Work Never Ends
- Pronouns
- Male
I groan as I rise to my feet, the broken remains of my Lightless body barely strong enough to sustain my own weight, relegating me to using the damned wall as a support. A wall that I… was pretty sure was close to the entrance to the sewers.
The last time I had felt true fear was when we dove into Crota's realm. The Hive were some of the few beings in the universe that could still present a real and present danger to us, the Taken even more so.
Even the Vex were something to be fought instead of feared, for all the damage and chaos that they could weave with their mastery of temporal interference and traversal.
If it weren't for those damned things, Saint would still be alive. Then again, so would other Guardians.
But it was any of those horrors that had broken the Last City, taken the Traveler, and reduced me to a lightless nobody. No family, no memories of a past life, nothing. Just an amnesiac warrior whose Traveler was now trapped in a cage. Created, not by the monsters or horrors that plagued humanity.
No, instead it had been the Cabal. The ones that I had believed were the least threatening of the other factions that vied for our deaths. There was no question that they were a threat to humanity. But compared to the Hive that had culled hundreds of us on the moon, the Fallen Houses hounding us from the very beginning of the Collapse, and the Vex that remained a constant force given their proclivity towards time manipulation,
Now, here I was, shuffling through the tunnels like some sort of rat, clutching Ghost who could barely float in the air towards my chest in a vice grip, afraid of losing him too, Light or no.
I walked across the ruined streets, staring at the bodies that littered the ground as I traveled, those of civilians and Guardians alike.
Some Guardians we were.
How many had survived? Were Ikora, Cayde and Zevala even alive? They had been at the Tower when we had been attacked, ground zero for the onslaught. What about Amanda?
Traveler, how many friends did I lose today? How many human souls now lost forever in the Dark while we scurried away like mice?
I can't help but notice the various faces of the people that littered the streets. Many were disfigured beyond recognition, no doubt caught in the initial artillery strike, killed before they even knew what was happening around them.
I passed the bodies of Ruth and Linda, a mother and daughter who used to run a little bakery just a few blocks away, the older woman holding her eighteen winters old daughter as if she could somehow stave death away. Two lights, one that had just begun to live her life, snuffed out with everyone none the wiser. There was little relief in seeing the youngest of the three, a boy by the name of Heathwood, missing from the group. I knew that the chances of him managing to survive the invasion was… minimal to say the least.
But odder things have happened. I've lived through odder things. And if even one of these three lived, I would cling onto that fading glimmer of hope. It was all that I could do to keep my feet moving from the bodies of those familiar faces.
The battle still raged around us, drones flying through the air while troop movements coordinated through the city, the sound of gun fire and explosions rocking the earth around me.
At some point, I forget everything. The streets, the cold, and ruined walls and the corpses left in the Cabal's wake.
I just walk, clutching my closest friend as tight as I could, on and on and on.
I don't remember when I'd passed the walls into the Wilderness, or even when I passed out.
The last time I had felt true fear was when we dove into Crota's realm. The Hive were some of the few beings in the universe that could still present a real and present danger to us, the Taken even more so.
Even the Vex were something to be fought instead of feared, for all the damage and chaos that they could weave with their mastery of temporal interference and traversal.
If it weren't for those damned things, Saint would still be alive. Then again, so would other Guardians.
But it was any of those horrors that had broken the Last City, taken the Traveler, and reduced me to a lightless nobody. No family, no memories of a past life, nothing. Just an amnesiac warrior whose Traveler was now trapped in a cage. Created, not by the monsters or horrors that plagued humanity.
No, instead it had been the Cabal. The ones that I had believed were the least threatening of the other factions that vied for our deaths. There was no question that they were a threat to humanity. But compared to the Hive that had culled hundreds of us on the moon, the Fallen Houses hounding us from the very beginning of the Collapse, and the Vex that remained a constant force given their proclivity towards time manipulation,
Now, here I was, shuffling through the tunnels like some sort of rat, clutching Ghost who could barely float in the air towards my chest in a vice grip, afraid of losing him too, Light or no.
I walked across the ruined streets, staring at the bodies that littered the ground as I traveled, those of civilians and Guardians alike.
Some Guardians we were.
How many had survived? Were Ikora, Cayde and Zevala even alive? They had been at the Tower when we had been attacked, ground zero for the onslaught. What about Amanda?
