Cale heard the giant lady say, “Let’s... Get this started,” and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. The way she said it almost seemed punishing and it freaked him out a little. He watched as the giant lifted one of her feet, took her heel, and stomped the ground, making the whole domain, or whatever they were in shake with fury as a bright golden liquid began to erupt out of the newly made hole like a geyser.

  Next, she reached down to her hip and grabbed a giant hammer that had been attached to a belt around her waist and held it far above her head. Cale looked at the orb to see how it was handling all of this and to nobody’s surprise, it was having the time of its life waving its little hammers around. They looked exactly like the one wielded by the giant as if it was a souvenir.

  WHAM! The sound reverberated all around him, his head snapped back to look at the giant to see that she had slammed her hammer head into the ground about 20 giant steps away from to the erupting golden liquid. With a large grunt and then a roar, she pulled the hammer and with it came the ground. Cale was stunned into silence as a square metal chest was pulled out from under the surface covered in literal mountains of dirt and muck.

  The chest was so large it equaled the size of the giant lady, if not a little larger. On the side facing Cale, the lady walked over to it and opened a hatch on the side of the chest using her hammer’s head to beat it open and the handle to move excess material that was in the way. Once it was open, she used her other hand to place his soul inside the chest with a delicate touch.

  Cale didn’t know what he was watching, but he did appreciate that the giant entity holding his soul was being gentle with it. He mistakenly looked back at the orb who was for some reason now giving him eyes of adoration, its little mouth even making that “awwww,” face. He didn’t even know they could do that!

  Not knowing what else could possibly come next, he watched as this giant lady slammed her hand into the ground below, her fist yanked a length of chain, causing large pieces of rock and debris to go flying to the sides as the chain was violently ripppped out of the ground and was pulled taut at the base of the chest. With a large heave she started pulling the chest containing his soul over to the fountain of golden liquid.

  As she pulled the chest with the chain over her shoulder, pieces of dirt started to fall off to reveal intricate swirling patterns carved into the material that had been hidden underneath. The chest was pulled until it covered the hole where the geyser of golden liquid was erupting from.

  The chest didn’t plug the geyser completely. Almost immediately, golden liquid started to seep out from underneath and spread out in all directions like a very slow tsunami. With amazement, he watched the golden liquid cool down into a dark simmering blue. Red flames danced on the surface as it slowly escaped from under the forge.

  After only a few seconds, the blue liquid turned black and stopped moving completely, backing up the material behind it and causing it to build up against the base of the chest until it covered up almost an entire quarter of the bottom of the chest making its base look like a partial volcanic pyramid.

  Where the black material ended, the swirling patterns on the chest started to brighten until they were glowing just as bright as the golden geyser below it had been before it was sealed. As the swirly lines grew, more and more of the rock and debris fell off the chest to reveal the entirety of the swirls and the chest they encompassed.

  Cale found that he had been wrong in his assumption and the giant hadn’t pulled a chest out of the ground like some buried treasure. No, the giant had pulled out a giant FORGE! The intricate swirls that were revealed at the base went all the way to the top of the forge where they ended at the base of a small chimney, the chimney itself didn’t have any swirls but had straight lines and just as sharp corners.

  Now that the entire forge was revealed, Cale noticed the swirls were spaced apart and were placed at different lengths that varied across the face of the forge. The way the swirls were placed, it made the outside of the forge look like it was pulsing with a slow, but steady rhythm.

  He was so focused on the forge that he forgot to keep track of the giant herself. From the corner of his eye he saw movement and naturally ducked as a reflex. The room he was in started to shake and Cale felt himself being brought to his knees as the force of gravity was suddenly pushing on him, making him feel much heavier than he really was. When the pressure finally eased up, he turned to look out the window to find that he was much closer to the forge and it was very quickly getting even closer.

  He ran around to the other side of the room to see that he was sitting on a massive shovel being carried by the giant. When they got up to the forge he noticed a massive entrance in the side and it looked like they were headed right for it. Cale held on to his chair and yelled out loudly to no one as they entered the forge at breakneck speed.

