Is this nearly done? I'm... not really enjoying/interested in any of these Survivor chapters. I might just come back when they're over and slog through the rest in one sitting.
I do like the survivor chapters .
Since you want it here is my rampant speculation:
Promising things to obbie(even if its only playing ) and then not doing them is probably dangerous.
Its suspicious that he's being helpfull instead of getting her killed .
Though maybe its waiting for her to get new memories and toughs to trade .
I guess the rocks was where her previous self died and that's why she remembered things , or something like that .
I wonder if the fishes they are trowing their dead at also eat the "souls".
There is also the posibility that the survivor reincarnated into a previous children and died again .
Also there is something interesting in how they number their children in their names , and the fact that quarti means forth (and her having been fourthdottir ).
Aleph and Omega are using different kinds of letters , maybe because of them being different generations ?.
It cant be just parents naming their children in order because they wouldn't have reached omega then(and it would be confusing to have so munch firsts and ) , but maybe its counting the children in that generation .
I'm not sure yet what happens exactly ,but i sense interesting worldbuildig there about how the reincarnation thing affects their naming schemes .
I should reread everything , because there are surely clues for that elsewhere
Or maybe it was even explained and I'm not remembering it .
Aleph blinked, that was a bit perplexing. She knew a few people in her village named that but then again their 'guide' did say it was a reasonable but not too ubiquitously common name.
Her cargo was full of something that hummed and buzzed in her resonance. This was not all that strange. Lots of cargo did interesting and strange singing things. It was a mild and tickling curiosity to have them carried along with her.
But most were a fizzy little hissing whisper. Even her crew had to work very hard to be heard above a soft little squeak. Which of course was ADORABLE.
Not that they spoke that way much anymore. They had crew tools to help with it.
Even with the assistance of crew things to make the voice a little louder and deeper for Tunie and her own voice quieter and higher for her Crew Tunie thought the way that crew sang to her was like the tiniest little peeps of little calves.
Sometimes she couldn't hear the resonance very well, but there were other extra things that let her listen and hear things bigger then they were inside herself.
Although her crew almost never needed to use those.
Well to be precise it was how she imagined calves sounded when they had just hatched. She had never met another ship so young. At least not directly, they were usually kept away from the main shipping docks by their nest cities.
She supposed this was responsible and proper but next time she stopped at a creche she decided that she would ask again to see the little fluffy shiplets!
Yes resonance was not unfamiliar to Tunie.
However this cargo was full of dense little hums that rose and fell as she departed the stress of the stupid fat always pushing fish.
She thought about it a bit with her aft eyes. Between the sweeping scans for predators sneaking up from behind.
For a ship resonance was song, it was sung to one's peers and one's crew. It was a vague feeling in the holds. And a sign of healthy feathers and strong cores.
Meaning and message. But not everything lived the way Ships did.
She knew that many ports needed a kind of background noise of resonance to survive. Like the pulse and dance of her own fleshy little motiles moving and squeezing through her halls almost imperceptibly to her.
For proper port health some needed a special kind of resonance.
A song which sung itself instead of being another's message, and when many of those songs sang themselves they made harmonies and even deeper richer self singing songs. The patterns she could just barely sense of those reminded Tunie of the weft and weave of the Aether on her feathers and the stars twinkling within The Reef.
And the humming pulse that came again and again like a pulsing of her core was of that kind of resonance.
It was quiet most of the time but rose up in rippling waves with a consistent rhythm and for what sense she could make of it the whole flow seemed very healthy.
She supposed that the pulsing rhythm had something to do with her passengers. But her crew had not mentioned much of anything about it.
Tunie was not a foolish little calf of course. She knew that resonance could be dangerous, that it could be a vector for disease and injury.
But while she was less aware of her own resonance defenses then the vague presence of her motiles she knew she had them. And she felt healthy and safe in herself.
Her feathers protected her and carried her forward.
She supposed she would either find out what was up with her gently singing mass of cargo and its strange pulse of activity or she would not and it would go on the pile of little riddles and mysteries that slowly filled ones memories as they traversed the reef.
Oh she just got a promise from her crew to get Brushies when they arrived at the next port!
She was looking forward to it.
However there was only so much to do with all of herself in a transit like this. Very few predators lurked near stupid space fish and their feeding grounds. There was no real signs of danger anywhere she could look. Just the sparse traffic of traders departing or set to arrive at the stupid fat ever-pusher.
So her aftmost eyes had a lot less to think about then her fore ward ones.
