Choose your Path

Ætherglow #10

<< Return to Character Creation

You’re finally on your way to Translunar Academy. You’ve had your synthovaries implanted and you’re running on a nice hormone balance today. You feel better than you’ve felt in your life, especially much better than the...

Ætherglow #11

Time to take one step out of your shell and attempt friendship, you think. Easier said than done, how do you just talk to a person? You’ve already both noticed each other, so you just decide to walk up to him.

“Um, hi. I’m Aydan.”

“Yeah, we went to...

Ætherglow #12

“Hey, what would you do if femboys from the 21st century attacked this shuttle and held us for ransom?” you say, mixing up two unrelated trains of thought.

“Uhh, that’s weirdly specific Aydan. Why, did your ancestors freeze themselves somewhere just to...

Ætherglow #13

What do you, a 174 month old femboy, know about spacecraft system architecture? Nothing to do but learn as you sit here helplessly strapped to a chair and rapidly gaining Gs from your increasing rotation on three axes. The constant changes in...

Ætherglow #14

Death is a small risk to take as opposed to being hunted by corporate technopaths forever. You go the extra steps of anonymously entering the shuttle’s emergency command mode. Just in case you are discovered--no plan is foolproof--you even take a few...

Ætherglow #15

You submit your command. After seven seconds, the pressure on your head has lessened considerably. You monitor the status of the ship’s rotation, and it seems you were not the only one working on the problem. The other axes stabilize soon enough and the...

Ætherglow #16

You climb across the little pod and hold onto the wall next to the hatch, signing that Vik should do the same, across the door from you. Whoever was knocking on the door opens your hatch from the outside and pokes their head in, looking side to side at...

Ætherglow #17

“Okay,” Synth says, looking around at the other seven of you. “Any thoughts on how to proceed?”

“Hi,” an older enby raises their hand. “I’m Ana, it/its, I’m a nurse at TLA. I was thinking that there is a way an attacker could survive something like that,...

Ætherglow #18

“A good plan…if Ana can be trusted,” you say.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Ana says. “I’ve worked at TLA for thirty-six years!”

“They’re right,” Synth says. “If we did that we’d have to take you entirely at your word, that isn’t a kind of security...

Ætherglow #19

Thinking this plan the most sensible anyone has come up with, you agree to the injection. But never having done this before, you have no idea what to expect.

“Alright, let’s see…” Synth climbs around the corridor, opening panels and looking for...

Ætherglow #20

This weird situation is the perfect opportunity to try out some transition goals while you’re still early in the process, you realize. Since you don’t really know how to put much purpose into your avatar, this works in your favor, and your form here in...

Ætherglow #21

You forget what you were supposed to be doing. The distant glow on the horizon beyond horizons has overwhelmed your thoughts. You've never felt so tranquil. Whatever form it takes seems to you exactly what it is supposed to be, and anything else is...

Ætherglow #22

“Something called my name,” you say.

“It’s a hallucination, Aydan, it’s meaningless,” Synth says. “It’s your brain trying to rationalize meaningless noise, that’s all.”

“Let’s go Aydan, we shouldn’t stay here longer than we need to,” Vik says.

Together...

Ætherglow #23

You look back on your own command log, and a representation of your terminal appears in your hand. “At 09:59:11 I connected. I’ve pulled up my full command history for the duration for comparison. Here is where I entered a command to apply rotational...

Ætherglow #24

You give the voice an answer. “Tell me.”

“It’s K. His implants show the presence of a high dose neuromuscular stimulant, and he interfaced with the ship as soon as he boarded.”

“Why should I believe you?” you say.

“‘Belief’ is not applicable.” The voice...

Ætherglow #25

“Ana.” You direct your voice at it and it alone. “Can you access any of our implant readings in here?”

“What? Yes, pretty easily. And as a medical employee of TLA I do have the contractual authority to do it in an emergency situation. Why?”

“Check K,...

Ætherglow #26

You glance over at Vik. “If we go up together.”

“I’ll be with you, Aydan,” Vik says.

[Vik liked that]

[Synth liked that]

“Okay,” Synth says. “Try to pull yourself together quickly, there’s no accounting for the flow of time here in the æther compared to...

Ætherglow #27

You decide to inject K.

As you grab onto his shirt and pull yourself closer to him and him to you, his eyes open, staring right at you. He tries to push himself away from you, but you get your hands on his left arm. He reaches with the other to try to...

Ætherglow #28

“I saw something in the æther, some strange entity showed me what was going to happen,” you say.

“Hmm, it sounds like you must have had some underlying suspicion, and the æther manifested that to you as a hallucinatory scenario based on your unconscious...