Marisol awoke the next morning not to idle bird chirping or people setting up shop out the window, down the street—it was a sharp ding in her head that made her eyes snap wide open, and it was a flurry of metallic voices that immediately made her wince.

[Archive registration complete]

[Syncing data backlog… Syncing... Complete]

[Displaying 4,862 notifications]

[Weather Forecast for Whirlpool City: Gale-force winds in the upper city, rising mist levels in the lower city, and a 60% chance of mild acid rain near the Symbiosteel factory district. Suggested actions: Avoid dockside markets until after 10 in the evening]

[Navigation Alert: Spiral Road submerged under rising tides. Suggested detour: Wyrmfrost Archway. Estimated travel time: +12 minutes.]

[Bug Bounty Alert (176 kilometres): Titan Spiderling—A-Rank Giant-Class—claimed by 'The Hurricane Fang'. Timestamp: 59 days ago. Status: Confirmed]

[Bug Bounty Alert (265 kilometres): Rile Scorpion—B-Rank Giant-Class—contested by multiple Hasharana. Arbitration pending. Estimated resolution: 5 days]

[Hasharana Assistance Signal Log (618 kilometres): Source: 'Saltcarver'. Location: Glassreef Cradle, Canal De Sussoro. Timestamp: 38 days ago. Status: Ignored]

[Voice Message received from 'Saltcarver'. Playback commencing...]

["Where the fuck are ye, Antonio? 'Ahm dyin' over here. 'Ahm dyinnnnng. If 'ah don't see yer ugly mug in my face within the next three days, 'ahm goin' to—"]

[System Reply Sent: None. Suggested Action: Block user]

[Restaurant Suggestion: 'El Azúcar del Remolino'. Review excerpt by 'Sea Manic': 4/5 stars. Comment: "The nectar tea is a dream, but avoid the candied beetle husks unless you like crunching through exoskeletons". Closest store location: 0.8 kilometres east. Pull up navigation map for more more accurate directions]

[Death threat received from 'Rustspine Predator'. Parsing content...]

["When I find you, your Archive won't even have a signal to record your screams."]

[Text Complaint lodged against 'Sea Manic' by 'Rustspine Predator'. Parsing content...]

["This is the third bounty you've stolen from me, you fucking bitch. I'm coming for your ass."]

[Voice Message received from 'Gilded Widow'. Playback commencing...]

["How's the ferrying business going, Antonio? I trust you're not just doing it for fun? Did the Worm God put you up to defending travellers trying to cross the great blue? Keep it up—your head's going to look great mounted on their wall."]

[Bug Bounty Alert (451 kilometres): Sunscale Scarab—C-Rank, Giant-Class—claimed by 'Thornblade Alchemist'. Timestamp: 42 days ago. Status: Reward pending collection in Whirlpool City]

[Restaurant Review: 'Faro del Sabor'. Review by 'Sea Manic': 1/5 stars. Comment: "Unnecessarily cruel. Splitting crabs open while they're still alive is one thing, but that bass… that poor bass…"]

[Navigation Alert: Strong currents detected in Coralroot Boulevard. Suggested route through Tidegrove Steps. Warning: High ambush risk of mild acidic rain]

[Voice Message received from 'Whispered Fang'. Playback commencing...]

["I've got a lead on something big. Meet me south of Isla Alear in two months."]

[Death threat received from 'Rustspine Predator'. Parsing content...]

["Kill yourself."]

[Festival Announcement: The Niebla Marine Festival begins tomorrow in the Coral Plaza. Reminder: Increased Swarm activity reported in the area. All Hasharana must be on guard]

[Restaurant Suggestion: "La Caracola de Oro." Review by 'Sea Manic': 3/5 stars. Comment: "The shrimp-spider soup is worth the price, but the Ring Beetle wine is stronger than it looks. Drink at your own risk."]

[Distress Signal Log (1,725 kilometres): Source: 'Bone Weaver'. Location: Salmorena Northern Stretch. Timestamp: 43 days ago. Status: Ignored]

[Notification overflow. Summarising final 4,845 entries...]

