles looks at the figure at the gate then at the apparition, then it hits him. That figure is actually the ghost of this Eric guy, while the apparition he’s been dealing with isn’t any ghost as he initially believed, but a mindless manifestation of a burning desire, they certainly have very little reason in them. “Don’t do that ever again!” She is crying with joy. “Come to us and be united!” The manifestation demands. Apparently this powerful manifestation worked a deal with Eric in Miles’s absence. Eric is lured back from the dead and made visible to the living, probably on the promise he could join his love forever, this manifestation possibly planned on binding this lady Melanie and Eric for eternity which will certainly fail at some point and further harm all that are involved! It is clear the apparition sees joining them together as their purpose and not completing this job as their torment.

“This is sick!” Miles is really close to just annihilating that manifestation at this point, but he was stopped. “Calm down Miles,” it’s Atlas, putting a hand on his shoulder. “They’re... Melanie and Eric are in a very bad situation!” Miles is confused. “You have a drive to help and save people, this is good, but you have to keep this in mind,” Atlas explains, “we learnt that history runs on cause and effect, the cause and effect that we’re not always a part of. This couple don’t really need any help you know?” “Huh?” Miles questions his mentor. Atlas points to Eric and Melanie to tell him to watch on. “I’m leaving you Melanie,” Eric says unexpectedly. “What?” Melanie’s jaw drops, “but after all that we’ve been through?” “We’ll never see each other again,” Eric keeps the now agitated apparition away from Melanie with all his might, “this is for the best! You shouldn’t have had faith in me!” “What are you doing?” The apparition is ready to pounce on everyone here, “we end this now!” Eric notices and runs out through the gates, leaving Melanie behind, now crying with heartbreak and anger. “What ever did I see in him?” Melanie shakes her head. The apparition of course chases him outside. “You know you love her! You wanted to say you love her, you wanted to be with her!” The apparition screams, “you wanted this so much you created me!! And I’ll never let you off with that! Even in death, I’ll make sure you never rest until you man up and fulfill your desires!”

Through the snow, Miles and Atlas chase after them. “The manifestation is distorting even more,” Miles refers to the apparition who’s growing increasingly grotesque, “the more this guy suppresses his feelings the more this manifestation has a reason to grow...” “Although it doesn’t look like it but Eric will prevail,” Atlas isn’t very worried, “marriage at this day and age is hardly about love, it is a union of two families. He’s done the right thing letting her go, all he has to do now is accept his sacrifice.” “Then I’ll tell him that!” Miles teleports in front of Eric, stopping him in his track. “Miles! He has to do this by himself!” Atlas informs Miles.

“This is all my fault...” Eric sighs, “you know, in fact I couldn’t give her the life she deserves in the first place, I’m just a nobody with no status. She is to be wedded to the Brickdales tomorrow, and that’s probably for the best.” “We’re not done, you are coming with me,” the apparition catches up with Eric. “I feel the most difficult thing isn’t the goodbye to my love, but to let go of the fact that we will part forever.” Eric continues. “But you don’t have to, it was a mistake, we’ll go back and fix...” the apparition is then cut off by Eric. “I know Melanie,” Eric stands against them, “she will moved on, and William loves her no less than I do, I would only have one last gift to her now that I’m dead. If this fiend is truly just my longing for Melanie, then I set it free.” “Well this is a load of crap,” although much weaker since Eric punched them by letting it go, the apparition isn’t finished, “but I’m not giving up on the reason I exist! I still suffer! I’ll just have to regain my strength and try again!”

The apparition disappears onto a volatile plane. “Unnatural! The manifestation survived being cut off, and now they’re traveling through time again!?” Miles jumps. “This is indeed unnatural. I’ll handle this Miles,” Atlas goes after the apparition. “Ahh, I’ve never been so at peace,” Eric finally relaxes.