Thus they turned attention inward as the stars failed to show any sign of dangerous occlusions or distortions from improperly bent light.
After a while she started noticing extra nuances and flows. There was one pulse which struck and embraced the entire thing as a single rising crescendo. And then there was a softer and gentler one that meandered and riggled back and forth bringing and lowering the voices in meandering little journeys.
They were both in the whole the same amount of song, but spread out along their trajectory in very different ways.
It was an interesting problem. For fun Tunie decided to plot the sounds as if they were positional. She knew vaguely what hold the song came from but with only her least focused aft eyes doing the part it was hard to get a spacing on the exact position inside herself.
She was meant to plot courses between stars! The fiddly distance of resonance signals inside her own body was engrossing and difficult.
But it kept her eyes sharp and awake and that was important because that way they could spot possible dangers.
Like that! What was that right there?!
She noted the position and let her tumble shift so she could pass over it with several eyes. Rally her memory with what her foremost saw when the particular location of the reef had last been visible to them.
Something had occluded a star and made its light dim and wobble in timbre and quality.
It might be just dust or something.
It might be the first signs of a predator swooping up behind her.
She peered intently for a moment longer and built up an idea of what she must have just seen.
She panned one eye and then another over the star.
Finally she huffed and fluffed a few of her feathers to arrest the subtle tumble.
It was just some reef skeleton that had broken off and drifted between her and a star. It's course was far too slow and in the wrong direction to be concerning.
She let her eyes drift, meander, think idly about things. She mused on the way that star light was a lot like resonance and yet totally different.
She considered how good it would feel to get a good brushie after the awful stupid fat pusher fish.
Life was good.
I'm going to have to close off survivor at that spot I think but the dramatic arc of that particular piece of it was at a good ending spot and I didn't want to get bogged down in another one just yet by digging into the next bit.
There is more to tell from that particular story and we will come back to it but I need to give us a bit of a breath and a shift back to the usual story tone. It all remains relevant to characters and such and such and I'll probably try different tones later in the series.
Pylo had never met the species before her, but this Gastronomist was very polite and even better knew how to treat a lady siren right.
"You of course are not really in my usual clientele, not being jawed in the conventional sense or properly part of animalia. But with our sparse population of eager to please Siren refugees it is best to have the necessary vittles on hand"
She could only nod as she swallowed up a delightful concentrate that simultaneously strained the tissues and yet also discorporated into readily accessed components. Including several supplemental vitalloys that Pylo did not strictly need but gave her an eased pressure all the same.
It was honestly down right delicious!
"Thank you, it is truly an excellent strum for the membranes! But I am here on rather important matters of course"
"Of course trade mistress and daughter of the clan of courts. This is about my most recent clients? The ministry were rather upset but as I said to them there was no fault in my diagnosis I proscribed a schema of nutrient complexes tuned to correct specification for my clients. And I will vouch on the honor of my colleagues that they worked to the desired sensoria requests dutifully"
Pylo nodded, but she was here to look out for the well being of her passengers. And so she could not afford to give in at the first exclamation.
"Of course, but did you account for all the literature related to the terran species? I had extensive records of their various feeding practices and medical treatises? I provided them to the port authority for their use in facilitating your services but perhaps they were not made available to you?"
The Gastronomist rippled and fixed several eyes on her in a friendly manner. Attentively looking at her with just enough eyes to show she took this seriously without being confrontational.
"I did indeed, I also ratified their records with my own samples and evaluation techniques. My proscribed complexes and their specified dose limiters are utterly safe and even vitaly nourishing! There was nothing within my proscription that could be viewed as toxic or subversive in the designated quantities to a your passengers."
Pylo sighed, she could feel how the ideas formed and fomented in the gastronomist. It was honesty and truth. Not even circuitous and it was not even rehearsed despite the fact he had probably told this same report to several individuals with the local government already.
"Thank you for your time, I suppose I will go to talk with your colleagues?"
"Those that remained uninjured, I'm afraid your charges punctured one of them when they left very abruptly. He is being treated for partial ecocosm collapse from internal vacuum exposure"
Pylo nodded and exhaled the cloying atmosphere before moving along to exit the nice professional's workspace.
It was not very far to travel by the local transit hoops to the next site. Her local tail from the Ministry of External affairs busily rushing along with her.
