1.1.3: 0000 A.E. - ??? - The Root of All Evil
DiTh's meandering mind marauded back to the present. He had reached the tree; now realizing from his lightly stinging calves and the subtly enlarged sky that his target had been at the top of a gentle slope. From his new vantage point, he made several discoveries of varying immediate interest. From least to most immediately interesting, he came to realize:
- The tree was slightly off-center in the only grassless patch of land in the entire field.
- There was a refrigerator-sized machine of unknown purpose situated at the center of the patch of dirt.
- The overcast sky was not, in fact, an overcast sky.
The former two points were definitely worth considering, but they were immediately pushed to the back of DiTh's consciousness as he was left reeling from the latter realization. He spun in place, examining the 'sky' more closely. It was a diffusely reflective dome of immense proportions and seemingly immaterial construction. It appeared to him perfectly smooth, but rippled slowly with energy. He now saw that it did not produce light of its own, but it only reflected the light from an incredibly bright conical light source on the top of the machine.
After a few moments of gawking at the unreal situation he had found himself in, DiTh returned his attention to the former two points.
The tree was not of an unknown species; rather DiTh now recognized it as a horribly charred and disfigured silver maple. Curious, DiTh held the back of his hand out towards the tree to feel for heat. Detecting none, he gingerly tapped the ashen bark. Still no heat. Whatever had scorched this tree was unlikely to still be a threat, nor was the tree itself a threat to the dry grasses surrounding it.
Breaking off a low branch revealed that the wood inside was still green and moist. Whatever had caused this was an intense, short-lived, and recent blast of heat...
DiTh furrowed his brow again and inspected the ground more closely. The patch of dirt he stood in was indeed dirt, but it had a thin layer of ash dusting its surface nearly uniformly. It was also - at least to DiTh's perception - a perfect circle. Somehow a raging inferno had been held just millimeters from dry grasses without so much as a bit of browning to the nearby blades.
His attention turned to the machine in the center of the barren patch. How had it survived whatever happened here? Did it arrive here after the blast? No, it was covered in soot. Did it cause it? Maybe? There was obviously a lot of power being channeled through it if it was able to indirectly light the entire field. Either it somehow caused the blaze or it just shielded its surroundings from one that it didn't produce.
In either case, it must be extremely durable or be able to shield itself as well as its surroundings. The sheer fact that it was undamaged despite the hell-fire to have scorched the area was enough to convince DiTh of this. Its screen was illuminated, its embedded keyboard was intact, its speaker was... had it always been making those soft beeps?