Miles follows his mentor, “Atlas, I can help!” Hearing that, Atlas turns around to him, “Settle down Miles, you’ve had quite a long day, I came to your aid earlier because I sensed you’re already exhausted. I’ve got this. Here, you’ll be at home right on time if you exit the plane now.” “You’re right, my mind’s getting jumpy,” Miles agrees, “and it’s in my favor to take a break before midterms.” Atlas sees Miles off then continues after the apparition.

Arriving at the cool summer day, Atlas comforts little Miles who’s just been jumped at the front door of his home, and thereafter goes on to capture the apparition his after.

“So, Atlas, you’ve got another one.” Atropos greets Atlas, her eyes focused on her freshly completed tapestry, “know that the Court will be happy to take over this matter.”

@cadewrites

#original #original story #original character #fantasy #mystery #magic #scifi #scififantasy #fiction #time travel #thejiaqiverse

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millennium-thejiaqiverse · 6 years ago

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Chapter 3: One Unusual Paper

Summary: What does the birth of revolutionary technology bring along with it? It certainly has a big impact on the world and the the ones whom brought this technology to everyone. Let’s introduce the center stage technology in this chapter—the chips. Find out how they changed Miles’s home world. Hey, I don’t only cover the magic topic, behold as civilizations develop technology-wise.

“This is the first time I take my exam at another school, ever! So exciting!” Phillip is ultra-excited. “Calm down dude, haven’t you been at our school already on Orientation Day? I mean, we checked out the exam hall together.” Adele pets Phillip’s back, “besides, you’re from Dawn City Academy, probably the coolest school ever.” “Meh, pretty sure that’s just our schools reputation,” Philip snickers, “I don’t see what the fuss is about.”

Miles is sitting next to the windows of the shuttle, looking out to the cityscape. Sitting right next to him is Nick, who’s focused on his tablet.

“Remember that one past paper in which life literally gives you lemons?” Rose starts the topic. “Yes, that’s a good one. What do you do with a crate of 30 lemons in one and a half hours?” Elly asks with a laugh. “Start small businesses like everybody did in that one particular group we studied—every one of them was an inner entrepreneur, they used the weather, what’s trending, blah blah blah; plus each of them could really think out of the box. Hey do you think our exam group would also coincidentally take the same approach like they did? We all have the same paper and we prepared as a group, it’s possible.” “That’d still be too much of a coincidence, as we’ll be separated into individual cubicles.” Ryan shakes her head.

“Hatch Station 50,” an announcement sounds as the shuttle makes its stop, “welcome to our SCI (Suspended & Concealed Islands, the “sky” above the ground-level city parts), you may switch to the Gate’s shuttles at this station.”

Looking at the Gate’s giant ever changing spherical hologram logo, Miles sighs a light sigh.

Ever since the great idea of the tech company Quartz took off (tiny chips connected with the brain, which serve a main function of allowing users to quickly and effectively research and access information with their minds), society changed drastically; and now, there is the Gate—Dr. Mary Millward, Miles’s mom, one of the most prominent Inventors ever, founded this company with her team. She brought forth a tech revolution, largely increasing the reliability and security of the chips and the internet system. Through this competition, Quartz is now obsolete, the Gate takes over and keeps on growing, building the SCI and who knows what next.

“Yo Philip, the animator guy’s from your school right?” Tinaye asks. “The animator guy?” Philip repeats while thinking. “You know, the guy who made a short animation to express how mankind’s coexistence and co-development with Mother Nature is important, in 1 hour 30 minutes?” “Oh you meant Ian!” Philip snaps his fingers, “that guy’s legendary. He’s not from our branch though, our branch is the one with the infamous ‘party kids’.” He winks. “Sounds like fun!” Rose says. “Hey I think we’re here.” Elly tells everyone. “Station Sky Secondary School. Dear passengers, may I have your attention please,” an announcement comes up, “we are now on school ground; midterm exams are in progress, please do not disturb. Station Sky Secondary School.”

Philip, Adele, Miles, Nick, Rose, Elly, Ryan and Tinaye all get off the shuttle after it makes its stop, Tyler is already there, waiting at the front entrance of the school.