"It really is not necessary at all dear Trade mistress pylo! We just needed a confirmation via your local manifests... this is all greatly out of proportion! Please! There is no need to interrupt your scheduled maintenance work. Or for you to have broadcasted your displeasure to all other trade ships...We are sorry for our impolite language it is just that the damage is disproportional for what your records indicated and we wanted an internal review of the original docume-"
"I've had port cities try to board and lock down Tunie under more legitimate and less disgusting reasoning then you implied in your missives. Some of them even gave me a drink before trying to take my ship... I've had them try and do it for and I quote " my and Tunie's own good "... Your whole bloody habitat and polis is fortunate I'm not half of what you accused me of being or your entire dockworks would be a rapidly expanding cloud of dust"
She lashed out a fore-distal limb to grab a anchor hold and yank herself along to the bubble habitat that had been set up to treat one of the Gastronomist's colleagues the sensoria experts.
"Yes I apologize for the offense, our wording was not meant to be so rude but surely you must understand the danger a plague insertion would mean?! We do not have the facilities or the experts to quell a full eco-attack of that nature"
Pylo huffed and shook her head.
"And you said you had Sirens living here? Let me guess none of them from a single proper family? Yeah thought so, this is what you get for just keeping a bunch of stone-borne-line orphans. They probably don't even speak with proper genomic grammar..."
The unfortunate clerk rushed up with her sweeping wide arms. Pylo had met her species all over. Common kind of people. Usually working as farmers or laborers.
Probably either a savant or some low level assistant if Pylo had any guesses.
"I do apologize but really... this is an ongoing internal affairs and health and safety investigation and triage center... It is not appropriate for you to be he-"
Pylo had enough and stopped paying attention to the way the words were barely geling together in her 'attendant's neural spool.
She dipped her face into the permeable membrane and wrinkled her lips a bit at the flavor of exposed ripe ecosystem. Tasting a dozen medicinal transfusion spores for the 'patient' within.
Some clouds of medicinal ecologists fluttered and squawked indignation at her disrupting the sanctity of their practice but she shoved her credentials through their distributed pheromone readers and even added a few puffs of her own (but properly sanitized and neutured) polen for emphasis.
That got them mollified and panicked in equal measure screeching about contamination of a full ecocosmectomy and replanting.
But Pylo had things to find out and this was the only person who had last coherent contact with her passengers before they apparently 'went on a vulgar and horrible rampage of indecent memecology and terrible violence'.
So what if they were unconscious?
So what if they were having vital life supporting symbiotes restored after apparently the idiot humans had managed to shove a leg of their mobility prosthesis through their internal reservoir chambers.
Pylo could talk to a corpse if it was mostly intact.
She just needed to work a little bit harder at it.
"Hey! You! I have some questions you need to answer!"
The branching multi faceted and self curving inward organelles that the patient used for thinking and the long light broadcasters they used to speak with others both flared up. Although the broadcasters seemed to be be unable to properly fire, it was enough for Pylo.
Apparently they were aware and awake, just quite distressed and in pain from losing their internal balance of ecologies and symbiotes.
Highly traumatic stuff that she had read. Which made the tone kind of surprising.
"Excuse me... Could this not have waited? Maybe until I was not PUNCTURED open and having to be recolonized?! Stupid pushy siren parasite-bitch-whores reaching in and talking you up! I don't care what you're selling, or what deal or political party you are trying to leverage. Or about starving swappers in the foundations! I am not interested! I can't even properly send a broadcast without you molesting my outflow signal! Leave me in peace and SILENCE to recover!"
Pylo was a bit taken aback.
Usually her status as a Siren or a trader worked to her advantage mosts places. Okay some places it lead to horror and fear and an inability to get an honest fact out of them out of worry of offending her. But it never made her feel like a nuisance or vermin.
Just what were these orphans doing here to tarnish the good name of whatever poor family blood line spilled them loose here?
No distractions! She would find out just went wrong and the person who knew was right here and Pylo was going to talk it out of them!
"What? No I'm not one of those motherless tramps! I am Pylo the shipminder of the vessel Tunie and I am here to investigate what you did to my PASSENGERS"
That got a mortified jumble of reactions from the branching nerves of the specialist laying split open in the cloud of spores and chattering medicinal symbiotes screeching at pylo to leave in their tiny little voices.
"Your passengers? The Hooligans that broke me open and massacred my ecocosm with vile vacuum exposure?! That RUPTURED me?! And you are blaming me?! I followed exactly what they asked for as their preparation and sensoria profile! It did exactly what they asked for!"
