We loaded everything we’d taken off the three bodies nearby, leaving them just about naked when we’d finished. I made it a point to watch how long it took for the tower to start gobbling them up, finding it interesting--in a morbid kind of way--that it seemed to wait until we had a chance to pick through the corpses before its vines really went to work.
The only thing that wouldn’t fit inside the mule was Godrick’s spear. Apparently, the mule gave me access the auction house where we could list things for sale, along with some kind of smith that could upgrade my equipment—once I had enough credits to pay. Belial put the idea in my head that this smith might be able to replace my hammer’s hilt with the spear. An idea he was regretting since we realized it wouldn’t fit and I refused to leave it behind. After arguing over it, I realized could fire the spear off and leave it that way, allowing me to store it as two halves. Unfortunately, I neglected to inform Lucia of my plan, which resulted in her shrieking and falling over when she thought I’d decided to murder her.
With everything packed away, I mentally clicked the key to seal the mule’s hatch, and we set off along a narrow path that led up the mountain.
I asked Lucia to walk ahead so she could set the pace. She agreed, but kept shooting nervous glances over her shoulder, worried I was plotting more practical jokes. Between the incident with the spear, and flipping the mule upside down, she was convinced that I was doing something called hazing.
I’d been right to think she would find it odd that I was bad at controlling things with my interface. So odd, in fact, that she didn’t believe me when I told her that I honestly didn’t know how.
Eventually, Belial reminded me that my application for the games listed me as a naturalist, so it might not be weird that I don’t know how to use technology. When I used that explanation on Lucia, understanding washed over her face.
“Oh.” Her eyebrows lifted for a moment, followed by a look that I could barely stomach. Pity. “That’s so awful. I’m sorry.” She stared like I was a wounded animal whose legs had just been trampled by a cart. “So, you were captured from one of the union colonies?”
“Uh, yes.” I said, after a pause, hoping that was the correct answer.
She made a knowing face that told me it was.
“Well, at least once the games are over, you’ll be free.” She smiled cheerfully, as if that settled everything.
Hoping to end the topic of conversation, I forced a smile of my own, then watched as she continued ahead of me up the path.
“Isn’t the union what Oren talked about? What do they have to do with naturalists?”
“They’re one and the same. Oren’s story is one of thousands just like it.”
“They stranded thousands?” I swallowed, imagining the horror Oren described amplified by that scale.
“They did. The few that were near habitable worlds established colonies there, free from corporate control.”
“I bet the corporations loved that.”
“They did not. And since the corporations voided the citizenships of everyone to avoid wrongful death suits, they became sovereign people—leaving the corporations with no way to touch them.”
“Then those people came from ships…why wouldn’t they know how to use technology?”
“I’m sure their ancestors did.”
“They weren’t always naturalists…” I trailed, head tilting.
“They were not. That came later, during a settlement. Once the corporations discovered there were survivors, they petitioned the courts to re-assume ownership over them, but due to the colonist’s sovereign status, there was nothing they could do. At least not directly…” He paused for dramatic effect, earning him an eyeroll, “Many of the colonies were built using reactors and other parts of the ships they arrived on. In a final bid to screw the colonists over, the corporations demanded the return of their property…effectively regressing them to the stone age. Thus, the moniker ‘naturalist’ was born.”
I hummed thoughtfully, feeling a sort of kinship as I pictured them. A whole society living without the aid of technology, just as my village did. Lucian couldn’t have picked a better cover for me.
“When did you learn all this, anyways?” I asked.
“I looked it up when Oren mentioned it.” He answered, casually, “remember, my brain works a lot faster than yours.”
“Wait.” I blinked slowly, “if that story’s true, then my cover doesn’t make sense.”
“Huh? Why not?”
“How could I have been captured if no one can touch the naturalists?”
“Ah, I see. The corporations can’t touch the naturalists directly. There’s nothing stopping them from contracting pirates to do it for them, which is exactly what they’ve done for the past two-hundred years.”
