Later, Arn entered, holding a tray full of star-dweller food and water in strange soft bottles. He still wore the fox headdress, even though blending in with the land-dwellers wasn’t necessary anymore.
“You’re probably going to want this,” Arn said as he placed the tray on the floor. “Captain says there’s been a slight change in plans.”
“What sort of change?” she asked.
“We’re traveling to the fleet first and unloading our cargo,” Arn said. “Then we’ll double back and head to the fae homeworld.”
Arn walked away and traveled past the machina sliding doors. Xanthe nourished herself with the food and water Arn had left. She found a spot in the corner, sat beside a crate full of fresh apples, and reached between her breasts and pulled out a small piece of paper stuffed between them.
It was a list of names: fae men she had to meet before her nineteenth birthday.
She crossed all the names off except for one.
Chapter Three
It felt as if someone had taken thousands of drinking straws and pushed them inside every vein in Guy’s body, linked them together, then filled them with acid. The pain wouldn’t stop, and his body was feeling a lot different now. At least his senses had returned, first with his sense of hearing. It sounded like someone was rushing him into the infirmary, the sounds of the heart monitor beeping in sync with him.
“What happened?!” That voice was Rachael Leighton’s. Guy made it back to the fleet. If Rachael was the nurse, then he was in good hands. “He drank too much, didn’t he?”
It soothed Guy’s mind to hear Rachael speaking. She’d be at his side as the doctors tried to figure out what happened to him. And he totally didn’t drink.
“Knowing him, probably.”
That wasn’t Rachael, but possibly the doctor.
I didn’t drink!
“Fuck’s sake. How many times do we have to tell you, no partying on land-dweller worlds!”
I wasn’t drinking, Rachael! He’d tell her that too, but lacked the will to control his body—
Astral circuit re-wiring completed.
What the fuck are astral circuits?
And just like that, Guy saw what he guessed was an image representing his nervous system. It looked like someone re-wired his insides with electrical circuits. Why the fuck was he seeing messages across his blacked-out vision anyway?
Would you like to familiarize yourself with your new UI?
He’d wince if he could control his face. Uh, sure?
Guy Sutherland
Class: Paladin LVL 1
Subclass: None
HP: 100/100
MP: 20/20
AP: 0/100
LP: 10/10
EXP: 0/1000
Attributes
Strength: 20
Dexterity: 15
Vitality: 30
Agility: 10
Intelligence: 11
Wisdom: 12
Charisma: 13
Flight Stats
Flight Speed: N/A
Flight Time: N/A
Combat Stats
Attack Bonus: 10
Magic Attack Bonus: 5
Healing Potency: 6
Defense: 10
Magic Defense: 3
Critical Hit Rate: 1%
Attack Speed Bonus: 0.5
Persuasion: 0
Ranged Attack Bonus: N/A
Okay, so, I don’t know what any of that means—
If you would like to view your status again, or anything else, please use your menu commands.
What . . . menus?
And just by thinking about it, said menu appeared in his vision.
Menu:
Item – Use this to view your inventory.
Magic – Use this to view equipped spells.
Technique – Use this to view equipped AP skills.
Equipment – View equipped items.
Sigils – View and equip sigils.
Party – View party set-up and status.
Quests – View your quest log.
Currency – View currencies collected.
You lost me there, mysterious text in my vision.
Guy suspected that the astral circuits inside him had something to do with it—and the new screen that appeared next.
Uncovering Your Destiny
Objective: Read the book given to you by Henrietta Hamilton.
Issued by: White Dragon
Reward: 100 Experience Points
Accept quest? Yes/No
Guy selected Yes and hoped he wouldn’t regret it.
“I bet he met a whore too,” said the doctor to Guy’s right, or so he thought. He still couldn’t see anything, only hear what was around him.
“I can smell perfume,” Rachael said.
That was probably Henrietta’s perfume, but she’s no whore.
“If you want to cut his dick off for that, just let me know, and I’ll conveniently turn my back.”
Don’t cut off my dick! I didn’t bang any whores! I’m still a virgin, promise.
“I don’t think it was a whore . . . it’s not like him to do that.”
Thank you, Rachael, for believing in me!
“Maybe it was a harem,” the doctor said. “Remember Torphin III?”
No, it wasn’t a harem!
“Yeah, I do . . .” Rachael snarled. “Give me that blade!”
Guy thought about the strange screens. They were interesting—the only things he could control, and the only things taking his mind off the fact that he might lose his dick. The screen talking about him being a Paladin hooked his attention the most. A Paladin was the main character of that story his mother had read to him—
Bright white shined down upon Guy.
The light forced him to sit up and use his hands to shield his eyes. He had regained control of his body, and saw the brightly lit hospital room someone had hauled him into. Behind him was an expansive window, peering into the star-filled void of space. Rachael stood beside the medical bed, wearing her white nurse’s dress uniform. The dress’s collar was red, keeping its top to her body since the uniform had no upper back part. Rachael was a star-fae, and like all clothing made for the fae, there was no back, allowing her wings to be free and uncrushed. So, it didn’t surprise Guy to feel that he was sweating, as Rachael had likely turned the thermostat up. With all the skin that fae exposed, they were always the first to mention that it was too cold, and understandably so.