Traveler, how many friends did I lose today? How many human souls now lost forever in the Dark while we scurried away like mice?
I can't help but notice the various faces of the people that littered the streets. Many were disfigured beyond recognition, no doubt caught in the initial artillery strike, killed before they even knew what was happening around them.
I passed the bodies of Ruth and Linda, a mother and daughter who used to run a little bakery just a few blocks away, the older woman holding her eighteen winters old daughter as if she could somehow stave death away. Two lights, one that had just begun to live her life, snuffed out with everyone none the wiser. There was little relief in seeing the youngest of the three, a boy by the name of Heathwood, missing from the group. I knew that the chances of him managing to survive the invasion was… minimal to say the least.
But odder things have happened. I've lived through odder things. And if even one of these three lived, I would cling onto that fading glimmer of hope. It was all that I could do to keep my feet moving from the bodies of those familiar faces.
The battle still raged around us, drones flying through the air while troop movements coordinated through the city, the sound of gun fire and explosions rocking the earth around me.
At some point, I forget everything. The streets, the cold, and ruined walls and the corpses left in the Cabal's wake.
I just walk, clutching my closest friend as tight as I could, on and on and on.
I don't remember when I'd passed the walls into the Wilderness, or even when I passed out.
I grimace as I feel the influx of memories from those clones that hadn't been fast enough to escape the explosion of their walkers. Damn, I knew that the chances of everything going off without a hitch were zero to none, but I wish that hadn't been so.
Even if they were basically cobbled together in a rush job, that was still resources wasted.
Hm, I'm not even sure what exactly caused the explosion. Perhaps the engine was overheated?
"Was I right?" Ghost asked as he flew down from the highest bookshelf in the maze of this mystical mountainside. When I don't say a word, he nods his head. "Yeah, I was right."
Tch. I move my attention back to the book in my hands, a dusty old tome written in a dialect that was considered old, even by Veranda's standards. One bound in leather, and written by hand, detailing meditation techniques and philosophical quandaries into the very nature of the world.
It would normally be something that I avoided, but there was… something about this book that piqued my interest. 'Chakra nodes' were something that I had yes, but something altogether different from what was being described in this book.
There were various quandaries and theories into the very fabric of the universe, the idea that underneath the world that we knew, what we see and experience, there was so much more happening underneath the surface that most people would never be aware of. If this book hadn't been stored within a mystical mountaintop academy, filled to the brim with books and various magical techniques and studies, enough room to house what might be hundreds of people, food water, and whatever this 'wifi' is, I would be more skeptical.
Memories of different lives, of different 'me's' was yet another drop into the bucket of my interest in these books. Ghost had to translate the ancient language back into English. Compared to trying to decipher a million's of year old alien language, with no known cipher or ties to it, translating these mere thousand-year-old texts were easy for the Ghost.
Apparently, this Traveler had been a polyglot of some type, on top of being some sort of Light-controlling deity.
Even with what came to me in dreams, I still didn't know what the Traveler actually was. Or what this Light that brought me back from death even meant.
There was so much more to the universe that I did not know, and these books, mere sheaves of paper handwritten in ancient ink, preserved here for countless years, were windows into the mystery that was Human culture. Even if the memories brought things to the forefront, it did not bring everything that I had experienced in those worlds. More like… important moments that were slowly growing clearer, more real with each passing day.
"Yes." I eventually mutter out while flipping the page, combing through the musings of this guru Amar Das. The insight into his philosophy that all life simply went into a cycle, the dead coming back into life on a different path was… interesting, if perhaps debatable.
I couldn't really refute it, given the various lives that were being shoved into my head every time I died.
"Well, that just means that we're going to have to workshop a little more on the designs." Ghost muttered, that smug aura radiating off the damn ball.
"Yes, that is well and good, I'll just tell those slaving maniacs and their pet monsters to leave us alone for a few days." I quipped back, honestly not caring at this point.
"I'm just saying that we should probably overhaul few things from the previous design, no point in creating something that's going to blow up underneath you when you don't know it."
"Don't you mean something that isn't going to blow up in general?" Xac asked with a raised eyebrow, looking up from his book.
"Please, we both know you're going to find some way to turn yourself into a suicide bomber, it just happened to happen first by accident instead of on purpose." Ghost rebuffed with a dark chuckle.
