“My goals?” I asked with a confused expression. “So, you’ve really no aspirations to be free of the oppression that your people suffer under?”
“Very good, Captain. We do not seek to put our lives in danger.”
“Righto. Well, good luck with that when you're extinct, or completely living in servitude. Does every Veiletian feel that way, or just the old ones?”
That prompted another scolding look from Elyek, which I waved an apology for.
Even Ember gave me a look of, ‘why the fuck would you say that?’
Another Veiletian elder spoke, but they had a wry smile on their face, “As we have talked, I have watched the interaction of you and your crew members. It is interesting to say the least. I would go so far as to say you have been advised by Elyek on how you ought to behave, judging by the berating looks they give when you are rude. I see you acknowledge this and try to be better. This leads me to two questions. Why would Elyek care so much to help you in this way? And why would you hold Elyek in such high regard to acknowledge the advice and signals given?”
“Elyek is a crucial, senior member of our crew. Four of us originally formed the Uprising, and we are all equal partners. I’m basically a figurehead for the four of us. We’re a solid team. If it wasn’t for Elyek, we would never have achieved all we have.”
The elder nodded and turned to Elyek. “Do you feel this is a true reflection? Are you valued as an equal?”
“Absolutely, Prefector Kalika. We work as one team.”
Prefector Kalika turned back to me. “Will you treat other members of our race as you treat Elyek?”
“Probably not,” I said, and before I could continue, the gasps interrupted me. I received a myriad of different expressions. “Come on! I hadn’t finished what I was saying. I’ll treat them all with respect and look after them as best I can while they are with us. Even so, Elyek is like my best friend; we have a bond, and I care for them like a close family member. That’s all I meant.”
Prefector Kalika had a smile on their face, while the other five still looked like they were processing what I had said. “I, for one, give my blessing for you to recruit further Veiletian crew members. No more than ten for now, until we see how it works out. If you return here in the future, we can discuss at that point whether others would like to join you,” Kalika turned to the rest of the council. “What say you all?”
There was a chorus of agreement, although some voices still sounded unconvinced.
The Prefector turned to face us. “All agreed, Uprising. We will have a group of our willing people ready for you to talk with tomorrow at the earliest. It will provide an opportunity to discover if they would prove a good fit for you, and you for them.”
“That’s great news. I promise they’ll be looked after to the best of our capabilities.”
“That is all we ask. Now, will you be returning back to your ship for the evening, or can we offer accommodation here?”
There were sounds of further grumbling by the other elders, but fuck them!
“Oh, yeah. That’d be great, thanks. It's rough as toast out there on Arus, and we don’t want to run into any trouble while we’re here, if we can help it.”
“Very well. I will have you escorted to the guest rooms.”
C9
Best of both Worlds
We were shown to some pretty nice rooms, each with a table and chairs, a dresser and a very comfy-looking bed. Ember and I shared one room. Calparr had his own next door.
“Is your room acceptable?” The Veiletian who escorted us asked.
“Yes, it looks very comfortable,” Ember replied.
“Excellent!” they said, seeming genuinely happy. “Now I must inform you that while you stay with us, visitors are expected to remain in their rooms. Travel around the house or grounds unattended for any reason is prohibited, for our own safety more than your own. I am sure you will understand.”
“Well that’s not great news, but we do understand,” Ember said for the both of us.
“Superb. Meals will be brought to your rooms three times a day. The next meal will be in around four hours. If you require anything else, don’t hesitate to contact the house staff, using the communicator located on the wall just inside your door.”
“We will, thank you.” Ember replied.
“Very well, I shall leave you to relax now, the Veiletian said, and with a quick bow, turned and left.
“Well, this is going to be boring as shit,” I said, throwing myself on the bed. “We’ve signed ourselves up as prisoners for the night and… Oh, god!” I cried, my blood running cold. “Oh, what have I done!”
“What’s the matter, Shaun? Spit it out!” Ember said, looking concerned.
