(Darkness.)

I am standing upon a dim-floating walkway lined by pale runner lights, while chemical vapors continue rising white all around me...

Deep Storage is the only underground Level of the Tower. Originally held aboveground, a significant breach in the last century necessitated a more secure location where certain additional precautions could be taken in safety. Within it: many inert, organic, and inorganic curios of The Master's vast history were held in safest keeping. Although...

I had never been called down here before.

Possibly auspicious? (Inauspicious.)

Shorn of my Advanced Cyclic Veneer by its orders, only my precociously advanced post-human intelligence, determination, and limited life experience stood in the way of a terrible discovery: I had changed...

Yes.

And waited in the cold...

(Exposed.)

I shiver, then begin to sense something behind me and turn around...

Waiting: it is tall, grey-skinned, has bright eyes and wears a glimmering crown upon its bald head. "Shall we?" Master Gabriel asks me.

I step forward, and kneel. "If it please you, Master Gabriel." Waiting...

"Attend."

I stand.

It strides away.

I follow.

We travel down the dim walkway in silence for a time, before it branched into three fork passing through a field of floating great crystals holding shadowed forms within, and wreathed by rising white vapors...

"How shall we go?" I ask.

A grey smile. "By my will." Turning, it unerringly takes the center branch, striding off...

I follow.

It slows soon enough, passing a first floating crystal before stopping by the next.

I join it.

We gaze upon the crystal, interior holding a slender form with a generic biosynthetic face, its eyes closed.

"My first Attendant," it whispers, "roughly treated for what it could never replace. This serves as a reminder."

But a reminder of what?

Silence.

After a moment, it moves on.

I follow.

We pass another crystal, and another, then –

Something catches my eye. I slow, glancing aside at the previous crystal, within which is a dark, squat form with five limbs and multi-faceted black eyes...

The runt. I regret... (Go.) Oh!

I hurry after my leader again.

We pass a few last crystals, then a floating golden sarcophagi shines through the vapors ahead of us.

"The Sphinx," it hisses, slowing.

I join it.

We gaze upon the sarcaphogi, its clear viewing pane showing a creature lying within it that has the body of a great-lion and the head of a human female, her eyes closed and her mouth in a slight smile...

A Sphinx. Alike the Griffin...

"What conversations we had," it mutters, smiling slightly in remembrance "Such a barbed tongue, and what acid wit..."

Silence.

"How did it end?" I finally ask.

Silence.

"Boldness is a strength," it eventually hisses, "but audacity a weakness. And riddles grow tiresome..."

A warning?

Worry grows inside of me, but I don't show it, simply continuing gazing down calmly upon the golden sarcaphogi...

It turns, heading off again...

I follow.

Soon enough, on each side of the dim floating walkways ahead of us is a series of dull pillars wreathed by ever rising vapors, each dull pillar standing proudly tall. While passing through them, a bright pillar is slowly becoming visible ahead of us, with a tall, shadowed form held within it...

It slows, stopping before it. "My Inquisitor. It was a great one indeed."

I stop beside it.

We gaze inside the bright pillar, its interior showing a tall, standing humanoid clad in a loose dark garment, with a glittering staff in hand. A darkly curved faceplate fronting the helmet obscures its features...

Curious.

"What use had you such a hunter?" I ask.

Silence.

"An unstable era," it finally mutters. "My Inquisitor stood for me. Sought justice, and truth. Yes. It was fierce, and bound to me complete in that time. Such devotion is honored, even when times change..."

Hm. Fair.

It moves on.

I follow.

We eventually pass through the rest of the pillars, never stopping by the other lit ones before heading back out into rising vapors slowly coiling in the gloom. A hint of tension lies between us... before more exhibits resolve ahead, though my attention has wandered. While still walking faithfully behind its tall, powerful black-robed form striding forward, I can still feel the instinctual pull of it even when all else is gone...

This presence. Unfettered. Powerful. Supreme. (... and ordained.)

I frown.

Ordained? True, its power was originally taken by fiat against stock humans, and the slightly more advanced modded humans and their Augment champions, but the world today is generally more advanced by definition. So in speaking of divinity: is that really all the difference and defining other characteristic between the Twelve, and...?

A dim outline now slowly resolve into an A-Sphere floating solitary among the rising vapors ahead...

Master Gabriel slows...

I slow.

When we are a few meters away from the A-Sphere... it SNAPS from existence, suddenly revealing intersecting fields of CRACKLING exotic energy forming a pentagram of bright-sizzling containment, around...

I stare. "W-what is that?"

"This one is not of my creation," it whispers.

We gaze upon...

.... a humanoid being of pure light floating upon its back like some lost revenant of heaven. Slender, with perfect features of light, it was utterly still in its repose.