I blink as a memory of Ghost and I screaming flashed through my mind, the controls in front of me flashing a bright red as we barreled down on a company of Hive.
"How often did we do that?" I asked.
"More than I would have liked." He responded glibly. "Same goes for shooting yourself out of a cannon. That happened more often than it should have."
Before I could ask any more questions, the banging open of a door, accompanied with the stomping of boots announced the arrival of Yazera, the traitor Korithian staring at the books around us with a venomous glare.
"Why are all of these books in a damned language that looks like chicken scratch!?" She all but screeched while she finished her little stomping march toward me.
I don't even try to hide the smile on my face, causing her glare to only increase in venom and promise of retribution down the road.
"He says that he can't help it if the library that he was gifted was one founded on an Earth instead of whatever Korithian 'breeding ground' the empire would conquer." Ghost translated for me, the little Light throwing a reproachful look my way.
Just because I had my voice back didn't mean that I had to announce it to the world. Besides, if people thought that I was mute, there was less of a chance that they would try to strike up a conversation.
Ghost agreed to it, mostly out of obligation, Melina didn't care either way, and Roland simply wanted to 'see the fireworks'. I didn't know what that meant, but I attributed it to some type of explosion. Couldn't think of anything that could be attributed as 'fireworks'.
"And how many damned languages did Earth create!? I've seen more characters in this one place than I've seen in my former family's library!" She cried out, eyes almost bugging out as she stared at the tomes and scrolls lined along enormous walls and shelves.
"What are you talking about? Surely your Empire's had their own different languages and dialects before the one that you speak." Right, I hadn't really explained the Korinthian's history did I? Then again, it wasn't a subject that I truly knew much about. Merely what I'd heard from my life before coming here.
"Ha! As if our race would have that sort of history!" She said with a venomous tone that only came out when she spoke of the Empire. "If there was anything before we came into being, it was thrown into the void, forgotten and buried in the dust."
"I don't think that I follow." Ghost said slowly, hovering closer to the Korinthinan woman while I placed the book onto the table and leaned back in my chair.
"Right, I haven't been here that long, so I tend to forget that what I think is common knowledge isn't." The horned alien sighed out while I grimace in sympathy at her words. The first few months here were… difficult to say the least.
Difficult, but no less worth it.
"You see, we weren't exactly… a form of natural evolution." She started slowly, the haughty look she always wore on her face gone like ash in the wind, replaced with a grief-lined frown.
I scoff. That was an understatement. Her eyes flicker over to me, but she doesn't deign to say anything.
"In what way?"
"In the, 'We were engineered to be good little soldiers and ate our creators' sort of way." She finished bluntly, in the same way someone would rip out a bullet or arrow from a wound. "This was done during the beginning years of our progenitor's foray into space exploration, and it ended with us being what we are now, and them as the race that we enslaved."
"Whatever culture they had, whatever history or culture that might have been was purposefully smothered and abandoned, forgotten into the wind. The Empire isn't even sure which slave race even is the progenitor, that information quickly forgotten in an effort to abandon the link that we were created by something other than ourselves. It's sorta the open secret that no one likes to talk about."
"I… see. And in that same vein, there is only one language left, whatever one that you speak." It was the reason why the only language that I spoke was Korinthian until those years ago.
"Krinth specifically." An imaginative name that one. "As far as the Empire is concerned, the only history that exists is the one that came after we came into power and ate our way to the top. Anything before that is just buried ash to be forgotten."
"Why was I expecting anything more cheerful than that, I should have learned my lesson by now." Ghost muses to himself while he floats back behind my head.
"What memories I have tells me that it was no better back where you're from." I tell him with a cold grin. Had to find the humor in something, better to laugh than bask in the horror of it all.
"If anything, it was worse back there." He whispers back into my mind. I remember what came to me. The Fallen were abandoned by the Traveler, the Hive that culled and harvested the Light from any race that the Traveler visited. Even the Cabal were a mere shadow of what they were thanks to the Traveler, though, those memories were… fuzzy compared to the rest.
More so than the rest, as if they were disconnected from everything else that I had lived in that life, instead of simply fractured and waiting to be put back together.
I remember the Dark though, that feeling of loss and weakness that threatened to envelop my Light and soul, dragging me down into the muck if I let my life run out.
It was in those moments that I remembered one very important truth. Without my Light, I'm only human. Perhaps it was because of that fear that I managed to prevail. Who knows?