It couldn't move because all the necessary fluids and glands for that were depopulated. But the nerve sapling was quite indignant anyway.
Pylo swallowed a mouth full of the donor flora to settle her temper and feintly contemplated how her enzymes wrestled with some of it. It was zesty and a bit refreshing.
Naturally the little medical symbionts yelled at her even more shrilly for doing that.
"What exactly did they ask you for?"
The tangle of thoughts buzzed and trembled to itself even as they could not make their own body move. Trembles of sudden fear and horror.
The realization of exposure and the slowly dawning terror that Pylo was right there and she had effectively just eaten PART of them already.
"I... They said that good nourishing food made them happy... So I just mapped the sensoria to what made them happy. Then they were fine and said it was fine and then they just went crazy and rushed off and punctured me!"
Pylo sighed and pulled her face out of the membrane much to the shrieking relief of the medicinals and idly sucked the lingering dregs of various spores and fluids down to clean her inner crevices out.
This had not been anywhere near as helpful as she had thought it would be.
Now what?
A hold of invisible grist and imaginary brushies to whoever successfully guesses what actually happened with Aleph, Omega and Quarti! or I dunno something appropriate? Maybe a cameo? I've been kind of antsy to finally start this little arc for a while. I hope it's as much fun to read as I'm going to have writing it.
I'm betting on a combo of sensory overload and the most powerful (and nutritious) energy drink a human has ever drunk myself. Basically, a sugar rush of epic proportions. Only distinguishable from drugs in that the latter imply addiction.
Pylo did not understand how this could have possibly happened. In fact it was so perplexing she was willing to guess this might very well explain the panic of the locals and their accusations that the Terrans were some kind of bioweapon.
Although every instinct twisted a little to tell her not to admit her ignorance this was just too baffling.
"What am I even looking at here?"
Her attending representative from the Ministry of external affairs waggled her arms and gently pinched each hand against another in a nervous fidget.
"Well... we are still gathering evidence and witness testimonies... we wanted to correlate with your own records and details before making any conclus-"
She huffed heavily, shedding out the less than useful refuse from the medicinal cocoon she had stuck her face in. She was going to have to take another shower after this. Stone fuckers that was annoying, her ovireticuli had only just finished growing back.
"Then to the best of your knowledge what do you think happened so far?"
"Um, I'm not actually fully abreast of all of the details, I could pull the digest but it would take me awhile to actually get a full overview of it so you see-"
A figure drifted into view and interrupted the sputtering representative.
Angular, very canner aesthetic but with a simplicity that suggested a more urban lineage then Pylo generally saw some where as isolated and underpopulated as Redweed.
At least anywhere just prowling around like this.
"I believe I can assist some with that... "
Pylo tilted her head to face the figure and ruffled a little, she was not sure what expressive body language would suit the newcomer to start with. And after running her senses over the silica and canisters of intensely resonating cultures she concluded there was not much actual info density in their lexicon for posture anyway. At least not beyond some external translation actions that were wholly conscious for them and thus not an avenue for her to leverage.
So she simply settled back into the terran modality and frowned.
"Who are you and why can you help?"
The assemblage of objects shifted and unfolded into another arrangement bringing a visual pattern expression plate to face towards her and the External Affairs representative. Vaguely dancing with a running tally of strange symbols that Pylo vaguely thought matched the cadence of their sub-communicative impulses.
"I am ▙◀ a Diagnostician and Engineer Generalist. I volunteered my expertise and services for the reconstructive investigation of the disaster area. At the request of my contacts in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, maintenance branch office and the Ministry of External Affairs' ship care services branch office, You are the ship-tender Pylo? I am at your disposal"
Pylo tilted her head a bit and tried to parse, it was a lot of credentials, and they connected with a lot of confidence to a great many concepts. This ▙◀ spoke about their field with the same way Pylo herself would have spoken about tunie. And with a quick ruffling and check on her attending guide and their dawning recollection as they conversed 'covertly' with contacts from the main offices by the docks she guessed that was corroborated by the official dock masters of the port.
"Alright well can you explain what precisely happened here?"
Pylo waved vaguely at the massive wreckage that seemed to almost spiral out before her in a spiraling mess of destruction and possibly even slaughter.