[1,075 Bug Bounties posted. 1035 resolved. 40 currently underway]

[682 Distress Signals received. 648 resolved]

[74 Death Threats recorded]

[816 Text Messages archived]

[79 restaurant reviews flagged as noteworthy]

[182 Arbitration Cases involving 'Sea Manic'. 0 resolved]

[1,937 Local Navigation Warnings. 0 resolved]

… Just kill me.

[Stimulating programmed cell death—]

Wait. Stop. Don't… you dare.

The Archive hopped onto the bridge of her nose as she folded her pillow over her ears, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to block out the voices in her head. They came from inside her head, so she had no idea what she was trying to do by covering her ears, but she just wasn't thinking straight anymore.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Hey… can you, like… turn the notifications down—

[Mute mode engaged for non-critical messages. Notifications will resume after manual override or upon high-priority updates.]

[Real-time mode engaged.]

[Welcome back, Marisol Vellamira. Do you regret having me registered now?]

She had half a mind to dig her nails into her neck and rip out her system, but if she made a bloody mess on the bed, it'd be her wallet on the line when the innkeepers eventually came to change the sheets.

At least the Archive silenced all the ringing and voice messages playing in her head, and now, all was good with the world again.

"What's the difference between a registered Altered Symbiotic System and an unregistered one again?" she mumbled out loud, and that was because she needed to hear her own voice to know she wasn't going insane. She kept her eyes closed, her face scrunched, her head still pounding quietly. "You said… back on the horseshoe crab island… that I can use the most up-to-date translation features if I'm a registered Hasharana, but what else is possible now?"

The Archive poked her eyelids with its sharp little legs, making her wince and roll around and attempt to swat it off her face. [Do you want to hear all of my new capabilities? I can recite all four-thousand features in full detail—]

"I'll kill you."

[Before I begin, you must first understand what an Altered Symbiotic System is,] the Archive said, and she felt it changing shapes, morphing on her nose. She opened one eye slowly and plucked it off her nose, frowning at the silver metal worm it'd turned into. [You remember this form, correct? To wit, the first Symbiotic Systems were created in Year Eleven, which gave specific classes to people. By Year Thirty, many factions were able to mass-produce and distribute specific Symbiotic Systems for widespread military use. In Year Seventy, the Worm God stabilised the continent and created the wandering bug-slaying organisation known as the Hasharana, and he also created us: the 'Archives' and the 'Altered Symbiotic Systems'. We can analyse our users and give them any class that has ever been created for them, while also providing intelligent support via direct communication with our users.]

"That's a long way of saying you yammer a lot."

[But what is an 'Archive', really?] it continued, ignoring her completely. [In short, I am a librarian. I retrieve information from a database of knowledge, and that database is constantly being updated every single hour of the day. Who do you think does the updating?]

"The Worm God?"

[Stupid. The Hasharana do. We Archives are always collecting environmental data from the surroundings of our Hasharana—the temperature, the wind speed, the lay of the land—and whenever we near a structure called a 'Worm Effigy', all of that collected information is instantly deposited, then sent out as a broadcasting signal to every other Archive and Worm Effigy in the area. Think of Worm Effigies as a bunch of really tall lighthouses along a coastline. Whenever new information is deposited, a specific frequency of light turns on in one lighthouse, and any nearby lighthouse also copies the frequency and sends it out even further, eventually spreading the information across the entire coastline.]

[Since there are registered Hasharana and Worm Effigies in most parts of the continent, including the Deepwater Legion Front and the Whirlpool City, we have constant access to all sorts of live information whenever our Hasharana require it. There are Hasharana who call this continent-wide network of signals and effigies the 'Wormpassage', but colloquially speaking, most people know this as just the 'database'. Are you following so far?]

She smiled brightly at the worm pinched between her fingers. "No."

[Good. Now, as you have just experienced, the live information you can access whenever you are near a Worm Effigy is manifold, including, but not limited to: weather forecasts, navigation data, bug bounties, distress signals, restaurant suggestions, pathfinding suggestions, voice messages, text messages, private complaints, public complaints, and death threats. Fun fact: a non-insignificant number of Hasharana spend more than one hour a day leaving death threats to other Hasharana for swooping in on their bug bounties.]