"You sure these are all useful for Magic?" She eventually asked, the previous topic forgotten as her scaleless black fingertips danced across the various spines and parchment across the books.
I shrug my shoulders and motion to the book that I had in my lap.
"Too soon to tell?" She asked. I tried not to be annoyed by how fast she learned to interpret my charades. Took all the fun out of it.
I nodded, gesturing towards the veritable treasure trove that lay within these walls. Whatever this place had been, it stored centuries worth of research and work over the foundation of understanding and developing magic. It seemed to simply be philosophy at first, but that was merely what was seen on the surface.
Much like how there were worlds beneath, and alongside, the one that we lived in.
And many more that were beyond our grasp. It was more than a simple measure of metrics or the quantification of science. Infinity was truly something real, instead of being mere fantasy.
"It's a bit hard to learn any of this without a teacher to guide. There's only so much you can do when learning from books." Ghost added in. "Even in my world, certain magics took years if not decades to learn."
The flash of a three eyed gloomy woman popped into my mind and I couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness at that. Another face of a Guardian, even a Lightless one, that made my heart ache.
It was… strange. This attachment to people that I didn't know, or remember other than their names and the occasional emotion tied to the thought of them.
"Good thing that you have a clock that makes time go faster in here then. I can't believe I just said that out loud." She says with wide eyes, a look of "Am I going crazy?" obvious on her face.
I shrug my shoulders. Sanity isn't something that I generally thought I'd have growing up, so why worry about it in the first place?
"Speaking of, how long has it been outside?" She asked. I blink and count the hours that have passed by in here before multiplying it by four.
"About five hours since day broke." Ghost said.
"Damn, didn't realize with… well how long we've been in here. Means that there's still 11 hours left before night falls." That was an understatement. Twenty hours of nonstop work tended to fuzz the brain. Which is why I was here reading these books instead of elbow-deep in grease and lab explosions.
Even I needed a break now and then.
Stretching the soreness of my muscles away, I leave the room towards the most puzzling new addition to the mountainside, Yazera following behind, watching me with those golden eyes.
She tended to do that whenever we were alone. Just… watching me. Like I was some sort of puzzle for her to solve.
She didn't even care for the bracelet that gave me my powers. Instead, watching what I would do next. I'd grown so used to it, that it simply became the norm for the both of us, even if the attention was strange.
The tunnels leading underground were expertly built, though I would have added a few more support structures here and there for safety's sake. Being buried underground was… not a fun idea. No point in being brought back to life if I was just going to die again due to a lack of breathable air.
Digging myself out from having a literal mountain falling on top of me would probably last months. That's if I even started digging in the correct direction.
"What the hell are these?" She asked, staring at the concentrated deposits of ore that lined the walls, the glimmering collection of yellow jewels seeming to shine like sunlight.
"These are what Xac calls Dying Will jewels." Ghost provided while I guided the way into the makeshift mine that had come with the mountain. "It took us a few hours when we first arrived here to properly map this place out, but Guardian having access to clones that relay their memories back helped speed things up."
The mere thought of having to do all that by myself brought a headache to the forefront of my mind.
Glimmering sunlight was quickly replaced by combative red, the shimmer of the aggression shimmering just beneath the surface of the Storm deposit. I felt a connection here as I did every time that I visited, and I couldn't help but touch the vein with one hand.
Wisps of red fluttered across the entire vein, the promise of Disintegration dangerously close to the surface before I allowed my will to recede.
"This is the same thing, sorta like that ring you have." Yazera hummed, inspecting the Storm jewels with an intrigued eye. "Only, it felt different from those. A lot more… angry compared to that singing orange that you summon."
"There are seven Flames of the Sky. Storm, Cloud, Rain, Sun, Mist, Lightning, and Sky. Each one having a different property intrinsic to their nature. The red Jewel is Storm with the property of disintegration." Ghost parroted from me as I resumed our journey back toward the deepest area of the mine.
Yazera eyed the red crystals with a wary look, careful to make sure that she was as far from touching them as possible. I keep the fact that the Flames need a source to myself for now, hiding my smile as I stared forward.
"And what's the singing one?" She further asked, curiosity and, dare I say, wonder evident in her voice. I had the distinct impression that if she could, she'd be writing down notes right now.
