A shape was drifting across the sky. Errant Six failed to see the outline of it against the clouds, but Pilgrim Two understood the shimmer, the wave of the great sky over them moving like a mirage as this unseen leviathan passed above. There were long tendrils that snaked down from it, trailing across the island as it passed. It moved slowly, but each day, Pilgrim Two felt that it was to issue another snaking limb to some far away appendage, expanding itself and connecting like a grid. In seven sets, it had only grown more. Pilgrim Two felt that it was festering. They refused to let it grow further. With Errant Six and Wayfarer Eighteen by their side, they concocted a plan to set a snare.
The plan failed. However, the moment it triggered, the beast revealed itself in whole. When the sealing rope pulled itself taut against the outline of the creature, the world through it flickered and it undid the shadow it reflected, unveiling its transparency. Light shot through the long appendages, trailing black filaments stretching out like hair from several central orifices on the creature’s body. It was massive, deeply angular and rectangular in many parts. Its fur or perhaps its skin was decorated with lively patterns in parts. There were massive wings, three long feathers from the exposed bonelike structures that emerged from its back. Four wings came up from the creature’s back (two at more acute angles on either side) and they looked like spines, mysterious vertebrae pointed toward the sky at the peak of each column. Pilgrim Two could spot no maw of the beast, but it was certain it knew where its head was, based on the plumage around its skull, a large pointed mane surrounding the head of the creature, seven points surrounding in a semicircle reminiscent of the rising and setting sun. Many parts of its body had either ears or noses, orifices that seemed not fit for consumption but that seemed to expel air in a propelling motion. Every surface on the creature’s gargantuan shell was covered in small outcroppings, parts of the body or perhaps specifically the skeleton that Pilgrim Two for the life of them could not determine the purpose of. The creature was easily the size of a full mountain, maybe even twice its scale or three times. It drifted lazily as the ropes around it snapped in half, and from its underbelly descended a long tongue or arm—rigid as it was, Pilgrim Two believed it to be an arm, imagining it would be looser if it was meant to function as a tongue analogue.
Errant Six ran forward, blade in hand, prepared to cut the limb apart, and Pilgrim Two and Wayfarer Eighteen gave chase. They approached where the limb had descended to, finding an eye, turning and scanning them as they approached. Pilgrim Two and Wayfarer Eighteen hesitated, the latter less, but Errant Six ran forward and raised their sword over their head, attempting to stab through the eye. This was when a hand revealed itself from the eye’s connecting spine, two claws clasping around Errant Six’s sword and flinging it a hundred meters or more with a single flick of the hand’s wrist. The three each reeled back in fear. The eye spoke, emitting phonemes Pilgrim Two was certain were language but sounded like nothing they knew, some phonemes in frequencies that rang their ears.
“Excuse the speaking?” Wayfarer Eighteen spoke, their Westwood accent giving them a noticeable affect. Following Wayfarer Eighteen, the eye made a whirring and clicking noise, and began to speak in the normal tongue, though at a higher volume.
“Salutations!” The eye spoke.
“Communes the?” Wayfarer Eighteen turned to Pilgrim Two suddenly.
“Awfulent demon! Pox of poxes!” Errant Six screamed, stomping their foot and pointing at the eye.
“This terminal means no harm to you three windswept wanderers! It offers information.”
“Ah—” Pilgrim Two’s mind spun as they took in all the information. “Terminal? The animal calls itself Terminal?”
“No animal,” it claimed, causing Pilgrim Two and Wayfarer Eighteen to gasp. “This terminal is a machine, a beast less true but understandable in lack of knowledge. This terminal seeks to fill all lacks of that regard.”
“Machine demon! Crime against Divine One, crime against Church Many!” Errant Six’s voice wavered as they pointed.
“Yell the halting, calm piousless.” Wayfarer Eighteen placed their hand on Errant Six’s shoulder, the latter crying and embracing the former for support.
“This terminal would offer no sin, no harm, no judgement. What this terminal would offer is knowledge.”
“Knowledge?” Pilgrim Two spoke with more interest than they meant to.
“An archivist?”
“A Pilgrim,” they corrected. “Second. Pilgrim Two.”
“Most wonderful. And of the two remaining?”
“Eighteenth Wayfaring, Westwood the origin.” Wayfarer Eighteen nodded.
“Speaking the comfortable, Wayfaring agreeing.” The terminal suddenly spoke with the same affect as Wayfarer Eighteen.
“Ha! No, common the sensely.” They smiled wide despite their declination.
“Errant,” Errant Six said with a trembling lip. “Sixth of the disrespected.”
“Errant Mark is noble,” the terminal claimed. Errant Six calmed slightly, becoming less agitated.
“This Pilgrim inquires of what archives that terminal would possess.”
“Anything you would seek. All knowledge is to be possessed and distributed.”
“Anything?” Pilgrim Two tried to ask with skepticism, but it came out more as excitement.
“Anything. This extension is not a face, but a mode of interaction, an interfacing with an archive.” Its two claws emerged once more, and it demonstrated utilizing the apparati that would affect its screen. Pilgrim Two moved forward, staring upon the screen, moving the interaction to enter many, many subfolders, until it found one named Interviews.