School is open for students to do their assignments from 0:00 to 23:50 every day of the week, except Orientation Days. With the chips being long implanted in everyone by now, teaching students time management, how to utilize knowledge and work as a team becomes the main focus of all schools. Before their midterms, each student must complete all 9 personal assignments and 3 group assignments they have relating to the subjects they pick, with help from their class tutors. Students are allowed to do their assignments at anytime they wish to. Some finish their assignments lightning fast, days or even weeks before midterms, like Lisa, the girl who arrives last with a shuttle going a different route.

Rose happily greets her, “Lisa, you made it!” “Of course,” Lisa smiles charmingly, “we are one of the 11:00 groups, shall we head inside?” “Great idea,” Rose agrees.

“Welcome to the 11:00 midterm exams. Please go to your corresponding cubicles. Note that you may no longer enter the exam hall after the start of an exam, or leave the exam less than half-an-hour before the end; you must not have any unauthorized material or equipment with you; any attempt of tempering with the examination programs will result in immediate disqualification...”

There are two 11:00 papers (paper A and B) assigned to the students. The 10-student-study-groups will be mixed together when assigning their cubicles so the students next to every student would be working on a different paper. Everyone is suited up in their gear and logged in to the VR system to do the 5 minutes pre-exam warmup. After making sure everything’s fine, the invigilators start the exam. “Good luck!” Nick says last minute before their individual cubicles are sealed off. “Good luck guys!” Rose follows suit.

For this exam, Miles enters a small brightly lit room, which appears to have only a desk in the middle. The door vanishes after he shuts it. A piece of blank A3 paper lies on this desk, with a pen on top of it. Miles waits for a few minutes, only to realize the usual bell followed by an announcement of what he needs to do to complete this exam never came. This is new. Miles turns over the paper only to confirm both sides of it are indeed completely blank, holding the paper to the light reveals no hidden messages. He looks around the room to find nothing, then inspects the lone desk and finds no details that deserve attention; he then looks at the pen, and notices a small dial with numbers 1 to 9 at the end of it, the little red pin currently pointing at the word “off”. Miles doesn’t want to rush to work on the blank paper or do anything else in the room, a girl failed her exam and had to repeat a year in the past, just because she didn’t pay much attention to what was required by the exam that had been announced to her, resulting in her misusing her provided materials big times.

After waiting for another few minutes and still no bell or announcement, Miles starts to be worried. He decides to just turn the dial on the pen, as soon as the pin points to “1”, a screen in front of him that he previously thought was a wall turns on. Miles is very surprised to find himself looking at Nick, flying a swarm of drones, looks like he’s fixing some pretty broken light panels under one piece of the SCI. It looks like some aircraft has bumped into the panels. Nick seems to be getting on pretty well with his exam. Miles smiles a little, thinking about how Nick always says he wanted to be a SCI engineer or beyond after he graduates from school, this exam must be easy for him; but what about the others in their group when faced with the same problem? Miles knows for sure not all of them enjoys this line of work. Wait... This study group is supposed to be working on the same exam, judging by what Miles’s doing now, at least he doesn’t have the same exam as Nick. Does everyone have different exams now? This hypothesis is (kind of) proven as Miles turns the dial to “2”, he sees Rose on screen, trying to cheer up this old man who looks worried and angry with something.

After turning the dial and seeing all others in his study group doing completely different things, and still no bell or announcement to tell him about his exam, Miles is needless to say stressing out. What does he have to do? Is he supposed to observe his group and note things down? Is he even supposed to be working with that piece of paper? Reviewing the past papers Miles finds not one is quite like this one! So many aspects are different and new. Miles considers hard. Another thought comes up, perhaps his hypothesis is wrong, perhaps everyone in the group does have the same exam taking place in identical small rooms, they would just think the others don’t when they see what’s on screen. If that’s so, this exam is an unexpected mindf*ck situation. More importantly, should he write these guesses down when he still doesn’t know what the exam’s about? Miles is astonished to find out he’d actually be more certain of what to do when faced with magic stuff, i.e. time travel, etc. than now, when faced with this unusual midterm exam.