"The Sky, Harmony." The corridor that we are in lights up with the Flame of my Will, the singing Flames reaching a harmonious tune, like a million chimes ringing at the same time directly in our ears.
Just hearing that sound seemed to bring me at ease. I'd never heard music, not truly with my own ears, but I assumed that it would be something like this.
I always wondered what instruments sounded like, how Harmony could be harnessed with the simple pitch or tune of a key.
There weren't exactly any instruments here, and we all spent most our time trying to survive on a day to basis, now more than ever. But I remembered a song that the humans had sung at one point.
It was apparently an old one, one considered ancient by their standards. At the time, all I could do was appreciate the sound, not understanding what the words meant at the time. Not having a translate certainly impeded certain things.
But I relayed the song in my head again.
And So I think to myself
What a Wonderful World.
They no doubt spoke of their own planet, and not the prison that they lived on. But this desecrated tomb was my home. The only one that I could think to call that.
Perhaps one day I would hear that song again. Perhaps I would see Earth, this universe's Earth, and understand why the various races of the United Earth Federation saw fit to defend it so fiercely.
But those were all mere promises for the future. A promise that I would see fit. No matter how many times I had to die to see them through.
"Nice lightshow." Yazera said with a lost look in her eyes, hand gently touching the ore deposits with a contemplative look on her face. "But what exactly is so important about Harmony?"
I shrug. I didn't know, I just got them without any knowledge on how the hell they worked. Only on how to activate and use them.
Actually utilizing them would be another matter. Ring making was a craft that I was more than confident in, but properly applying the gems would be another story.
"The actual research on the Flames and jewels is going to be something more difficult than Magic. At least we have books detailing that subject."
"Whereas your swimming in a river of dust when it comes to whatever this is." She finished, a look of frustration dawning on her face before she quickly schools it back into her casual grin. "So, are these 'Flames' something that only humans are able to generate?"
I frown at that particular question. Was it?
There was this feeling that the world this came from was one only inhabited by humans, or at least, before space flight had been discovered. In the same way that Chakra was something inherently foreign to this reality.
Did the same apply to the Flames though?
That was going to be something we'd need to research even more.
Probably could start with Roland first, him being human and all. If he couldn't then I'd hypothesize that it was simply not possible for those in this world to create the flames. But if he could… then that made things interesting.
And far more dangerous.
Work for another time though. I think I've taken a long enough break.
I turn, walking past Yazera and Ghost, heading towards the exit, already thinking up new designs and implements for improvements in the walker designs.
Though, those would simply be the tools.
If I truly wished to bide time, then attacking them would sever the influx of troops, wouldn't it? While I didn't know where the abominations were coming from, their forward camps were an objective that we could find out.
A few modified Sparrows or ships would be simple to assemble back at the new base.
Meanwhile, here, we could further our own attempts at creating new war machines while the evacuation was underway.
First things first though. Applying those cryo weaponry designs into something less lethal, and far more controlled. Had to figure out the heating problem somehow.
"I think I prefer it when you're like this instead of your usual brooding self. It feels more… you if that makes any sense." Yazera told me from her spot a few feet away as I implemented the new cryo system into the new walker, watching as the readers and scanners measured the temperature inside of the engine. Hm, would probably have to adjust that a little more, the cooling system was far too cold, would probably cause the engine to peter out before it could probably start up.
"What do you mean?" Ghost asked.
"I mean that you actually look like your living, instead of just roving from one moment to the next." She honestly said.
That… I was honestly not expecting that. "Why do you care?" I typed with one hand, while using the other to lower the output of the engine as the clones attached the turrets and missiles to the Walker, noticing the uptick in power, along with heat.
"I think, that the longer that you live, the more strange things will happen to. Therefore, the more interesting things will happen around you. Besides, you are definitely not the type to become a slaving despot." I frown at the phrasing of that, watching the readings stabilize as the clones finish attaching what's left of the walker, the multi-tool in one of their hands appearing back as a charm in my bracelet.
"It can't be just that can it? You wouldn't stick around us just because it's more interesting?" Ghost asked, this time a question that he had instead of one of my mine.
"Why not? Well, besides the fact that you're all much better than the extremist genocidal dust dancers. Life would be meaningless fi it was just boring, wouldn't it?" Her truly puzzled question was enough for me to glance over at her, the golden eyes staring straight into mine, a finger on her chin while she crossed her legs. A feeling of contemplation and anticipation practically wafting off of her.