“You’ve seen what Elyek eats, right! Are they going to feed us that shit?”
Ember let out a laugh of relief, “Yeah. That’s not good, but seriously, Shaun. So what if it's rank and we have to go a few extra hours without food. We’ll be back on the Uprising by tomorrow afternoon. I thought you’d beaten your obsession with food?”
“I’ve beaten my obsession with bad food. But I need to eat a lot, and I don’t want to be eating whatever the fuck was in Elyek’s bowl, and that’s just how I roll.”
She laughed at me, “Well, don’t worry about boredom. I’ve got just the thing for you to pass the time.”
“Yeah?” I said, suddenly eager. I had the feeling I knew where this was going, and I was happy about it.
“Let’s declutter my mind. We did a lot on yours, and I'm feeling a bit left behind.”
“Nope! That isn’t what I was thinking about at all! Though I have to agree, I do wanna get that out of the way. I'm fucking sick to my core of clearing stupid shitty Cognition Rooms out,” I said with feeling.
“Me too, a few good pushes and we will be there. It’s not like there’s much else to do. Might as well make the most of it.” She clapped her hands, then zoned out. With a heavy sigh, I followed her into her Mindscape.
We worked for the rest of the day in Ember’s Mindscape, going well into the night, and stopping only for the evening meal. It was some kind of orange soup. While surprisingly tasty, it was still a pointless bowl of soup. I was thankful it came with plenty of bread. Elyek must have put in a word about not bringing us anything too weird. I couldn't complain, as long as I didn’t know what was in the soup – it could have been the produce from a space squid's penis, for all I knew.
It must have been near midnight when we finished up in Ember's Mindscape. There was only around ten percent of the room left to go. She had started at 48% Clarity, having gone up even more from the last time I'd seen it. She was obviously making a lot of effort in any downtime. I felt a little guilty because I wasn't doing the same. We had a quick check of her stats before we hit the hay, and were a little baffled that her Clarity was lower than we expected.
Name: Ember Davison
Age: 25 GY
Transcendence Level: 103
Strength: 81/1000
Agility: 110/1000
Speed: 100/1000
Intelligence: 45/1000
Constitution: 116/1000
Wisdom: 59/1000
Mental Resilience: 210/1000
Mental Clarity: 70%
Potential: 83%
“Seventy fucking percent! That’s pure pig-shit on a dinner plate. I should be around 90, for sure!”
“Clarity growth seems to be slowing down the more we clear,” I replied, just as equally concerned. “I thought mine looked lower than it should’ve been after our last stretch of work in there.”
“Oh, yeah. Now you mention it, I suppose it was a little off. Come on. Let's get some sleep and we can crack on with it in the morning. I want to try and get that last bit cleared to see what happens.”
“Totally. Mine too, when we can.”
“I’m fucking sure yours too! We also need to get your Wisdom up somehow; I just hope it doesn't affect whatever invisible Luck stat you have.”
I didn't reply, just laughed, and jumped into the bed.
When I woke, Ember was sitting in one of the chairs at the table, eyes closed. I supposed this meant we were getting back to it then. With a sigh, I lay back down and closed my eyes. “Havok, old pal. You gonna give us some tunes?” I said to Havok before I entered Ember’s Mindscape.
“Sure thing, Shaun! You should never work without blasting out some inspiring songs about obliterating the enemy like bugs!” he replied, happily.
“True that, dude. I really need to check if the Thoth or the Seshat have any banging Earth tunes. I love what you play, but I wouldn't mind mixing it up a bit with some of my old favorites. Bit of Zeppelin would be awesome!”
“I’ll listen to anything you want me to play, Shaun. I need some new songs in my repertoire. I'd be interested to hear what you listened to on Earth.”
“We’ll have to get a bit of Slipknot in there, too. I think that’ll be right up your street, though it might go down like a lead balloon with Ember,” I chuckled.