“Well I’m definitely not expecting this from school!” Miles can’t help but murmurs. “What was that?” Adele, currently on screen, stops her work with the blue palo verde beans and says, “could you please repeat? I didn’t catch that.” “Adele?” Miles asks, “is that really you? Can you hear me?” “Yes I can, is this Miles?” Adele says back, “how are you making the announcements?” “I am?” Miles gasps. “Yeah, the announcement bell rings every time you talk... kinda annoying.” Adele explains. “Hold on a sec,” Miles requests and dials to “1”, “Nick, can you hear me?” Nick jumps a little, turns his head and has this weirded out look on his face. Miles bursts out laughing at this, “wow, I don’t know if I’m supposed to be doing this...” “D... did you hack the program?” Nick stammers then calms down, “but you don’t seem to be disqualified, that means you probably didn’t. What’s up?”

Poking around, Miles learns that he can not only observe but also talk to everyone in his group through announcement (but he can only talk them one at a time when they’re brought on screen); the others cannot hear or talk to each other though. As he asks on, he learns that same as him, no one has heard an actual announcement about this exam, they’re just doing what their “friends, coworkers or bosses” from the VR asked them to do and assuming that’s how they’ll be given the exam tasks now. Then he also learns about some specifics on what everyone’s doing.

It is quite clear now that no announcement would indicate to Miles what tasks he’ll have. It is around this time Miles notices the dates and time in the lower right corner of the screen, he checks with everyone and now knows in this simulation everyone is working on different tasks on 9 different days, spanning 2 weeks. Miles goes through all nine work environments one by one and inspects everything closely.

Tyler has the earliest date of all, he is in a great mood, happily setting up a drip irrigation system for this huge garden and getting ready to have some planting drones plant flowers when he’s done. “I see you’re doing very well with the garden,” Miles watches the drones place the plants down one by one orderly, “who’s garden is this?” “It’s the Wales family’s,” finishing with the irrigation system, Tyler starts to check the little garden maintenance drones’ condition, “they have an awesome house. I still find it strange they have no surveillance drones flying.” Temporarily, Miles forgets about his blank A3 paper as he starts thinking about this clue. He remembers hearing Rose say she’s helping with a Mr. Wales with his charity, and she noticed the guy’s father was unhappy.

“Well, keep up the good work.” Miles says to Tyler then connects with Rose, “Rose, how’s the charity going?” “So-so,” Rose shrugs, “I’ve came up with some fresh ideas though. How’s your assignment.” “I can’t say because I’m not sure what it is.” Miles says, “say, did Mr. Wales or his dad tell you why they were upset?” “Not really, guess it’s too personal,” Rose shakes her head, “but the dad was super ticked off about their home surveillance system, he says someone shut it off? Wouldn’t say who.” “That could be why there are no surveillance drones!” Miles exclaims, “I just have a feeling Tyler worked for the same Wales family as yours, if so he worked on their garden on March 3rd.” “Could be,” Rose nods. Miles keeps on connecting the dots, Ryan and Tinaye work at the same hospital, and they had this guy who swallowed a large diamond pendant with a ‘W’ engraved on it, and his last name is Kirkland, definitely not W-something. Did this guy steal the pendant? Rose continues with her job in the background. “I’ll leave you alone,” Miles hops onto someone else, “I wonder... does this ‘W’ stand for yet again the same Wales...”

“Did you say ‘Wales’?” Philip is now on screen, currently letting the tour group he takes care of roam around and shop, “this lady from our tour is telling everyone that she knew all about how some burglar stole a diamond family heirloom from a Wales family—her friends; she gossips that because old Mr. Wales weren’t happy to go public or see his son go to the authorities with this, only very few people’s heard of the incident.” “Ohhh shouldn’t have trusted information with that lady,” Miles teases. “Yea some people thrive on gossip. By the way, have you noticed this nice process bar that tells you the percentage you’ve completed on your exam? It’s a new feature.” Philip comments. “Well, I don’t see one,” Miles denies, “my interface is pretty bare.”