I don't think that I quite agreed with that. But I could at least see how someone could live like that.
Either way, it didn't matter to me. I had my own goals in mind. Whatever reason she had to do what she did had no meaning to me. If she stepped out of line, she would be just another corpse in the dust.
Yet, I couldn't help but wish that it didn't happen. Killing was something that I did not wish to do. Life was something that I wished to see preserved if possible, not ended. That line ended at the Empire though.
It had to burn. I couldn't live without seeing that happen, even if it was at the end of my life. Given that age and time was no longer an issue, I had plenty of opportunity to do so.
"Well, at least you're enthusiastic?" Ghost offers lamely, trying to extend some form of olive branch. She at least gives him an amused smile and pats the little orb on the head, affection practically radiating off her.
There was also something… more to that action.
A feeling of belonging that I… didn't know how I knew. It just felt right.
Probably just my mind playing tricks on me.
"If I'm anything it's passionate. Just look where I ended up?" She asked with a shit eating grin, her eyes glowing at the ironic mirth of it all.
I just ignore her and resume working, my own smile growing wider as the temperature stabilizes.
It might just be lab tests, we would still have to test the weaponry to see how it would react to the use of all that power, but it was till more than we had before when we were just scraping what we could together. Hmm, might be a good idea to build an actual control panel instead of leaving the driver exposed.
Bah, now that I was working on the damned thing, I realized just how… hasty I was when I sent the rest of the walkers out to battle.
"I'd say that you ended up just where you needed to be."
"Ha! I'd laugh a little harder if I didn't think that you were right." Yazera roused back, giving the Ghost a sharper, yet warmer, grin.
I roll my eyes. "Please don't be friendly like that around each other. It's weird." I say as I put the finishing touches the newest walker, the whirring gears and pumps of air coming to life as it stands up, tall and proud. The various weapon systems coming to life with a whir and buzz, power flowing from the Lightning Crystal at its center, the Cryo field keeping the engine from combusting due to all the power going through it.
Thankfully, blissful silence engulfs the room as I stand up from my work, sighing in relief, the clones around me doing the same, reading the readings from the screen with a satisfied hum when a cry sends my stomach into the lowest foundations of the planet.
"Since when the fuck can you talk!?"
"If this thing blows up, I'm going to become one with my alien brethren." Veranda groused as he finished shutting the engine door of the newly created ship.
It wasn't anything truly ingenious, more like a smaller rectangular main body with blocky wings attached to either side. Applying the various methods of Light usage was a pain though, especially compared to that of a sparrow given how much bigger this damned thing was.
I say damned, because I'd been working on this design for a little over a month, but work on the train had taken precedence.
Now that we actually had time to breathe, it was probably one of the greatest blessings that the Forge had gifted me.
Though, I'd reckon that it wasn't really a gift, since death seemed to be the only price that it would take.
"I think that you're going to have to be more specific on that." I tell the Plantoid Earthborn, eyebrow raised and an unimpressed look on my face.
"Just a little ability that my species has. Maybe someday I'll be able to show it to you. Though, it isn't something that can just be done at the drop of a coin." Hm, interesting. "Though, if I'll be honest, I'm more interested in knowing how you managed to get one of the Dark Matter generators up and running. It isn't exactly easy to repair one properly, let alone with only one person."
"The entire endeavor was an uphill battle. The accidents notwithstanding." I still woke up some nights twitching, fearing the phantom surges that flowed through my nervous system.
"He electrocuted himself when he turned it back on the first time." Ghost deadpanned next to me, blue orb focused on Veranda with a soulless piercing stare. "Fried a good chunk of the reactor and we spent most of the first month trying to replace all the damage. Then we had to find all the loose wires."
"My fingers still ache from all that work." Not to mention the fear of any cut wire that danced when power went through it. Nightmares were the least of my issues. Electrocution was barely better than being burned alive. "The planet being a resource dump is the only reason why I could fix it all in the first place. Can't imagine what it would have been like if I didn't have access to that."
The mere thought sends a shiver down my spine and my fingers to twitch in fear.
"Without that Generator, I'm sure that accommodating all those people would be far more trouble. I'd much rather not have to share a room with more than two people. Would give me flashbacks to boot camp, and I'd much prefer not to have to see any more humans naked." The Nu-Baol said with a haunted glow in his face.