"Neither dead nor alive, with a nature strange. And the danger it might pose if revived is STILL incalculable." It glances sidelong at me. "But even so: the unique are preserved here."

That is a comfort. Somehow.

"Come." It strides off without a backwards glance...

Slow to follow it, my eyes linger upon the almost angelic bright form... until the A-Sphere SNAPS back into place around it to provide inviolate containment once more.

That was incredible. (Yes. It was.)

I turn now, catching up again...

Further shapes are emerging ahead of us: this time it is a series of floating crystals, the progression receding away into the vaporous gloom.

It slows at the beginning of the progression, without stopping. "The first is a bold experiment. Mmm. Like you. Each one afterward is an improved iteration..."

I join it.

In passing: we gaze upon the first crystal, its interior holding a limber, feminine-shaded biosynth of sensitive features, with a mop of blue hair.

Gender neutral, and not in the public index for stock Attendant codemaps, but gives me an impression of the generic, or at least the crudeness of originality.

The next is thinner, slightly shorter.

A subtle set of aesthetic alterations, no doubt with a corresponding set of internal alterations.

The next is slightly changed again...

My observation is similar. Steady progression.

And so on, the series iterating steadily until the last f them comes into view. We stare upon the final form held within: waiflike by now, it sports long flaxen hair more purple than blue.

Markedly evolved. This is the successful end of the product line. Hm. Unless...

"Why did the line end?" I ask.

A sharply indrawn breath. "All good things come to an end," it answers, although a strange irritation tinges its voice. "The new becomes the old."

Tension. Again.

I smile. "Except the Masters."

Silence.

"We are not good," it finally responds, "or touched by time. We simply are." Stepping away again afterwards, it resumes continuing ever on...

I follow.

Silence.

It abruptly speaks again, in a voice gone breathy. "Something has changed in you..."

(It knows.) It...

I continue an increasingly strained pretense of my old servile composure, nodding. "If any change in me has occurred: it is in service."

For how much longer can the lie survive?

A glowing floating sarcophagi is emerging from the vaporous gloom ahead...

It slows near it, and stops before it.

I join it.

Mm. Impressive.

We gaze upon the sarcophagi, its clear viewing pane showing a big, beastly humanoid covered in sleek black fur leathery wings high on its back and a snoutish bold handsome face. Its big hands hold two wickedly curved swords and a powerful bow is strapped to its broad back, quivers and all...

An interesting chimeric curio. Like Quest related.

Desiring distraction, I break the silence. "Former ally? Or foe?"

"Friend turned foe," it mutters.

A chill runs down my spine.

That hits almost too close to home. The tension gets worse every second, and I am starting to think the path we follow has some destination in mind...

Silence.

Must I break the silence again?

It moves on.

I follow.

Silence.

We continue down a dim walkway lined by runner lights, through slowly coiling white vapors rising around us always in the chilly gloom...

(Something comes.)

While still striding ahead of me, it abruptly hissed. "After failing with the De-Evolution Trigger you did not hesitate to scrub my troublesome Subjects and wipe the infected area of my Domain, redstone and all. Yet I am confused. About sentiment. You lingered before, wistful, upon that quirkish forest runt..."

I...

We continue onwards as the silence deepens, but my mind is racing...

Has it guessed? (Almost...)

While still following along at its shoulder, with my eyes remaining forward, I finally reply. "It reminded me of lost opportunity. And personal failure."

It growls: "failure is often part of process."

A shining dual-exhibit now begins emerging from the vaporous gloom ahead...

"One of my greatest," it hisses.

Silence.

Failures? Successes? Or something else? This one has an entirely different feeling, even than...

Closer still, two sarcophagi are floating amidst the still chill of a Stasis Field, occupants superficially similar...

It slows...

(Oh.) Oh.

My eyes widen.

The two sarcophagi occupants are familiar. Despite a few subtle aesthetic differences...

Variations of Joy. (Oh.)

Master Gabriel stops a final time, then turns to face me again before a mysterious backdrop entombing two of its greatest failures securely within a chill Static Field. "You have been avoiding me," is says calmly.

I avert my eyes. "There has been –"

"Do. Not. Deny."

I shut my mouth.

"What we see," it continues, "what we are, what is... not everything that MUST be known is known. For all the power we Twelve possess, we are not infallible. Not yet."

Fear is building within me, and even my advanced post-human body threatens to tremble...

"Only once has a Master lost all," it grates. "So I must know: what are you?"

I...

Silence.

Its grey hand reaches towards me...

But I flinch, looking away.

(Mistake!)

I turn back slowly, to see...

... impossible wrath upon my Master's face.