Guy gave his throbbing forehead a rub. “Rachael, what happened . . . ?”
Rachael picked up her medical PDA and read the data scrolling across its touch screen. “You passed out, and your uncle rushed your ship back to the fleet.” He was back on the star-dweller fleet, home to the races who lived in space, rather than the low-tech underdeveloped planets of the land-dwellers. All that shit about Status screens and being a level 1 Paladin with 13 charisma must have been a dream. “Thought you were drinking. But according to this, there isn’t a drop of alcohol in you. Guy, what the hell did you do?”
He recalled his last memories. Uncle Matthew gave him that sword.
“The sword did it,” Guy said.
Rachael shot him a puzzled glare. “What sword?” The sword that wasn’t on Guy after he checked. Left behind on his ship, he figured. Speaking of which, he had a job to finish, so he pivoted to leap off the medical bed. Rachael held him back. “Hold on, I didn’t say you could leave yet.”
“I’m fine, Rachael.”
“I’m sure you are,” Rachael said, then took her PDA again and eyed the data on his body.
“Don’t you trust your childhood friend?”
“No, and that’s why I want you to stay.” Rachael grabbed one of her scanners and waved the device and its blue blinking lights above his head, slowly lowering it to his chest. “I have one childhood friend, and the last time I checked, I can’t replace them.”
“Or exchange them, believe me, I asked—” She punched his arm, frowning. “Hey!”<
br />
“That was lame!”
“It was a joke!” Guy said as he held his shoulder. He barely felt Rachael’s fist crash into it. It should have hurt more, given how hard she punched him. Rachael was no pushover. The two had been going to the gym together for the past year.
“Hmm, everything looks fine here,” Rachael said and spun away, putting her exposed back, star-fae wings, and ponytailed red hair in front of him. She placed the PDA on the shelf.
He was about to ask if her scans detected the astral circuits when a screen flashed ahead of him, displaying his re-written body. That was no dream he had. The screen still listed Guy as a level 1 Paladin—a screen that just willed itself into existence by thinking about it. Guy went into a frantic panic, flailing his hands about as he tried to get rid of the screen. Rachael spun back to him just as he closed it. He really didn’t want to explain how he made the screen appear.
She tilted her head to the side, peering at him with her blue eyes. Rachael knew something was up. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
But something was wrong—very, very wrong. Every sense in Guy’s head told him to tell Rachael about the astral circuits and the screen that recognized him as a Paladin. Knowing her, though, she’d keep Guy in the hospital to run more tests. He had important shit to do, like finding more eBooks for Henrietta and checking his score on the ranking boards. Trading with the land-dwellers was a competitive business, not to mention costly. Only the finest starship captains received goods at a low cost to trade, which helped offset ship fuel and maintenance expenses. If he dropped in rank, then the cost of traveling to far-off planets like Mennaze would increase, and Guy wouldn’t be able to afford to travel there. And if that happened, he wouldn’t be able to see the young farmer’s daughter, Dianna, or the lonely librarian, Henrietta. One of those two women was bound to take his virginity away. He just knew it—
“Well, let me know if something comes up,” Rachael said, her voice drawing his head back to the present.
“I’m free then?” Guy asked her.
Rachael nodded. “Yeah.”
“And so are you then, right?” Guy said as he leaped off the medical bed. “If so, how about we—”
“I’m still busy.”
Rachael walked to the adjacent medical bed, checking up on her other patient. Guy followed his childhood friend. “With what?” She showed him what: the other patient. It was a female fae, eyes shut and body unmoving, being kept alive by the beeping medical equipment around the bed. “Who’s that?”
“I wish I knew,” Rachael said, reaching for the bedside PDA and read its contents. “Paramedics brought her in earlier today. Land-fae too, not a star-fae like me.”
“How’d you know?”
“Hair.” Rachael pointed to the unmoving fae woman. Her hair was short. “Land-fae women always keep their hair short like that.” Rachael yanked on her long braided ponytail. “Tradition in their world, unlike us star-fae, adapting to human customs.”
“Well, it was star-humans who uplifted fae, elves, druids, and the other races to help build the fleet.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“That’s why you have a human name and surname too, right?”
“Rachael Leighton,” she said to herself. “Well, Jane Doe here is going to be in for a shock when I reveal my name. If she awakes from the coma.”
“I’d be more concern with how she’ll react when she realizes she’s on a city-ship and not a planet,” Guy said. “Most land-dwellers can’t comprehend that, which is why we traders gotta keep our existence a secret from most of them.”
“And why you always need at least one person who has first-aid training on board your ship at all times,” Rachael said. “Locals might get feisty if they learn the truth and hurt you.”
“I know.”
She put the PDA away, then faced Guy with her hands on her hips, frowning. “So why didn’t you have one?! What if your uncle was in the shower? He wouldn’t have found your body in time to rush you back here!”