  He couldn’t help but notice he was being sent directly into the center of the golden liquid and he wondered if he could die in whatever realm this was. With no other time left for thought, the glass room finished entering the forge and the giant shoved them into the golden liquid like a dish going into a soapy sink.

  He gripped onto the chair as the room plunged into the liquid and sank below until all he could see outside the windows was molten golden. The room was enveloped and Cale couldn’t help but wonder why in the world he was witnessing such oddity. He heard a sliding sound in the center of the room and looked back at the orb, he had forgotten he was even there.

  The orb, hilariously, had changed back into its original outfit, but its hat was missing and in its place was a large bucket that was precariously balanced on its head. The orb’s positioning was in the center of its bartending area and it was holding the bucket below the entrance it had descended from, which was now starting to glow. Down through the hole, a drop of golden liquid came down, slowly, as if time didn’t matter. When it extended down the entrance far enough, there was a loud SNAP! As the doors closed shut and cut off the gooey liquid. It crashed down into the bucket the orb was holding, causing it to fall to the floor. Cale rushed over to it with concern on his face and helped the poor orb up from the ground. He was curious as to what this all was about and he was happy to help if it got him some answers.

  The orb, with Cale’s help, set the giant bucket on the counter and then opened a small cover under the bar floor. This had been the original spot that Cale had sat when the room was being created. Once the cover was open, the orb opened a side drawer that Cale could have sworn was not there when he first got there and pulled out a spigot and a roll of hose. As the orb pulled out the hose, Cale was scrutinizing how it could fit in the hole it came from as it was way too small. The orb took the spigot, made a windup sound, and slammed it into the bucket with a loud whack! Once satisfied it wasn’t leaking, the orb screwed on the hose to the spigot and ran it down to the hole on the floor.

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  As the liquid flowed into the hole, the world around him started to become more alive as the design of the room started to change. Instead of it being just a lounge with soft chairs and stools, part of the room was converted into long tables with pencil-looking things, and what was obviously paper.

  In another section, some of the soft chairs merged into couches that circled around tables with screen-looking consoles in the center. Cale waited by the bar as the items moved and shifted all around as if this room was adapting to whatever was going to come next. He just wasn’t sure what that was, but he bet he would find out soon as the bucket of golden liquid was almost empty.

  When the last tiny drop emptied out of the hose. The orb knocked the bucket off the counter, closed the cover, and put on what looked like a conductor’s hat. It reached down under the counter and grabbed two wine glasses and set them upside down on the counter. It then moved back and motioned for Cale to touch them and wiggled its mustache.

  With nothing else to do, Cale jumped over the bar counter and gently touched one of the glasses. Unexpectedly it didn’t slide across the counter but instead moved down at an angle like a lever. When he took his finger off, the counter started to morph into something new and soon the wine glass turned into an actual lever with a little green ball on the top.

  He tried doing the same thing to the next wine glass but it wouldn’t nudge, instead a little icon appeared over the glass that looked like an arrow spinning around the bottom of the glass. Cale jumped back unexpectedly as nothing else in this world had been this helpful so far. He eyed the orb suspiciously to see if it was making a move, but it was just looking at him while wiping down an already clean glass.

  Keeping one eye on the orb, he turned the wine glass just a little and just like the lever, the countertop around it transformed. The glass was sucked down into the counter as it morphed into a blue plastic looking circular knob about the size of a cup, with little finger grips on the side and little white arrows on top pointing left and right. When it was done transforming, he realized the odds of him not messing with the newly created lever and round knob were zero, so he dove right into it.

  He pulled the lever back while moving the knob thinking that maybe there was a secret elevator that it controlled or something. But to his surprise, the room around him lurched backward, knocking him into the lever and moving it into the neutral position. More curious than before, he now slowly turned the knob and found that though he couldn’t see movement because they were surrounded by the golden liquid, he could definitely feel movement under his feet.

