Taking my first step out of the refuge should have felt like an incredible event, one which would have symbolized my readiness to explore the world without having to fear its apparently endless dangers.
Instead, I was only filled with dread as I beheld its foreign immensity.
All of it was unknown and bizarre, from the repeated flickers of strange colors high above, to the massive visible panes of rusted metal splitting the horizon, to the stupendous gaps I barely made out in the wrecked ceiling that looked like it could fall at any moment.
And that was without including the untold number of giants passing us by, gawking at us like the insignificant and powerless beings we were, along with the strangely shaped towers of metal and rust present in all directions, making me feel like anywhere I chose to go would wind up being wrong.
[Guided] disagreed.
Just like I disagreed with its haste to leave the refuge.
I knew better than to act on my disagreement, though.
Hence why I took my first step outside when the gray-haired one that smelled bad had barely opened the massive door that isolated the refuge from this scary expansion of reality.
"Are you thinking of leaving without saying goodbye first, little fairy?" The gray-haired one's deep voice sounded from right above me, prompting me to look up, only to find myself faced with his familiar grinning face.
"No." [Guided] took over, and I shook my head while uttering a timid answer, followed by a more proper one. "Thank you... for everything. Goodbye."
"That's better. Don't be too scared out here, but neither should you be too confident. It's always a question of balance. Well, that and patience. Actually, mostly patience for you, you're still so young I wouldn't be surprised if you hadn't formed your first Path Aspect yet and only had your Origin Aspect to help you..."
As ever, the gray-haired one that smelled weird couldn't help himself from chattering, and for all the difficulties I had with understanding what he was chattering on about, I never found myself wanting to be somewhere else.
Such a strangely warm and complicated feeling.
"...if you want some final advice, try to get close to the cleaner buildings, the ones less corroded by rust, but absolutely not the pristine ones, those are absolutely a no-go for you."
"As for leaving this place to journey towards a rift, forget about it until you're much older and more experienced."
"No one can guarantee a journey through the rust wastes, after all, too many abominations to count and no souls brave enough to save you without being paid handsomely for it."
"And if you make some coins, remember to save them for the rusty times and not use them unless you're completely certain it's essential."
"Also, keeping to the shadows and enduring until a guaranteed opportunity presents itself may be in your best interests for the short to medium term."
"Just think of the refuge to remind yourself that everything can crumble and nothing can last for eternity..."
I listened, I remembered, and beyond that, I held onto every word he said as though those were the last words I would ever get to hear.
Knowledge.
In addition to myself, knowledge was the only element that had the ability to limit [Guided], and so it was in my interest to never miss any easy opportunity to learn more, just like I had initially planned to do by going out first, providing me ample time to learn more and eventually be [Guided] towards solving everything.
"...lastly, I can only wish you good luck. As it stands, harsh times are ahead even for us. Though we certainly have a much higher chance of ultimately pulling through if we truly give it our all and don't miss any opportunity. Now go, and let us see each other again when you're a bit bigger, alright?"
His grinning face imprinting itself in my mind, mysteriously comforting me and filling me with hope, I nodded firmly like the wrinkled one, clenched my two hands into fists, tucked in my lips, and parted from the only place I had ever known.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
I was scared.
I was hungry.
I was cold.
I was tired.
Yet despite being all four at the same time, I was equally determined to forge onwards towards the first tangible hope of salvation [Guided] and I had found after wandering through the twisted maze of rusting and clean buildings that made up this place.
For this hope, if it turned out to be genuine, would put to absolute shame all the other foolhardy plans and reckless schemes I had previously envisioned.
If.
Then I wouldn't need to desperately battle it out with giants for remainders of paste left behind by others.
Then I wouldn't need to attempt to break into one of those heavily guarded locations where I was certain I could find something valuable enough.
Then I wouldn't need to risk interacting with giants who could at any moment decide I was too powerless to bother with and have all my coins and valuables summarily seized.