Miles next has a question for Adele, “Adele, where are these beans you’ve been testing found?” “The back of this dude’s pickup truck,” Adele quickly spits out her words as she hands in the DNA analysis and comparison reports she’s completed, “I heard this Pete Watt allowed a search of his home and truck without thinking when the police got him. Probably being arrogant because he’s one of the criminals we’ve learnt of who thinks as long as they don’t have a chip in their head the police will have nothing on them. Guess what, I’ve just proved he was near the Wales family’s house with some old-fashioned plant DNA testing. Totally inspiring.”

Nick has the latest date of all. Miles chats him up and learns from him that the broken panels he fixed was caused by police chasing the burglar Kirkland when he knocked into them with a helicopter; not causing a major damage to the SCI. At this point, Miles has a pretty good image of the sub-storyline of the 9 days simulated for this exam. Amongst it all, it seems irrelevant at first sight but Lisa’s been working on Kirkland’s older son’s braces, he does appear to be a little disrespectful; Elly’s watched Kirkland’s angel of a younger son at a daycare. Returning to what he has to do for his exam, although still not sure if what he’s seeing on screen is what everyone’s really doing, he feels that maybe that’s not the point here—maybe the purpose of his exam is to find out the connection that links everyone’s work, and appreciate how by simply doing their parts, they are pushing this simulated society forward. Some past papers had indicated ambiguous themes like this for students to find, Miles thinks this might be it. If that’s the case then this exam is quite easy but still fascinating in some ways.

Just as he decides on taking that approach, the screen Miles has been looking at divides into nine portions that shows everyone along with their progress bars. Miles finally hears the announcement bell ring, followed by a “students, you have 10 minutes left” announcement. A previously not so obvious pandemonium has now really broken out. “What the heck, how come the progress meter says I’ve only got 43% for all the work I’ve done?” Adele breaks down, “what have I been missing?” “Miles, are you there?” Nick only has a 48% up till now, “how’s it going with your part? I hope your doing alright.” Miles quickly checks everyone’s progress bars: everyone is stuck with 40-something-percents, no one has a score above 50%. It’s like everyone’s missing half their scores.

Watching everyone trying to boost their scores (a minimum of 60% is needed to pass the midterms), Miles falls silent, but not for long. “Can you all still hear me?” Miles clears his throat and reaches out. Everyone confirms. “I can see thus tell from your scores that it seems you’re missing parts of your exams, but don’t worry, I have an idea,” he proposes, “the reason I have a blank paper and a pen—as you all know—could be suggesting that I can come up with something to help you all. Maybe that is it!” Is this actually what he needs to do? Observe and help, instead of playing detective? Confusing! “What do we do?” Adele asks desperately. Miles proceeds to command the group, “Please work on the tasks given by the simulation, then clap your hands 3 times.” “What? Clap our hands 3 times?” Adele repeats. “I made my announcement, that could count as an exam task.” Miles hints. “Hey this might work!” Elly says then claps 3 times.

Everyone does what Miles asked and waits for their scores to go up, and of course, nothing happens. Miles face palms, ok, maybe that is a bit too far fetched... and too easy. “What now?!!” Everyone resumes panicking. This sucks, Miles thinks to himself, my plan failed, that means I’m still not getting what my exam is, in that case what if the approach of finding what connects everyone’s work is also false? There isn’t even a process/percentage bar for me to check on.

“5 minutes remaining.” Time flies when you’re trying to work things out. Not wanting his friends to keep losing their minds, Miles starts talking, trying out the theories he has is better than just waiting, “here goes nothing... All your parts have something to do with a stolen diamond pendant, a crime orchestrated by at least 3 people, that comes from what I’ve learnt from you. It started with someone in the Wales house disabling their surveillance system, and from the looks of it, Rose’s boss’s father, old mr. Wales had an idea of who it was or there’s family drama involved, hence he doesn’t want to get others involved; the family member probably handed the pendant to someone who’s driven Pete Watt’s vehicle to the Wales house then with the pendant in hand away from the Wales house. Watt himself, or Willy Kirkland could both be the driver. Kirkland was captured attempting to go somewhere with the pendant. He swallows it in an attempt to get away, only to be rushed into the ICU and have the pendant removed from his body. Taking on your tasks as you see them and completing them kept the story moving.”