Two-hundred years? That pissed me off. Not only did they intentionally leave people to die, but they were also going out of their way to enslave any survivors. I glared at Lucia’s back, wondering if she knew all of this, or if she’d been taught something else.
The way she stared still irked me.
“Why did she call them union colonists and not naturalists?” Thinking back, I’d never heard anyone else use that term.
“That is odd, but not that odd. It is the official name for them. Who knows, maybe she studied corporate history somewhere…or maybe one of her ancestors is a survivor.”
I doubted that last idea, my lips forming a thin line as I tried to imagine Lucia as a slave, or even some low-caste worker like Oren. Nope. Something told me she’d lived a sheltered life before whatever brought her here.
“Wait—do you think her powers work like Lord Caelan’s?”
“I doubt it. From what I’ve read about abilities, they’re narrow in scope. Plus, I’ve been watching her for micro-expressions, and she hasn’t reacted at all when you speak to me.”
“Maybe she’s just really good at hiding it.”
Shortly after I said that, Lucia walked directly into a branch, groaning as she spat out a face full of foliage—a sight that didn’t exactly lend itself to my theory that she was some brooding mastermind.
She did a panicked spin while frantically combing fingers through her hair, “Can you check me again, I think I have another one of those things on me.”
Sure enough, she did. A round little bug about two inches wide that almost matched her hair. I watched it skitter up her back, plucking it away right before it reached the nape of her neck. It’s six legs twitched uselessly as I held it upside down between my fingers and thumb. I threw it on the ground before crushing it with the head of my hammer, grimacing at the audible pop its shell made.
“Did you get it?” she fretted, straining her neck to look over her back.
“Mhm, you’re good.”
She was like a magnet for the things, probably because she kept walking into branches. One had managed to latch on to her arm earlier, forcing me to use one of the knives to pry it off. Thankfully, their bites didn’t seem to do much of anything, aside from itch.
“How much further?” She asked reluctantly, as if she weren’t sure she really wanted the answer.
I resisted the urge to sigh, reminding myself that physically, she was pretty frail. Hiking up a mountain for several hours on no sleep was starting to take its toll on her. I suggested letting her ride atop the mule, but apparently the game-runners had thought of that. If a gladiator tried using it to move around, it wouldn’t budge. That’d also crushed my hopes that we could just strap ourselves to it and fly to the third floor.
“I need to be able to see the stairs,” I reminded, “so we can find a way around the spiders.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Right.” She nodded, sucking in a breath before trudging ahead.
She’d been a lot more understanding about my plan to scout from high elevation once I explained the spiders. Describing them to her elicited a look of pure horror. It reminded me of Rheinan when mom would tell him scary stories to get him to do his chores.
“How tall did you say they were again?”
“About twelve feet,” I answered, noticing a shiver run along her spine. “If we encounter any, do you think your abilities would work on them?”
Part of the reason I’d decided to risk travelling with Lucia was because of her powers, not that I’d have abandoned her otherwise. But having almost been torn apart the last time, I wanted all the help I could get before going anywhere near that part of the forest again.
“I’m not sure—it depends how smart they are to begin with—how much of their behavior is driven by reasoning verses instinct.”
Staring absent mindedly, I shoved a branch aside with my hammer as I considered how the spiders behaved. My mind went to how easily I’d tricked them into attacking each other. Nothing about the way the larger one tore apart its victim pointed to any kind of reasoning I could think of. “I would say mostly instinct.”
“I see.” she pursed her lips, broadcasting a look of doubt that made me hang my head. Lucia must’ve noticed my disappointment because she spoke up a second later, “If we can capture one, I might be able to see how their minds work.”
I nodded at that. It was definitely an option if we couldn’t see a way around their nest, but not one I was particularly excited about. Capturing one of them would involve transporting it somehow. It was my turn to shudder as I imagined trying to carry one of them by their heads. I grimaced, picturing those grotesque mandibles and needly legs twitching between my arms.