And all I had to accomplish to make this hope and my salvation a reality was to successfully make out where the air contained a greater amount of elements for me to pull into my [Cycle].
That easy.
As an idea, that was.
In practice, I only noticed a difference to begin with because I woke up from being too cold and had to expeditiously [Cycle] whatever I could pull to warm up, regardless of whether it was useful, useless, or noxious.
After realizing this newfound [Insight] that not everywhere was the same for my [Cycle] pullings, I was left with a hypothetical ideal path towards escaping both hunger and cold at once, a path that didn't overly complicate things as it only relied on finding a place rather than coming up with twisted plots and having to successfully pull them off.
Again, if.
If such a perfect location existed in the first place.
[Guided] seemed to think one existed after it directed me to move for many breaths in one direction and then go all out in pulling elements to roughly perceive how much better or worse it got.
Many such movings and pullings later, I... wasn't certain how things were going.
Sometimes it felt like I found a better location that only got better in one direction, only for it to vanish, and when I retraced my steps, I ended up finding completely different results from those I initially got...
I was beginning to doubt whether my [Perception] was the problem...
And my hunger wasn't making things better, nor would it be getting any better the longer I delayed acting on one of the riskier paths to salvation I had discovered, even if the ultimate result only brought me a temporary reprieve...
Without realizing it, I moved sufficiently far away from my last stop to be once more [Guided] to perform an all-out [Cycle] pulling, and I knew right away it would be my last attempt till I got the opportunity to sleep, even for just a single span of many breaths, considering how exhausted I felt when I sat down in a hidden recess between two rusted buildings.
I pulled.
Some good, some worthless, some foul.
Another disappointment.
Same as usual.
I was used to it.
I closed my eyes.
[Guided] told me to stand up, that I could still hold on.
I stood up, feeling like my entire body had become metal.
Heavy.
Cold.
Unbending.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
This chunk of metal looked very tasty.
And maybe it would have been as tasty as I imagined, had [Guided] not so forcefully urged me not to put it in my mouth.
I wasn't even allowed such a gamble at a fleeting respite from the hunger eating away at my being.
For what?
I took another sluggish step forward, [Guided] having long taken over all of my decisions.
This street looked familiar...
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I didn't have the energy to lift my head...
The giants I avoided by keeping close to the buildings looked cleaner...
The doors of the buildings I was passing by also looked neater...
Would I have gotten to live here had I not been forsaken at birth...?
I didn't allow myself to get lost in fantasy.
[Guided] and I would make it.
As we always did.
I [Cycle]d stronger, unconcerned by my ever-growing hunger, by the sensations of my feet being made of metal, of the ever-encroaching cold.
I was still alive.
I could still move.
It wasn't over.
[Guided] still hadn't led me to make a desperate attempt, and there was evidently something it wanted me to seek by entering the clean buildings area I had been warned away from by the gray-haired one.
And one step after another, skulking in the shadows of the cleaner and cleaner buildings, I finally caught sight of something I had barely dared to glance at the first time I saw it, and [Guided] paused.
A huge tower of metal, one so tall it overlooked all the buildings surrounding it and was only dwarfed by the faraway giant panes of metal.
Strange, darker air billowed everywhere from it, rising towards the ceiling and obscuring parts of it when I looked through.
Was that... my destination?
My [Cycle] pulling had actually felt better when I first attempted to get nearer to this titanic entity, but all it took was a mere peek at the giants' laborious activities around it to terrify both me and [Guided] enough that we didn't dare to get any closer, preferring to try our luck somewhere else.
So it had truly come down to that...
I closed my eyes for just a moment, then, when [Guided] told me to commence my approach, I took a first cautious step forward.
Wrong.
A confident step.
I straightened up.
I adjusted my clothes, patting anything I could out of them.
I wasn't going there to steal.
I genuinely didn't have any bad intentions.
I observed everything.
How some giants stared at me longer.
How those same gazes shifted after I changed my posture.
How I could evade the stubborn ones by walking in the shadows of other giants.