Seeing no difference in the grades, and now everyone’s silent, Miles decides to calm his group more and go on trying different approaches, “to be honest with you all, I have no idea what to do with my part yet, I doubt my ever approach—this whole time I kept getting different ideas only to doubt and end up scratching them. Everything is so new on this exam, we are all doing different things, it’s just that I didn’t really take part in the big story you’re in, I have no process bar. All I can do is observe...” Miles pauses to think, then starts again, “Guys, I’ve seen how hard you’ve worked on your parts, there’s no way you can squeeze in any more tasks in this amount of time. We prepared well; if this is all real, seeing your excellent work today, these percentages seem fishy to me, they are likely fake or tempered with—not your real scores, maybe it’s just there to see if we’ll panic over them, we are in a simulation after all all this could be a trick; the point is, this whole exam could be messing with us. With all the new and different stuff, it’s trying to blast us with what we’ve never seen before, we have to take control by ourselves along with working on the more specific exam tasks. I think the key here is certainty, something I didn’t have up until now, something we have to decide to let into our minds. We’re encouraged to work on problems in our own ways on all the past papers we’ve done before this one, maybe this paper demands us to explore a new concept on top of that, a state of mind—believing that what we’ve done for this exam is sufficient, not doubting how you play your part. We have to beat the exam in a sense.” The group appears pretty convinced by him.

Guess this is the true stressful part of an unstandardized exam—anything can be accepted or not accepted as answers, you don’t know for sure if your efforts are enough. Miles clears his doubts and places the pen back onto the desk, on top of the blank A3 paper. The exam ends.

Leaving the exam hall, the group quickly meets up. “You guys ok?” Nick asks the group. “I never thought the percentages could be a hoax.” Lisa says. Miles doesn’t need to ask if the group was working on different papers anymore, what Nick and Lisa said and the rest’s silence were enough of an answer. “What percentages?” Bob approaches their group. “Your group had the easier paper Bob. So how did you guys do? I think I did fantastic this time.” Pete jumps into the conversation. “Our paper’s unique...” Miles looks at the two newcomers, realizing it. “Hey Pete... wouldn’t you know, this villain guy we had has the same first name as you, right guys?” Nick tries to lighten the mood for their group, “guys?”

Well, at least he tried.

“Dr. Mary,” a grader calls, “I have to inform you that Miles did not write a thing on that A3 paper...” he pauses, “well, this is unexpected, you tailored this exam just for him and it appears...” “He failed? No.” Mary rewatches the recorded exam for the third time, “no, his performance exceeded my expectations.”

Miles’s phone is blowing up with texts of excitement and congratulations from the group chat. “Turns out our scores were halved, Miles, you know you are a genius for noticing the percentages were fake right?” Nick calls him. “Well I did not feel like one during the exam...” Miles laughs. “Can’t wait to go to your late bday party and bowl!” Nick says. “Of course,” Miles says back, “and I appreciate how you tried to cheer everyone up enough to remind them of my bowling party back at school.” “More proof that you’re a genius,” Nick puts his thumbs up. “Not really, that’s just because we’ve know each other for more than 10 years.” Miles puts his thumbs up too.

@cadewrites

#original #original story #original character #thejiaqiverse #scifi #sci fi #scififantasy #mystery #education

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millennium-thejiaqiverse · 6 years ago

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Chapter 1: The “Angel Plague”

Chapter 1 link

Chapter 2 coming very soon! @cadewrites

Enjoy the chapter art XD

#watercolor #original #original story #original character #fantasy #illustration #traditional art #mystery #magic #scifi #scififantasy #thejiaqiverse

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millennium-thejiaqiverse · 6 years ago

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Chapter 0: A Pilot

Summary: It’s up to a 15-year-old birthday boy to save the day! How exactly is he involved? What could be rapidly ripping his home universe apart? And how on earth is he going to stop it? Let’s find out!