“I don’t understand why your brain does that.” Belial commented, sounding just as grossed out as I was.
“What do you mean?”
“The intrusive thoughts. I know for a fact you were trying very hard to avoid that mental image, yet some part of your mind forced you to see it anyways.”
I laughed internally, glad to see it disturbed him as well. “Think you can shut those off?”
“I wish, but no. I can’t do anything that drastic to your brain without the risk of damaging your personality, unless of course you don’t care—”
“I care,” I said quickly, a little disturbed by the thought that a minor change like that could turn me into someone else entirely. That reminded me, “what about teaching me to read? Or even all those words and concepts, that’s not changing me?”
“Learning vocabulary isn’t quite the same. These are things you’d eventually learn anyways, and knowledge of a thing isn’t the same as turning off the way your subconscious responds to traumatic events.”
I didn’t fully understand why they were any different, but I nodded along anyways, not wanting to dig too deeply into the subject.
“Speaking of which, you should now be able to read.”
“Really?”
An unexpected feeling of excitement swelled into my chest. So much so, that I nearly tripped over a large stone. More of them were poking through along the path now, making me wonder if we were nearing the top.
“Yes, really. Here, why not give it a spin.”
Belial brought up my interface, which was a series of icons surrounding my field of view. For the first time, I understood the text under each of them. I laughed, amazed at the fact that something so simple could fill me with so much wonder. I wanted to read everything, but sadly that would have to wait until we set up camp. The path was treacherous enough with my full attention.
“Go ahead, I’ll make sure you don’t tumble to your death. We still need to go through all the items we looted.”
I bit my lip and sighed before giving in and examining the icons, my attention moving to one that was blinking. It was shaped like a sack, with a little string around its neck drawing it closed. A smile spread across my face when I read the words underneath.
“New items…” I mumbled out loud, causing Lucia to look back at me.
“Did you say something?” she asked.
“No, sorry, I’m just trying to figure out my interface.”
“Oh, let me know if you need help.” she said, eyebrows drawing in as she gave me another a sympathetic look.
“I think I’ve got it now,” I declined, then remembered I was supposed to be bad with technology, “but I’ll let you know.”
“Okay.” Lucia smiled.
Mentally, I clicked on the tiny satchel, bringing up a new transparent rectangle with the word ‘Inventory’ along the top. Trying to keep from smiling too much, I began reading what was underneath.
“All…Consumables, Crafting Materials, Biomechanical Enhancements…Armor…and Weapons.”
“They’re categories you can sort your inventory by, right now you have it set to ‘all’.” Belial said, prompting a barely audible hum of acknowledgement as I continued reading.
He was being uncharacteristically helpful today, which I appreciated.
“What does common tier 3 mean?” I asked, noticing the words next to the leather breastplates we’d taken.
“Basically garbage…you might be able to get a few credits for them though, if anyone buys them.”
“How do I do that?” I asked, excitedly. I still hadn’t given up on purchasing one of those fancy tents.
Belial highlighted a little button that was visible next to each item on the list, only it was greyed out for some. After a moment, I realized why. I could only sell items stored inside the mule. Since they were trash, as Belial put it, I selected sell and a new screen came up with a field for asking price. I toggled the option below to use ‘suggested price’, then pressed ‘Okay’. The breastplates vanished, and a new tab appeared along the top; ‘pending sale’.
“You’re getting the hang of this.” he cheered, then sighed. “Just a few weeks ago you were referring to monitors as ‘swirling symbols on magical glass’.” He sniffled, his voice climbing to a squeak, “They grow up so fast.”
“Uh huh.”
I sold the boots next, listing them for the suggested 10 credits each.
“Wait, why aren’t my credits going up?” I asked, eyeing the counter that displayed how many I had in the upper left-hand corner.