“I can't wait!” Havok said, before we both morphed into Ember’s Cognition Room.
“Bloody ‘ell. You've been busy!” I said, looking at her almost empty room.
Ember spun around in shock, then looked sheepish. “Oh, yeah. I woke up about two hours after I’d fallen asleep. I couldn't get back off, thinking how close I was. I need to know what the fuck happens next, Shaun.” I could hear the desperation in her voice.
I grinned at her, looking at what remained of her piles. “We should have this done in an hour, I'd say. Come on, Havok, Hit it! Something fast and upbeat.”
“You got it, guys.”
We both plowed back into Ember’s room, going faster than ever to get that shit done, once and for all. Less than an hour later, Ember stood reverently holding a broken tennis racquet, the last item in the room. A tear formed in the corner of her eye. “I'm not going to lie, this is a huge moment for me. So sorry for getting a little emotional.”
“You don't have to be sorry. This is a huge fucking deal!”
She walked over to the shelving unit and slammed it down happily. The shelves instantly disappearing to be replaced with a small, empty shelf and a screen hovering above it. We looked at each other briefly in surprise, before turning back to the screen. It displayed a file icon for each of the years of Ember's life on one side of the screen and on the other side was a list, the first item of which was a broken tennis racket. She opened up one of the file icons and 12 new files appeared, categorized by month this time. “Weird that it’s in months, I would have thought it would be some weird galactic measurement.”
“Could be just because it’s in your head, and it’s how you measure stuff.” I replied.
“Almost insightful, till you said ‘stuff’, Shaun, but you’re definitely getting there.” She said before turning to continue selecting file Icons. They reduced down to weeks, then days and finally hours. At the bottom of the page was a line of text.
Rebuild mind-database: 0% complete.
She groaned, “Well, this is about as overwhelming as a tsunami.”
“Yup. Looks about as much fun as shitting out bricks sideways.”
“Well, I’m not going to let it get me down. I'm still happy with what we've achieved. Let's go check my stats, huh?”
“Yeah, I’d be interested to know the result of all this,” I said, following her to the Interface Room. The only change that appeared was to Clarity, as expected. It now sat at 75%.
“I have to say, I’m pretty fucking annoyed about this, Shaun. I feel like my own mind has really misled me.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, “Yeah, it’s super shitty, but still a massive step forward. Don’t worry about it Ember, we always knew we’d have to do inventory at some point.”
“It’s going to be painstaking. How the fuck am I supposed to remember what I did at a specific hour when I was four?” She held her head in her hands.
“Hey, seriously, you’re not thinking about it the right way. I bet you can remember so much more now than you ever could before. I sure as shit can.”
“Yeah, I can, but not that much, it’s impossible.”
“It’s impossible now, but I know I could organize a lot of it into years. Once we’ve done that, our clarity will be better again. Then we can focus on each year, starting with the most recent ones.”
She looked at me with a confused expression. “Well shit on the table and call it a steak Shaun. You’re absolutely right, you fucking closet genius!”
“Yeah, I know. So what do we do now? Do we know when anyone’s coming for us?”
“Later today, I'd imagine. As for what now, were gonna smash the shit out of your room 'til we’re called for.”
“Ah shit, I knew you’d say that,” I grumbled. Thankfully, I was saved by a knock at the door. A Veiletian was standing there, holding a tray with two bowls of a cream-colored soup, a pile of bread and two glasses of water. This time the soup had a small, green garnish on top. “Here is your breakfast. Elyek asked me to inform you that it will be much later today for the meeting with the elders. If you wish to go to the training rooms at any point, or have any other needs, please don't hesitate to contact us.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks,” I said, taking the tray. “We’ll think about it. Is Calparr okay?”
“Yes. He contacted us last night and asked to be shown the way to the gym. He took his breakfast there this morning. He is much happier training than sitting in his room.”
“Oh, that's good. I'm glad he’s doing well. Thank you.”