"Well that spot in particular appears to have been where an oxygen enriching symbiote collided with a local eatery. Punctured the privacy barrier sheeting and then burst it's internal bladder containment. This proceeded into it shedding the oxygen store over the eatery's equipment and symbiotes and burning away the insulation of their spice cabinet. Which I believe caused an unfortunate blend of enzymic compounds to be released which eventually congealed until the mass exploded violently and well -"
Pylo had to stop them there, the flow of words seemed certain and sure of themselves but all the little detailed steps of precisely what followed to what were confusing her and all the jargon and specifics were getting tangled up.
"I'm sorry try that again I had trouble following, how do you KNOW that's what happened?"
She was getting a sinking suspicion she might have run into a species with an oppositional expertise. That happened sometimes, all beings in the reef had different areas of capability, things which their minds and bodies were just better suited too.
At least that is what Pylo took away from her comparative cladistics and social physio survival traits lessons. It might be an abbreviation but Pylo liked to think of it as "do what you find easy and everything else will work out".
However that sometimes lead to two people meeting that had entirely different versions of 'easy'.
Which Pylo honestly rarely thought was that much a problem, there was very little you could not solve or squeeze your way by if you were especially good at talking. And honestly Pylo was so relieved that Sirens found that to be so easy.
She did not like considering what she would do if her expertise were something like... well anything else really.
Talking was just so useful!
And she was very good at solving all of her problems with talking.
However.
"Very well daughter of courtesan. To be more specific, this puncture here is in the shape of a standard symbiotic bladder favored by our numerous and productive citizens such as the External affairs representative there yes?"
Pylo nodded a bit. Then caught herself acting terran and gave a proper affirmative chirp to ▙◀. She supposed when pointed out like that it did make sense that it kind of fit the shape of the little symbiote they had attached to all of them.
However she never would have guessed one would be able to punch through a wall like that.
"So then it is surmisable that a bladder would have traveled at some speed to puncture this fabric. If you look here you can see the stress fraying of where it was stretched suddenly and with great shock of the impact"
Pylo chirped affirmative again and leaned a bit closer, splaying out her limbs to get a good surrounding coverage of the sight with more surface area.
That... sort of made sense? Although she still felt like the diagnostician must have been guessing she did not feel like making everyone think she was an idiot for not following what was being said.
So silent positive affirmation that she could follow his story it was.
"So as you can see the line of motion that would puncture here, compared with the line that followed from the nearest feeding store for the symbiote bladders continues more or less directly into the epicenter of the former eatery's crater"
Pylo tried, she really did try to follow the logic but she internally flailed and gnashed and sprayed solvents everywhere in frustration.
Or she fumed internally imagining herself doing it.
She didn't actually understand the arcana of this absurd creature, and worse the stupid assistant seemed to be following along like this was reasonable and even getting grating little insight sparks over it!
It was one thing to not really be able to follow when Tunie talked about ship things, that was understandable starships were vast and they traveled at ludicrous speeds.
Their thinking should be arcane and difficult to follow, the meaning of their language rooted in bizarre swooping flows.
But even Tunie at least spoke the whole extent of a course out at once!
This however was some random unrelated scattering of random details with no clear logical connection. But Pylo could TELL that it made sense to everyone around her.
It was infuriating. They were treating this absurd madness like it was readily understandable as the correct hybridization of a corporate charter and a mammalia Duchess so that inheritance rules would properly apply from both parents!
Fine! whatever! the stupid reef tender that used a symbiotic bag to actually live in proper vacuum thought it made sense! Pylo was going to just pretend she understood the explanation and take their factual read of the situation as truth.
"Ah I follow now... right! Very Good Thank you! So if that is the case, can you tell me what actually happened here? I am concerned for my passengers and this is not the kind of behavior I have come to expect from them. Can we move on?"
▙◀ shifted and rotated its over all assemblage of geometric parts, reminding Pylo more of what some of the junk store holds were filled with then a normal person. But nonetheless she could detect an undercurrent of smug, but polite acknowledgement that she had technically told a lie about how easily she understood the absurd arcana.
"Ah, of course ship-minder Pylo. I would be happy to help you... Judging from the trail of destruction and the overlap of further damage I believe that we should direct our-"
Pylo zoned out the explanation and waited for the boxy canner weirdo to get around to actually telling her which way to go.
Trying to keep a polite and professional posture externally while she writhed and fumed with her insides. Her passengers were apparently driven utterly crazy by some kind of stupid series of accidents as far as she could tell.
And then somehow managed to be exactly in the wrong place at the wrong time and set off some other disturbingly precise disastrous yet magically perfect apocalypse.
Her highly fragile, ridiculously easily injured, vital to her contract important passengers.