21:30, Miles is lying in bed, ready to catch some sleep.

Today’s his bday. Before school ended Meg handed Miles a “Happy Birthday!” card coated with glitter. It was beautifully hand made. She had a big smile. She stood a little in front of lockers 51, 53, and bottom row 52, 54. Some glitter stuck to her hands. Elly and Rose were busy with their lockers (48 and 49, a piece of lime green sticker stuck out from locker 49, which was placed there by Rose exactly 3 days ago), while they too wished him a happy bday. At the same time Rodney Lee Jr. flashed a smile at Miles, opened his locker 54 by a crack and dug his jacket out with an almost inaudible “excuse me” then quickly vanished out of sight. Whilst recalling details of his day at school, Miles thinks about his plan to hit the bowling alley with a late bday party after midterms, ah what fun awaits him. If only everything is fun and simple on his bday.

Without fail, Miles has the same dream every night of his bday. In this dream he will be approached by this girl he’s never met face to face before, ever, still, she seems strangely familiar; she will always ask him to play hide and seek along this peaceful little creek. However, every time Miles covers his eyes he ends up waking up. Well, Miles is in full control of his dreams, but not this one. Of course he is curious as to what happens next but one, he somehow can’t avoid covering his eyes, two, he can’t stop himself from waking up, and three, he can’t pick up from where he left off afterwards. Not only that, the dream leaves a strange feeling, like he should be expecting something in the near future, or he missed something important that the dream is communicating to him. Eventually, Miles reluctantly learns to shrug these feelings off, because nothing unusual follows, pretty anticlimactic.

21:50 rolls around fast. Well, must get some sleep, time to jump right back into this routine of receiving the same dream, trying to take control, failing and being confused plus weirded out. With that on his mind Miles sighs as he shuts his eyes.

“Guess who I am?” A cheerful feminine voice sounds from behind him.

“Oh, I dunno,” but Miles knows where this is going. “Let’s play a game!” The girl suggests. “Like tic-tac-toe?” Miles tries. “No, like hide and seek!” She laughs. “Then I’ll go h...” Miles didn’t get to finish. “I’ll go hide, cover your eyes,” the girls cuts him off, “no peeking!” Miles covers his eyes before he realizes and he’s ready to beat himself up for it (I mean he had certainly lasted longer in this game of trying to avoid covering his eyes before), except he doesn’t wake up this time. It appears that he’s sunken into another layer of this dream, the sight of the city he lives in submerged in crystal clear water appears a little after he covers his eyes. Now this is new!

Miles sits straight up in bed, very startled. It’s morning already—and the city is not submerged. 15 years of curiosity and that was his answer? Really? With a glimmer of hope Miles groggily decides to carry on with his day and see if anything else is new. It appears that he doesn’t have far to look.

Each physical item in the house is right where he remembered it should be, the energy of the place is not off, but somehow it’s all wrong; and the grogginess... is he really awake at this point? Miles believes this place he now perceives is like a holographic image projected from his own photographic memories of the reality he is familiar with. Bizarre. Right as the thought comes to him, which brings him to see this place differently, this projection appears less and less vivid. All this seems to be happening in his head. Remembering what he’s learnt on the subject, Miles considered a possibility that he’s now stuck in a mental concoction of his home out of information carried in a loose piece of energy; this could happen when lots of energy from a universe is loose and rearranging into a new balance, Miles knows that events like this never happens unprovoked. He also knows that he’ll be more and more disoriented if he doesn’t snap out of whatever this is right away.

The feeling of being lost in a debatable state didn’t last too long. The sound of something pushing its way through the wall caught Miles’s attention. There’s water again, pushing out from the ground and flowing erratically throughout the house. Awake or asleep, it is clear to Miles that this isn’t just part of his bday dreams anymore, all this is some sort of vision, it’s as if his mind’s been trying to confirm something with himself, unknowingly leaving a clue—water, why all this water? With absolutely no time to loose, Miles has to figure out what caused his home universe to lose it’s former harmony and fix the problem.

