Thief of Ages

Thanos takes really tiny steps.

In each scene where he’s walking, every step he takes is about a third of the length it should be. He takes ten steps and he’s moved like one meter forward at most. His feet never even clear each other if you look at his motion from a side view.

The new designation for the device is Linksaber. This maintains the word association to pay homage to its inspiration, while also giving it a new name that can clearly mark it as being within the Cyan universe and hinting to the mechanics of its operation.

The Linksaber will feature as a high tier melee weapon in the MMORPG remake of Uru.

As previously covered, the “blade” of a Linksaber requires physical contact with a being in order to activate the link. This allows it to fit in perfectly with the D’niverse, where the idea of solving puzzles would be rendered moot if you could just slash your way through a door with a laser. Ignore the fact that violence and combat have been virtually absent from the Myst games barring brief cinematics during bad endings.

A player may intentionally poison themselves with Noloben snake venom, rendering them unable to link for the duration of its effect. This may be used to avoid more serious burning injuries by not actually triggering the Linksaber, though it may just cause it to function as a bludgeoning weapon instead. It would also render them unable to escape via using an old fashioned linking book. Never mind, the more I talk about this as an option, the worse it sounds.

Some other stuff I can’t remember, and a reference to that one time we were talking about Atrus looking like a Jedi in the comics.

Okay, bear with me here. A lightsaber is just an arc of plasma inside a magnetic containment field, right? We already have similar technologies, the only real implausibilities involve things like a compact enough power source and tackling overheating issues.

But imagine if the D’ni could use the art to make lightsabers, specifically using the principles of Takes made by the Bah’ro in the fifth game. These anomalies are capable of existing in two or more ages at once, and allow direct physical contact or transfer of things through multiple ages without requiring a dynamic link along the lines of a book or tablet.

First let’s assume that, unlike Aperture portals, Bah’ro Takes can be freely moved in three dimensional space without compromising their structural integrity or functional use. If this is the case, it should be possible to build a tiny take with an elongated linking bubble, and attach it to a handle. Within the hilt could be a power source, if such a thing is required, and a way to activate and deactivate the link.

Next, write (program, align, however these work in particular) a way for the Take to link to an age that has already collapsed to the point that it is entirely supernova, or just write a link to the core of a sun. According to conventional rules of the Art, a living being is required to trigger a link, at least in the case of books. If the bubble of a Take works the same way, it should be sufficient in containing the plasma of a star. Upon contact with a living being, they would pass through the bubble and be burned by the energy within the Take.

For fun you could say that some Rime crystals could go inside the hilt that change the age the Take links to, which changes what type of star is present, giving the same effect as having differently colored lightsaber crystals and blades.

The big problem I see with this is that, because non-biological entities will not trigger the link and penetrate the bubble, they could not be used to cut through solid objects. It may be reasonable to assume, however, that two Take bubbles coming into contact with one another would deflect, as intersecting them would cause recursive linking.

They texted me saying they were going to play it, and I told them to wait and play the Myst series first to get a better understanding of the origins behind this new game. Not wanting to mess with verifying a new location on Steam, and not wanting them to come to my place to play it due to my messy nature, I went to their place with physical copies of the first three games.

I put the original Myst in their computer, installed it in a matter of seconds, and booted it up. Something was wrong, however... instead of the classic introduction from the first game, it showed Atrus writing at a desk. The setting was similar to the opening of Exile, but the lighting and camera quality looked like Revelation. Atrus wasn’t sitting at the desk calmly writing, but bent over it and holding both hands in front of his face, kind of like that meme of Bugs Bunny in blackface, but sideways and looking at a book.

The narration didn’t say anything about fissures or apprehensions, but gave a line about “this is sure to be quite the adventure for some unsuspecting traveler,” which made it sound boring and generic. I was ready to show my friend that, despite having a reputation as being a hard game, it’s actually quite intuitive if you infer the meanings of marker switches and tower rotations. However, the first screen of the game dropped the stranger off in front of the temple rather than at the docks. There was a note on the ground here, but moving the mouse triggered a series of tutorial popups about movement and motives. I was sorely disappointed and tried explaining that this wasn’t actually the game, and told my friend to wait and let me find the original version instead of letting that negatively influence their perception of the rest of the series.