“Because nobody’s purchased them yet. I assume you’ll get some kind of notification when they do.”
I nodded, inspecting the rest of the list.
Quantity 2, Unidentified Substance, rare.
Quantity 2, Unidentified Substance, uncommon.
Quantity 1, Unidentified Substance, crude.
Injector, common.
Those were the vials we looted. I couldn’t imagine injecting myself with something without knowing what it was, let alone something labeled as crude. Oddly, they were sellable, despite being mystery items. That made me wonder if we could just start filling up vials with random liquid and listing them for sale. Belial commented that he loved me entrepreneurial spirit but doubted it would. I clicked ‘sell’ next to one of the mystery vials, but before I could finish listing them, Belial stopped me.
“Hang on, don’t sell those until I get a chance to identify them.”
I grimaced, remembering the last method Belial used to identify a mystery liquid. “I’m not putting them in my mouth.”
“Not even the rare one—” he cut himself off, likely noticing my anger starting to bubble up, “Okay, okay…just hang on to them for now, we can buy an identifier off the marketplace, and they aren’t taking up much space in your inventory anyways.”
“How come not everything has a tier?”
“There’s tiers and grades. Grades are the item’s rarity, and tiers denote the items power, with tier 1 being the most powerful.”
I scrolled further down, feeling a little excitement as I noticed the weapons we’d looted. Two of them were the highest tier.
Heavy Crossbow, tier 2, uncommon.
Overcompensating bolts of big explosions, tier 1, unique.
Shooty mc-stab-stab, tier 1, epic.
That last one must be the spear, though I wondered who was naming these.
“What does epic mean?”
“It means better than unique. From what I’ve gathered perusing the marketplace, grades go common, uncommon, rare, unique, divine, epic, legendary, and mythic.”
My eyes widened. The spear was tier 1, and two grades below the highest. “Should I be using the spear instead of my hammer?”
“Mmm-no,” Belial chuckled, confusing me. “Go ahead and check out your hammer. It’s under equipment.”
Wrinkling my brow, I blinked away my inventory before mentally clicking an icon shaped vaguely like a person with the word ‘equipment’ underneath.
A cartoonish depiction of my body appeared, overlaid with equipment slots. My hammer sat in a rectangle beside my arm, my shoulder pads inside a square above that, and my chainmail sat inside a larger rectangle covering my upper body. Interestingly, the rectangle with my chainmail was shaded red, which told me that somehow the system knew it was damaged. When I let my focus linger on any of the items, a small description appeared, outlining its stats. I was pleased to discover that despite my chain mail being damaged, it was still providing 6/10 armor. It was labeled uncommon, tier 3, making me wonder if I should even bother trying to have it repaired. Neither my boots nor my new pauldrons seemed to be very good either, both were common, though the pauldrons were tier 2.
Other than those, and the slot for my boots, the rest were empty.
“What are all these empty ones?”
“The one over your head is for a helmet, the one below your hammer is for gloves, the ones on either side of your hands are for rings—you’re allowed to equip 2—let’s see, what else…the one next to your head is for a necklace, the one over your legs are for pants…and the narrow one across your waist should be obvious.”
“What about my body suit?” I asked, not seeing it in any of the slots.
“That’s apparel, it doesn’t count as equipment.”
That didn’t make much sense to me, but at least I didn’t have to worry about my dress taking up a slot. Remembering why I had my equipment open in the first place, I focused on the slot with my hammer. My jaw hung open at the sparkling text that appeared.
╔══════════════《?》══════════════╗
Judgement of judgement
Tier 1, legendary
2 handed – Great Maul
Once wielded by Jarl Marakh Var, son of Thral Var, disgraced leader of the free tribes.
Augments 1 of 2: Magnetic Rail driver
Augments 2 of 2: Anti-theft system.
Augment slots available: 1
╚══════════════《?》══════════════╝
Thanks for reading guys,
How do we feel about the items being displayed like that?