Said passengers were apparently galavanting about leaving a wake of ruin behind that Pylo was growing to appreciate with equal parts amusement and horror.
She was not sure what she was going to do after finding them.
Honestly it was equal odds she felt she would stick them to the walls of their living space with packing mucus or congratulate them and drag them willing or otherwise to her next bar crawl just to see the hilarious repercussions.
After all if they somehow managed this just from getting something to eat what would they do if she actually figured out how to make them drunk?
I'm not sure if I've gotten it across before, but Pylo finds some things difficult that probably most of the readership of this story would not even realize is a cognitive skill.
Alternatively there are things she finds blissfully easy and automatic that would baffle most of human civilization.
The next disaster site was at first glance hardly one as far as Pylo could really identify.
Compared to the unfathomable wreckage and vandalism that had been drug like a scar through a long sweep of the previous alleys and habitat segment this seemed practically tamed.
Honestly Pylo's own living quarters were in more disarray then this place.
But the minister and whatever the weird urban box set was seemed even more upset and panicked over it then the actual reasonable damage done beforehand.
"This is where the vulgarity peaked to such levels that the community suffered a total collapse!"
Pylo did not really see it.
People were lounging about, drifting in clouds and listlessly splayed along bulkheads venting waste gases so thick you could see the clouds crystallization and venting all over.
Honestly it looked more like everyone was due for a nice rest and not particularly amiss as far as she could see. This was apparently where the trail went cold for her errant passengers. Since the data traffic of the local area utterly overloaded with 'noise' that no one could untangle all the damage done to the infosphere.
Pylo was a bit lost on to why precisely utterly seizing up and crashing the infosphere was so bad. But considering how much difficulty and confusion she could taste amidst some of the less exhausted individuals floating around she guessed it had messed with their translation system?
Maybe something else.
She had apparently also acquired another tailing guide from the ministry as the boxy probably, urban descended ▙◀ had folded up or swapped out several of their boxy components to something more mobile and compact.
"Pylo, I must admit that my powers of deduction begin to fail here, the sheer damage done to the underlying infosphere here leaves all the usual signs of their passing lost. It is also where the physical evidence peters out and is hopelessly swamped by competing signals"
She buzzed over the resonance between those around, then let a few quick shoves and pulls send her drifting to a clump of promising candidates.
A quick overview of the huddled and groggy individuals suggested they probably could communicate with her. And she was familiar with their species and its idiosyncrasies.
"Why haven't you just asked anyone?" she gave it a bit of a sarcastic upsweep in the signal for her two ministry representatives. Then shifted focus to gently kneading a conversation into place with the recuperating clump.
Then again just judging from the state of these 'survivors' she supposed it made sense no one would actually have the means to interrogate any of them.
"Hello! I am here to know if you have seen a group of crazy bumbling idiots in a bob of packaging with some waggling legs?"
One of the semi conscious individuals rolled an eye across its gummy surface to fix on Pylo before feebly reaching and failing to actually coherently transmit anything.
But that was enough for pylo.
"Oh hey! Pretty lady! Ueeeh! Yeah I see them, see them gooood... they... um... they were seeing we were working so... so hard... so... then they... they... wueeeh! They turned up our feeders! It was so goood, we got to dance sooo much... post post post post post whehe that was nice... zmbgfzzz"
And then the brain kind of exhausted itself and several conscious processes were taken over by sub processor maintenance. Poor dear seemed to have spazzed herself half to death.
Pylo moved to another one, barely in any better a state as the last. Not even able to actually manage to turn towards her though she sort of caught the intent to try, to help save the poor tuckered out little thing from straining Pylo moved her 'face' into view and began squeezing and juicing the conversation along.
"You saw these three in a wrapped bubble yes? Did you see which way they went?"
That one didn't have as much energy left and almost immediately shut themselves down into a deep torpor after Pylo stopped activating their communicative apparatus manually.
She turned back to her two hangers on. Rumbling a bit.
"What precisely happened her that was so wrong? Everyone here just seems happy and worn out..."
▙◀ spoke up first.
"This is a serf stack district, clerical processing stacks and information maintenance and correspondence. They are as per their familial contracts supposed to be dosed gradually with proper nutrient, reward and reproductive stimulation on set rotating and staggered schedules. The finances of almost the entirety of Petalweft Salts."
Pylo looked around at the drifting clouds of people up and down the hallway. Honestly Pylo could only call them happily burbling and utterly spent, It reminded her a bit of what some trade festivals looked like when she arrived with something really valuable for the locals.