  He now understood that the lever and button in front of him were controls to move the room, the lever he assumed was forward and backward, while the turning knob acted like a tiny steering wheel. He had no idea where he would even go since he couldn’t see anything, but he figured there was no better direction then forward, so he shoved the lever ahead slowly and braced his feet as he could feel the momentum push him backward. He didn’t have to wait long before the window in front of him started to reveal an opening in the golden liquid. Seeing that he was making progress, Cale shoved the lever further forward, causing the hole in the liquid to expand as he pushed the ship through it.

  Not happy enough with his progress, he shoved the lever all the way forward and watched the golden liquid retreat as the mobile room puuuushed through it like it was a cat trying to fit through a tiny hole. When it was at the halfway point, Cale heard a “pop!” and he was thrown backward again, as the ship lurched forward and zoomed ahead now that nothing was holding it back. Cale found himself crawling on the floor as he fought the pressure the acceleration was putting on his body.

  He worked his way up the counter, grabbing on to anything he could find, and finally was able to find the lever, he just needed to be able to get his arm high enough to where he could get ahold of it. Once he had been able to slow the whole thing down he sat on the floor, breathing deeply as he recovered from the surprise exertion. He wasn’t sure why he was tired, as far as he knew he wasn’t even conscious in his real body so how was he tired?

  When he had his strength back he stood up and looked out the window to see where he had ended up. Since he had been forcibly shoved into a forge or furnace looking thing, he expected to see an internal inferno. What he had not expected to see was that he was now orbiting around his own soul! He easily recognized it, though he did note that for some reason it seemed even larger in the forge than when he saw it outside.

  As he stared at it through the glass walls, a dark line started to appear upon the glass that quickly grew into the shape of a door. Once the line completed its transformation into a rectangle, the center of the door shaped object became silvery, and a face appeared to press against the silvery liquid surface.

  First its nose and eyes could be seen, then its mouth and chin, and finally the whole head was freakily visible as it pushed against the silver flowing surface until it broke through suddenly, revealing that the scary face was actually just the giant, albeit a lot smaller. Cale watched with partial disgust, horror, and fascination as she slowly moved her body through the liquid and entered the room.

  “PHEW!!!! That was work! I’ve never even heard of a soul like yours and it is wayyy outside the expected parameters!” the giant said as she shook off excess silvery liquid that still clung to her. She walked up to the stool next to him, sat down, and waved to the orb while pointing to a large mug that mysteriously appeared on the counter.

  The orb took the mug and went to a tiny golden colored tap. It let only a couple of drops enter the mug before closing the tap and then it filled the rest with what looked to be frothy beer. It brought it over to the normal sized giant, who immediately downed the drink bringing a little bit more color to her skin and leaving a tiny frothy mustache on her face.

  “Goodness gracious! That setup sure took the energy out of me!” she said as she slammed the beer down onto the counter. “I have to refill the reserves, you know!?” She said, patting her stomach and then motioning to the orb for another round before turning to face Cale.

  “So, what did you think of the entrance to your new system install!? Since you spent soooo much time in diagnostics, I had plenty of time to think of a neat way to present my first ever installation!” She finished her sentence with a yell, stood up and put her hands in the air and spun as she pointed at all the items in the room and started talking in a flurry.

  “Over here is for your design team! If they push the yellow button they can toggle on and off screens and overlays. The blue button will pop up an assembler that will print out any tool you need!”

  “Over there, with the relaxing couch and central screen is for the planning committee to plan the path to your new interface’s success!”

  “Lastly, the controls here at the bar. They are used to navigate to different installation areas as your system installs on the Trilateral Layer between your sentience, your soul, and your brain!!!”

  “I am your personal installation Matter Artificial Intelligence Guide. Or MAIG for short!” She said that last part with glee as she spun in circles and mini fireworks popped over her shoulders as she stood there looking very smug.

  “Now, do you have any… Hold on... I see a priority message from the diagnostics bot… Hmm.. Diagnostics report... User requests information… Ok let me compile the report… Oh... Gross! What happened to their legs! Oh who, this is insane! No installation guides!? For this whole process? How did this even happen? Why are the time and date so far off my internal systems... What... Please Hold...”

  The lady in front of Cale suddenly went motionless, like she was frozen in place or made out of stone. Cale had so many more questions than ever before.