It was just like scouring the rust off the inside of a pipe too small even for me.
If I didn't do my absolute best and didn't take all the precautions warranted, I was only inviting failure.
The closer and closer I got, the tenser I had to be, ready to react at the first sign of abnormality, regardless of how thoroughly I believed myself occulted by the denser and denser crowd.
Maintaining an attitude of sheer confidence that broadcast at a glance that I was rightfully there, all while constantly looking in every direction to hopefully detect the first signs of danger, was an atrocious act to pull off, but when this whole act might well be my last hope of solving my hunger with the least amount of danger to my life...
I knew I had to make it work, one way or another.
All the [Insight]s I formed from observing were for such circumstances, and [Guided] reminded me of all of them.
How to swing my arms when I took a huge stride forward.
How to hide any atypical behaviours by weaving through the crowd, never allowing any gaze to rest on me for too long.
How to naturally turn my head when I moved to avoid a giant coming in the opposite direction.
This was nothing but another challenge to overcome.
I excelled at overcoming challenges.
Including impossible ones.
If I didn't excel at doing so, I would most certainly still be a powerless baby fairy that could barely crawl and didn't understand a single word yet.
Just like that, I neared one of the gigantic arches that led inside the tower, no one the wiser to my existence, and even the giants I glimpsed standing still in a state of vigilance similar to mine remained completely ignorant of my approach until it was too late and I passed them by.
I was in.
I caught sight of pipes barely large enough to accommodate me.
My escape.
I weaved through the throng of giants one last time in an effort to escape its grasp, and when I successfully did so, entered the first pipe I stumbled into, hearing but faint gasps in reaction to what I had just done.
Darkness welcomed me into its embrace, and I accepted it.
What a strange feeling for something I once so abhorred to feel so warm all of a sudden...
At last.
Safety.
I forged further inwards for a bit longer, turned right, left, right, climbed up, left...
Only once a silence broken only by my weak inhales and exhales remained behind was I [Guided] to finally let go.
And next thing I knew, my eyelids felt as heavy as metal, and I fell into a much-needed rest.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
A wave of relief capable of easing even the likes of my hunger and exhaustion for a couple of breaths surged from the depths of my body when I indubitably perceived that my [Cycle] pulling had gotten better compared to when I was outside.
It still wasn't sufficient to sustain me against either hunger or cold, but the path to achieving that had clearly manifested in my mind.
[Guided] had been right.
This dark air-billowing tower was my path to salvation.
And this path had to start with mapping out the entire network of pipes that traversed it.
Would I need to go up? Down? Left? Right?
Didn't truly matter.
Not when I intended to explore every corner of it until it felt like a second refuge.
[Guided] agreed.
And it also informed me that there was no better time to begin this immense undertaking than right then and there.
I agreed.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
Before I ascertained it through many, many [Cycle] attempts, I would never have guessed that the better air was located further and further down instead of up.
It felt so irrational.
I quickly came to accept that irrationality, however, as I delved further and further down through the maze of pipes forming so many interconnected networks that only through being [Guided] could I hope not to become lost.
It wasn't merely a question of crawling through pipes, after all.
Not all pipe networks were connected, and to shift from one network to another, I had to find empty rooms where there conveniently existed an entry into a different network.
And that was without expounding on the many, many dead ends that took the form of pipes that opened onto the outside of the tower, onto occupied rooms, or into places filled with things so vile a mere breath or touch warned me off adventuring through them, lest I inadvertently relinquish my future.
I liberally thanked my experience as a pipe scourer for having taught me all those precious lessons about not being foolhardy with the unknown.
One twist and bend after another, I slipped further and further down, growing more experienced with navigating the narrow confines of those pipes with time.
This time, when I reached the end of this pipe, an empty, silent room awaited me, and to my greatest delight, the guardians of this tower, foolish as they were, had left a light on, enabling me to make out its entire makeup and locate many new pipes.