"So?"
The little coral tender assistant chirped up shrilly in the local band.
"The entire district has been seized to a halt! Every single office and serf in this district had their entire reproductive, reward, nutrient and stimulant store dumped into them at once! Across the entire district! That set off a massive burst of activity and scrambled records and ruined the entire workload of the entirety of the requisition ledgers in Petalweft salts! We are going to have to roll back everything from offsite archives and lose all recent transaction history! On top of recuperating and retraining our entire clerical serf district because all of them are going to require maternal leave while they spawn! Never mind the inefficiencies while we find placements for all of the children!"
Pylo tilted her head.
"And that's a bad thing? More clerks later and everyone had a good time, hardly a disaster as bad as you seem to be making it out to be. Anyway I think I can probably follow my passengers, these nice but very tired ladies saw them going this way. I'm sure they didn't go far"
Honestly these locals? Having kids and a good time being considered grounds for a bioweapon attack?!
These idiots in the outskirts had no idea what they were talking about if they thought what honestly looked like a pretty excellent party had been a disaster.
So what if their entire infosphere apparently had to be rebuilt from scratch?
It was just information, She was sure that would not take long.
Although apparently ▙◀ and it's flighty little counterpart disagreed as one oozed silent judgement while the other sputtered on the com channels.
She just sighed, a Siren could talk to anything, but that did not mean she knew why they thought what they did.
It's so hot here, I alternate between fearing for my CPU and trying to find a way to not feel like I'm melting into my chair. Hope chapter is entertaining and does not seem too abrupt. Also getting to squeeze in a bit more story world elements. Although in the background.
On Sirens and Symbiotes, that is actually a well established tactic for covering that problem. Pylo's family is often very worried about how much of a shut in she has turned out to be.
Making their way through the floating clouds of exhausted and happy clerks honestly was putting Pylo in a pretty good mood. Sure she only was able to get a few coherent sentences out of the jubilation blasted wrecks of their various bodies before they settled into a deep torpor
But for those nice short exchanges everyone involved was in a pretty good mood. And afterwards they were just too deep in hibernation to give trustworthy testimony.
It was by the means of these many many many interviews that they kept meandering around and around in a winding knotted path through the district. Sometimes ▙◀ tried to predict which way the path was going and jump ahead. But as many times as that actually worked it ended up losing the trail of witnesses.
Apparently where the infosphere run security and oversight mechanisms had been clogged and disrupted to uselessness the delightful personality of her passengers had left a strong enough impression to guide Pylo in her quest.
"The devastation, Petalweft is going to be completely behind with its production orders... All the needs and means will have to be audited and rebalanced with all their neighbors... I dare say we might even have a draw on the famine reserves! This is a DISASTER!"
A girl honestly could only take so much of that whining though. The External Affairs representative had been wailing and crying about how awful and disastrous this impromptu festival was and how horribly her passengers had ruined the local markets.
Pylo however could barely see the connection, honestly of all the things that were being blamed on her passengers the only thing that seemed even remotely their fault was the injuries and damages to that one sensory artist specialist with the perforated interior and sterilized eco-cosm.
It was worse than the near magical leaps of connection the urban box assemblage ▙◀ had come to regarding the explosive wreckage and ruin. At least with that if she took it very slowly and had someone explaining it step by step she could see the hints of how the Passengers could be connected to how horrifying the damage was.
But how precisely was it their fault for stirring up a little celebration?
If she coulden't taste the sincerity in everyone involved Pylo was sure this whole thing had to be a trick to try and make her look bad.
But she could tell that they really did mean that they saw what they said.
Pylo however felt like she was groping blind on the whole concept. And although she was not going to admit it to anyone here that rather bothered her.
Blame and responsibility should be obvious and simple, it was something she prided herself on that she always paid her debts. She had lived the majority of her career as a Tunie's crew with the pride that she followed the standards and practices of proper Trader conduct.
That she never did anything to even bring the idea of a tribunal into question on her interaction with Ports or her fellow traders.
And now she found herself in a morass of people who were all utterly certain she or at least her passengers must have done something unspeakably wrong. But she could not see how the blame fell on any of them.
All she had to go on was the sentiment and fear of those around her being genuine.
Okay to be fair she only actually had two people making up the morass, and really of those two only one is actually utterly convinced she and the passengers are in the wrong.