When the Veiletian left, I carried the soup over to the table for Ember. “I'll warn you; it looks even less appetizing than last night's meal, although it has a garnish this time. I'm hoping it's cilantro. That stuff really makes the flavors pop.”
Ember took a spoonful of the soup with the green sprig in it. “Bleurgh! No, it's not. That shit tastes like soap.”
“Right. I'll take the fucker out, then,” I said, removing the offending article. To be fair, the soup tasted like shit, too. We both left a lot of it.
“Well, Shaun, it sounds like we have most of the day to wait around,” Ember grinned. “So let’s scrub the last bit of stupid out of that head of yours, eh?”
I’d like to say that the day passed in a blur, but it really didn’t. It was a long, arduous, boring day, and I refuse to talk about it anymore. You’ll just have to use your imagination for this little five-hour window of misery. But the main point is that I finally got my shit mostly together. The inventory screen popped into existence, and I was damned relieved. I depressingly had four more years of files than Ember, which sucked balls.
“Shall we start the inventory then?” Ember asked.
“Absolutely no fucking way! I’d literally rather get eaten by a troll. You can do yours if you want, and I’ll just lie on the bed and meditate on getting back to the FSU for a decent meal.”
“I actually agree with you. But you’re not just lying there. We’ll do some training instead. I want to see what 75% Mental Clarity looks like in real life.”
“Yeah, okay, that’s fair. As long as it’s levitation first, that’s the main thing I want to improve on. I’m not too bothered with telekinesis at the minute.”
“That's fine by me. I want to excel at both,” said a now smug Ember.
We went through a series of levitation practices that were limited by the height of the room. We were both doing far better than ever before. It was pretty exciting, all told. Apparently, Havok didn’t agree. Nonetheless, he did offer an amazing insight: “So, guys. I'm watching you fumble about like fat, pink babies on the floor. It’s embarrassing, and a little depressing. Jotun never looked like you guys when he flew. Still, he did know a lot of stuff you don't.”
“Flew?”
“Well, that’s what it looked like when he did it. When you two do it, I don’t even know what it looks like. But I'm thinking, is there a way to link up your eyes to your External Interface room,
then you don’t have to fuck about like you’re doing.”
“I don't think there is, pal. Ogun told us it was just about increasing Mental Clarity to the point we could operate in the two places at once.”
“What if I told you that’s a common misconception encouraged by the elite, like Jotun, to give them an advantage over other Fystr? Now, I only think this from what I picked up from being around Jotun. I definitely know he didn’t operate like you guys do, or most other Fystr for that matter. It’s part of what made him so formidable. He never even told his fellow crew members about it, because he didn't want the competition. He wanted to be the best and kept many secrets.”
“Really?” Ember said. Before Havok had a chance to respond, Ember continued, “So, Havok, you know I like you, right? But I have to ask, why the fuck are you only telling us this now?”
“I like you too, Ember, and it just never fucking came up before,” Havok replied, deadpan.
I had to laugh.
“Fair enough. But if you can wrack your brain and find any other vital information like that nugget, then please let us know.”
“I will do, Ember. I guarantee it. Jotun developed the ability about 900 years ago. I was still very young in my sentience; not a lot made sense to me in those days. I vaguely remember the knowledge was given to him by one of the Fystr elite. But I do know that the Fystr have a very rigid class system, and much is kept from the lower classes.”
“It seems ingrained in their culture to keep people down as much as possible,” I retorted.
“Not surprising, really,” Ember said. “Growing is tough, especially when you’ve achieved what the Fystr have. It’s probably just much easier to keep people down than continue to develop yourself.”
“My old coach used to say, ‘Blowing someone's flame out doesn't make yours shine any brighter’. Which sounded great, until he spoiled it a bit by adding, ‘Unless you're in the ring, then you kick the living shit out of their flame’,” I chuckled to myself.
Condition Evolution 3: A LitRPG / Gamelit Adventure Page 9