Lucky for me, Matthew was right there when it happened . . . when he gave me that sword . . . Besides, I don’t have time to look for a random person with first-aid skills every fucking trade run, and Ulysses’s my rival. I can’t have his score beat mine, and knowing Ulysses, he’d end up banging Henrietta or Dianna before me!
“Don’t do that again, Guy! You could have died!”
Rachael grabbed the PDA again, snatched a stylus, and wrote notes on its screen. With her attention focused on that, Guy glanced at the land-fae on the bed. A strange force encouraged him to move closer to it, almost like a beacon.
A screen appeared ahead of him when he studied the fae.
Land-fae (Cleric) | LVL: 5 | Rank: D | HP: 31%
The fuck?
Guy observed Rachael’s side and waited for the same screen to load. Nothing happened. Rachael had no assigned class. He shifted back to the fae on the medical bed, and once again, he saw that she was a level 5 Cleric. Guy had a feeling that Rachael’s PDA mentioned nothing about that. He made the screen vanish before Rachael returned to Guy. She stared at him with a neutral gaze.
“‘Sup?” He asked her.
“Wanna get some lunch?”
“Thought you were busy?”
“I need a break,” she said. “Besides, Doctor Otar wants to run some tests on our Jane Doe fae.”
“Let’s head to the food court then,” Guy offered. “They might be cooking steaks from the haul we brought in.”
Rachael nodded in agreement and walked ahead. Guy took two steps forward, then stopped when a quest screen flashed and demanded his attention.
Lunch with Your Childhood Friend
Objective: Go to lunch with Rachael Leighton
Issued by: White Dragon
Reward: 100 Experience Points
Accept quest? Yes/No
He scratched his head. “How the hell . . . ?”
And selected Yes.
Chapter Four
Eleanor was the third largest star-dweller city-ship in the fleet. It looked like a giant glass dome in space, drifting among wandering ships of various sizes from the outside. If you woke up early enough, you could glimpse the dreadnought Sleipnir, the flagship of the star-dwellers, making its usual patrol. Inside Eleanor, and ships like it, existed a city with rows and rows of packed buildings lined side by side. It’s where the people of the stars call home. On the surface below was a maze of lush trees to help provide oxygen for the residences. Traveling to or from work was like taking a long stroll through a park.
Guy and Rachael walked through one such park, having left the hospital. They traveled past artificial ponds and rivers where off-duty personnel sat and took in the light from above, masquerading as actual sunlight. Humans, fae, elves, and druids made up most of the domed city population. If you looked hard enough, there were a few shadow angels and fauns lurking about, all of them assimilated to spacefaring human culture—a culture whose roots remain unknown to this day. Star-dweller history books start with the fleet and their discovery of planets inhabited by the nonhuman races. The books mentioned nothing about the first humans who built the fleet, where they came from, and why they insisted on making space their home—one of the Asteria Galaxy’s many mysteries.
Just like the mystery of why Guy never had a girlfriend
It’s because you’re always around Rachael, man!
Guy chuckled to himself as he and Rachael walked together on the park’s path, her heels clicking. She kept her nurse’s uniform on, drawing lots of thirsty gazes from men of various species—and envious glares from women directed at Guy. Everyone assumed Guy and Rachael were dating, failing to realize they were only childhood friends.
The two reached a clearing where hungry star-dwellers stood in line at a wide range of kiosks in the local food court. Rachael lined up at a kiosk specializing in fae meals, mostly consisting of berries, cream, and light cakes. Berries from the fae homeworld, Faeheim, were in season
too. Being the typical human, Guy settled for a burger and fries, made fresh from the goods he hauled back to the fleet from the planet Mennaze. They selected a window seat to sit in and eat, giving Guy and Rachael a view of the city’s primary shopping district—
Lunch with Your Childhood Friend - Quest Complete
Obtained: 100 Experience Points
“What’s that?”
Rachael saw it. Guy closed the unexpected quest screen quickly and looked at Rachael as she sat at the table with him. “What’s what?”
She sounded puzzled. “I thought I saw some hologram near you.”
“Uh, nope, no way!”
Rachael leaned closer to examine him, then angled her gaze to the left, then right, one red eyebrow raised. “I thought . . .”
“Mmm?”
She sat back, wincing. “I wonder if the land-dwellers on Mennaze did something to you . . .”
“I’m fine!”
It didn’t look like she believed it, and that wasn’t good. If Rachael deemed Guy unwell for work, then he could kiss his next trade run goodbye.
“You guys finally got over the childhood thing?” said the uninvited voice of a star-druid.
Guy and Rachael turned around to see Ulysses and Arn walking to their table, taking a seat each on the two vacant chairs. He wished he sat someplace else.
Ulysses laughed at his traveling partner, leaned back in his chair, and folded his arms. “No, Arn. That would require Guy to grow a pair.”
“Well, hey, hey, hey, it’s second place,” Guy drily said to Ulysses.
“Second place?” Ulysses asked, sounding confused.
Guy pointed at a scrolling display screen on the wall, a lengthy list of all known traders in the fleet with their score and rank beside their name. In first place, Guy Sutherland. Second place, Ulysses Archambeau.
Star Paladin: A LitRPG Space Fantasy (Sword of Asteria Book 1) Page 3