"Huh," she mumbled, dropping the worm into her mouth and pretending to chew as she recalled a few voice messages she'd heard during the flurry of notifications. "But there ain't any Hasharana in the city apart from me and Victor, right? Because they've all been blocked out by Protocol 'Black Storm'? How are their messages still coming through?"

[The Worm Effigies are scattered across the Deepwater Legion Front, and there are plenty even outside the Whirlpool City. It is not particularly difficult for a Hasharana in the Harbour City four thousand kilometres away to send a message all the way over to you, though bioarcanic transmission is not instantaneous, obviously. There will be delays depending on how far away you are from said person, and past the five thousand kilometre mark, messages don't usually get sent to the receiver. Pathfinding is a difficult script problem even for the Hasharana's brightest minds. The messages will instead remain at the Worm Effigy they were left at until the receiver enters its range, at which point, transmission will finally begin.]

She thought about what that meant for a moment. "So all this time, Victor has been in contact with the outside world?"

[Yes.]

"And now I'm also capable of sending messages to the outside world?"

[Within the Deepwater Legion Front, yes.]

"Can I send a message to someone and have them deliver it to my mama, then?"

[You would be hard-pressed to find a Hasharana willing to leave their post, leave the Deepwater Legion Front, and journey all the way to the Luzde Desert just to help out a new recruit. Perish the thought. There is no Worm Effigy near your hometown, anyways, so even if there were a Hasharana willing to help you, they would have to physically meet your mother just to deliver your message.]

"But—"

[I will not stop you from trying. I am simply telling you not to get your hopes up if nobody responds to your request.]

… But that was better than nothing, so even if it was only the slimmest chance in the world, she wasn't about to give up at the starting line.

With the Archive's assistance, she managed to record herself talking—she spoke of what happened to Captain Antonio, her journey from the sinking ship to the Whirlpool City, and both the comfortable yet uncomfortable life she was currently leading as a Hasharana of the city—and there was no real planning behind what she said. She had so, so many things she wanted to tell her mama she feared the Archive wouldn't be able to record it all, but the Archive never interrupted her, and in hindsight, it shouldn't even have been a worry. This was a man-made intelligence capable of storing and transmitting information from an entire continent away at the drop of a hat. A five-minute-long message wouldn't break it.

She ended up recording ten minutes' worth of her own voice, and then had the Archive send it out to the nearest Worm Effigy—whatever that looked like—in hopes it'd find its way to a Hasharana willing to entertain her request.

"What powerful bioarcanic equipment you Altered Symbiotic Systems are," she muttered, sinking deeper into her pillow as she rubbed her eyes, trying to knock the sleep out of her. "Say, why doesn't the Worm God just give everyone an Altered Symbiotic System? We'd all be for the better if we could access any information we want on the fly, right?"

[As if it is that easy. Each and every last one of us are handmade by the clones of the Worm God himself in the Hasharana headquarters in the centre of the mainland continent, and the amount of time and resources required to make even a single Altered Symbiotic System is already far, far too much. That is why the Worm God asks so much of the Hasharana. Even the loss of one Altered Symbiotic System is a significant blow to the organisation.]

"Oh."

['Oh' is the correct response. Now, would you like to test out some of my new features for yourself, or would you like to laze around for the rest of the morning?]

She shot up straight, running her fingers through her hair as she inhaled deeply. "Okay, okay, I'm getting up. Ain't like I'm still shivering after last night, anyways—"

[—that is a lie—]

"What do you got for me? Anything fun for me to try out?"

The Archive didn't bother responding. Instead, it pulled up a status screen next to her face, and she blinked only once before recognising it as a top-down map of the Whirlpool City—and there were hundreds and thousands of tiny labels pointing at different parts of the city, all glowing, all marking something of interest for her to explore.

She could see how a Hasharana could be easily distracted by the navigation functionality.

[... Victor told you to take the day off,] the Archive said plainly. [Go mess around for once in your life.]

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.