I waited some more to ascertain that this room was truly as silent and unoccupied as it seemed, unwilling to repeat my closest calls caused by being in too much of a hurry and nearly being seen.
Good.
The door decided to swing open mere moments before I was ready to exit the safety of my pipe, causing me to freeze for less than a breath's time before I hastily retreated back into the darkness.
"Storage room 12-27, this is the one."
"Are we really doing it?"
"Do we have a choice?"
"I guess not..."
Like any other occasion where I ended up stumbling upon occupied rooms, my ears perked up as I strove not to miss a single word they were speaking.
Be it back in the refuge, out in the streets, or here, giants letting slip noteworthy knowledge wasn't anything new, and I had learned to make the most of this phenomenon.
This time was no different, though something did feel slightly odd in view of the fact that the ones who entered this room were... whispering to each other, instead of talking regularly.
As if... they were afraid of being heard?
It made it harder to hear exactly what they were saying, but it was far from impossible.
I simply had to un-retreat a bit, until I reached the very limit where the possibility of being exposed became too high for [Guided]'s comfort.
"I remember putting it in the corner... right over there..."
"And you said you did that how long ago?"
"More than a hundred shifts ago."
"Why would it still be there, then?"
"Don't ask me why, I just know it is. Maybe they forgot? Wouldn't be the first time..."
"No one forgets about a paste box, Chap, no one. And certainly not this place."
"Well, maybe they already took it somewhere then? Help me get this out of the way."
Paste box?
Those words felt like warmth to my ears, and I perked up even further than before, all while keeping my hopes subdued.
"Wait, is this it?"
"See! It's still here! They really forgot about it!"
"Damn, Chap! What do we do now‽ I never actually believed you when you said you knew where to find a paste box! Shouldn't we report it? This way we would be rewarded, right?"
"As if they would ever do that. We're animals to them, just good for churning those paste furnaces in exchange for the scraps we make. And now that hard times have come, did you see how they reduced our share? Damn them! We take the entire box to ourselves is what we ought to do!"
"No, we can't! And you know that! They have ears and eyes everywhere! Listen to me, let's just eat our fill and leave the box here for the rusty times. If anyone ever asks you about this box, you long forgot about it. Don't even mention this storage room anymore!"
Their voices paused for a time, and I felt firsthand the stress and pressure mounting as they deliberated on what to do with a treasure too valuable for them to have.
"Yeah. You're right, brother. Let's eat our fill and leave the rest for the rusty times. At least that way—"
The door abruptly swung open and crashed into a box, causing a massive boom to resound through the room.
"It's this room, sir! I overheard them talking about 12-27, and then they disappeared when their shift ended, but they didn't go the usual way!"
"Light the room. Find them if they're here."
Heavy steps, too numerous for me to count, then reached my ears, and I did the only logical thing and retreated deeper into the safety of my pipe, going past a first bend and then a second before I stopped and turned my attention back to the developing situation behind me.
"...found them!"
"...no!"
"...nothing, sir!"
"...promise!"
"...and what do we have here... so that's what you two were skulking for..."
"...we only wanted to make sure it was still there to report it..."
"...and how did you know about it?"
"...was the one ordered to put it there... then forgot about it... maybe lost..."
"...please look, it's untouched, sir..."
Inside the refuge, out on the streets, and now in this tower, once everything was said and done, the world really wasn't that different.
Everyone wanted to live.
Everyone wanted to be more powerful.
Everyone had their own secrets.
I wasn't an exception.
"...put them in a cell for now... we'll verify your story later..."
"...thank you, sir! Thank you..."
"...and take this paste box away... find how it got here in the first place... suspect a manager is involved..."
Soon enough, silence returned to the room that had unleashed so much passion, and with that, my exploration could resume.
As for the lost opportunity of finding this room first and uncovering the hidden paste box by myself, I dedicated but a single breath of time to it, then promptly erased all mention of it from my mind.
It would never have happened, and so it didn't warrant being entertained.
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