To do that, he needs a vantage point to set his foot down and examine the situation, and fortunately he’s always had one. He just needs to visit the Junction to check things out—that’s his own up-to-date mental image of universes and such, therefore the perfect vantage point for him. Miles’s Junction is a train station, and his home universe is represented as a train stopped at one of the boarding platforms. Major parts of the train are falling apart rather quickly and contorted into a bare dark branch growing into other carriages. It is all crystal clear to him once he discovers this, therefore this deduction is made: a new plane has grown from this universe, a cancerous plane, relentlessly consuming everything it’s rooted on, if it’s not stopped it will pry loose and take away all the energy this universe needed for itself to exist: this universe will disappear; without this universe the overcharged cancer will then blow apart or get planted onto another unsuspecting universe and continue it’s destruction. Whoever planted this plane clearly knows what they’re doing and must have a foolproof plan (they must have thought of everything in order to not be stopped ahead of time). What exactly is their end goal? Why target his home universe? Miles decides the best course of action is to go to said plane and work from the inside out, once this is done there’ll be plenty of chances to get everything else back on track.

With his fingers crossed, Miles boards the train through the cracks of the branch, and he freezes for a sec as he arrived at the plane, stunned by the sight. There it stands, a growing tree—the cancer draining all that energy away.

Surely, Miles has expected retaliation as he knows for sure he’ll be spotted instantly once he entered the plane (part of the foolproof plan by whoever built this plane). The tree branches started to grow a lot faster, taking up space with a surprising pace. Miles establishes a forcefield to blast away branches growing towards him, but that’s obviously not a lasting plan, not that he would eventually cave in once there’s no space left and get crushed (trust me he wouldn’t), but more because this plane will be draining up energy much faster to combat him. Hmm. Not a problem, he thinks to himself, just have to wrap it up right now before this escalates any further. Drawing out the stolen energy from the tree and returning it to the universe does the trick nicely, soon this nightmare plant is no longer able to support its already grown branches and crumbles into pieces. “Problem solved.” Miles nods, “though I have to admit the person who planted and developed this plane did a pretty impressive job, all that wouldn’t have been easy.”

Hold on, what’s going down there? Mixed in with the crashing branches is what appears to be a dark humanoid figure. Miles sees this and rushes over to check it out. He makes it just in time to catch this figure he’s seen—surprise, surprise, emerging from the dark tree sap is a young woman, she had been cramped inside a branch all along. Miles recognizes her instantly, this is the girl from his dreams, but she definitely looks older than that version of herself. An odd plum flower is rooted into her skin, and by the looks of it possibly deep into her skull. That’s probably the reason why she’s unconscious. Miles lays her down onto a broken off branch to inspect the flower.

Except this is not a flower!

It’s in fact a rare single use artifact that customizes itself to its victim, it grants full control of one’s mind as long as needed and no one affected is able to get it off by themselves up until now. The victim will also be very worn down. Whoever’s got their hands on one of these would not want to waste its power, it is rumored that one of these artifacts can be passed down through generations without being used just because of the lack of a suitable target. Apparently the “plum tree”—the cancerous plane came to exist because of her; she appears uncommonly lively after this ordeal too. At this point Miles had a choice to make, either pull the “plum flower” out or leave it there. Needless to say whoever used this young woman to build the plane would do harm, but she is a force to be reckoned with herself, her identity is still a mystery for now, she could be evil.

A gut instinct keeps telling him that freeing her is a priority, as long as the artifact is still attached to her, she might be forced to carry on with the mission to destroy. On top of that, Miles starts thinking long and hard on his bday dreams. It feels that not only does he know her from somewhere but he was quite close to her as well. Deep down he trusts her somehow, he cannot explain it but he does.

Hesitantly, Miles yanks off the flower from her forehead, and right after he does, she opens her eyes.

#original #original story #fatasy #mystery #magic #new concept #thejiaqiverse

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