"What's so bad about that?" I'd never really seen another human naked beside myself, so I didn't understand the issue.
"Look at me. Do I look like I have human anatomy? It's just weird to me." Veranda said exasperated. "The flappy bits and such. Eugh."
I didn't get it, but whatever.
Wasn't that big of a deal. "Given that the level underground was a residential district, there is enough space for everyone to claim their own space. The furnishings and such are going to be different matter."
"Some of our inhabitants aren't going to mind, not everyone needs to sleep after all, but for those that do, yeah, beds are going to need to be a priority. Got some wood workers and such already working on those. Sleeping on leaves is apparently uncomfortable." I didn't think so, but then again, anything was better than being strapped to a chair with that thing plugged into your nervous system. I'd take the cold metal floor over that any day.
"The real problem is going to be food." And that… was something that I wasn't much help in. Perhaps I could, with time and research, develop technology in that direction, but growing food was outside of my specialties at the moment.
"Yes. That is a problem." Veranda groused out, placing a bark hand on his face, rubbing what might be his temple. "One that isn't going to have an easy solution."
I don't know, Nu-Baol biology was strange.
"This planet has to have had a manner of growing food. Doubt that it was simply importing it in, not with all the greenery that had been here long before the inhabitants died or disappeared."
"Trying to find that would simply take to long, even for you with all those clones." Veranda said quickly. "Besides, I doubt that whatever methods they used would have endured all these millenia later."
And we were no closer to delving into the language now than we were at the beginning of the 'day' outside. The sun would be setting soon out in the rest of the world, but that would simply be 16 hours to search underground. Not quite enough time to truly explore anything, let alone decrypt the dead language.
64 hours was but a mere drop in the bucket on this side of things.
The Rokarthians weren't just going to stop their search for us once we got every last civilian out of Libertorium into the new encampment. No, they would stop at nothing at trying to find us, no matter the cost. Because as long as Roland was alive, he was a threat to them, and they knew it.
That wasn't even accounting towards the fact that I was now a piece on this damned board.
Oh, how I wish that I could simply disappear into the background. I could always steal a face if I wanted to, but that wouldn't apply to those that were around me. And Melina wasn't exactly someone that blended in. Especially given that there weren't many 'humans' on the planet.
The Rokarthinas were never going to stop, no matter how many bodies they had to throw our way. A number of the prisoners here were considered 'extreme' even by the Empire's standards, to the point where old blood fueds were settled by their being sent here. It was considered a death sentence, so why not?
Wasn't like the Empire kept to close an eye on the planet in the first place. Too busy trying to conquer the Humans and Yarrowreachers to do that.
We were on the defensive, with resources becoming a much more pressing matter with every day that would pass.
I believe an offensive was in due order soon though.
"Ready to see what this baby can do?" Veranda asked, voice giddy with anticipation as I hopped into the pilots seat, strapping on the equipment and padding. If this thing was going to be as fast as we intended, then the force of the G's was something that we also had to account for.
No point in driving this thing if it was simply going to knock me out in the process.
I mean, I'd survive, but I didn't have time to waste making another one of these.
Power was online, systems were green… now all that I had to do, was blast off.
There was nothing like the sound of the engine running at full throttle, feeling as gravity slowly lost its hold over me as the coffin with wings rocketed up into the sky, going 0-100 in record time before exceeding even that.
"You hearing me up there?" Veranda's voice entered from the communications on my headset.
"Loud and clear." I responded back, unable to hide the enthusiasm and giddiness in my voice.
"Everything's holding together on my end."
"Yes, same here. Looks like you were right about that cooling system that you installed. It's doing wonders in making sure that the rest of the parts don't overheat from use. Can't believe that the power source is a crystal with a literal storm stored inside. Think that you could lend me one later for… experiments?"
"Just don't blow yourself up, I don't think that lightning and trees get along."
"We don't. I lost a cousin to a lightning strike a few years back. I mean, eventually, he grew back, but we thought he'd died for a few years. And his memories were a little scrambled."
That… wasn't the answer that I had been expecting. Nu-Baol physiology was odd.
"Now, how about some test drives?" I couldn't help the wide smile that stretches across my face.
My piloting might not be the best, but damn if I didn't enjoy it. It was… nice to enjoy things.