The pile of boxes with a hybrid resonance circuits and symbiotic gel for a thinking substrate was pretty calm and helpful. Not judgemental at all. Just calmly sort of observing and it seemed to observe passively that Pylo's passengers were instigators of some massive complex web of interactions that lead to this 'disaster'.
But the coral tender from the ministry of external affairs? She was wound so tight with angst and judgemental twinges over it all Pylo felt like the little scrub was trying to flay the siren over every single misfortune befalling Petalweft Salts.
Which was honestly the main reason Pylo was focusing on the ditzy celebration drunk clerks that were left cuddling each other in drifting piles.
Every single one of those had either no comprehension of her passengers or seemed to view them in glowing adoration and appreciation.
Pylo honestly liked them better like this.
The representative of the Ministry of external affairs worried pylo though, especially since they were consistently passing messages and receiving orders from presumably their central offices.
It made her nervous.
"Hey Tunie how are you doing out there? They aren't getting clingy or anything right? No one prying into your holds?"
"⎌ ▃ ▞▁▇⌒◺⑇▁? ◆◄⑈!"
"Ah good, as long as they are not trying to squeeze into you that should be fine?"
"◆ ▄▟ ◍◅⑆⇜? ↺◶ ◶⌒▁◵⌒⎌◈◹?"
"I'm fine out here, just tracking down where our passengers went, I think that the port authorities are making way more out of this then is warranted personally. But we shall see, don't you worry!"
"◄◎▶"
Pylo found herself nodding along as she talked with Tunie, She quickly gave herself a little shake to try and clear her linguistic palette, then realized what she did and huffed.
Blech terran mannerisms were infections, she was going to be catching herself flopping all over after this contract was finished confusing everyone!
With a moment of centering she found the posture that worked best with the neighborhood population of 'clerks'.
Gently nuzzling one of their piles softly and running a few soft associations through the lethargic tissues within.
Pylo had been refining her technique as she worked through the crowds, finding ways to soften the exchange to get the most out of her worn out conversation partners.
"Qusho qush qush qou?"
One of the blobs of meat and processing furl wrapped in sparse fatty streaks of near exhausted metabolic deposits stirred under the prompting. The little ceillia flexing once or twice and the eye turning blearily towards the contact but not quite managing to focus.
"Oh don't go fast, gentle soft, fuzzy soft, You don't have to think hard"
The eye relaxed and the rest of the body softly settled and relaxed back into an exhausted relaxation of before, but still just barely tickled with attention for her.
"There you go. Qusho qush qush quo. I have some friends who have gone missing."
The little blob shifted a bit, then pulled itself closer to one of its fellows a bit. Eye foggily staring out unseeing in the mild bliss of its experience.
"Did you see the three of them? They sang and laughed like Kshiha kash kush ku? Soft softly, in a round?"
As with many before the eye barely tried to turn and Pylo gently lifted the intent from it before softly smothering the impulse.
"That's good rest now, Susho shush shoo"
She booped the little thing with her snoot to give the last little comforting nudge and put it back into that lazy almost torpored out state. Then pulled back and oriented herself to the direction given, looking around for a good candidate pile of witnesses and stretched and pulled herself over to them. While the puttering worrier and the serene assemblage of blocks drifted along with her.
She nuzzled into another pile and began thrumming over associations once more.
"Qusho qush qush qou?"
I think I found a new way to draw backgrounds that I really like. Not sure I am 100% on the way to integrate clouds/atmosphere with it yet but it's a lot faster and gets a lot of fun details across.
Also anyone actually following what is going on? I thought I was making it pretty obvious personally. are the events and words at least making sense?
Eventually the trail of witnesses led into an alcove. And there she took a momentarily break to collect herself.
"Did no one actually think to simply ask where to go? Really? You lost them because none of you could simply ask?"
▙◀ spoke first, chiming up with a calm timbre. Stilling the words from the Ministry rep before they could finish forming.
"You arrived with great alacrity mistress Courtesan. There were no minister approved experts available within range and authorization had not been passed to make use of outside contractors so that a local siren could be commissioned... Furthermore although Redweed's many Ministries and Polis pride themselves on their civil expertise. There are very few among our local Siren families that would have been all that helpful with this"
Pylo peered at the space, it wasn't too cramped. The walker could have fit through easily.
"What do you mean? I even when I was a sproutling I could have done this... Hardly seems like a problem for any adult Siren no matter how backwards"
She started gently slipping into the passage, forcing the column of rounded blocks to follow. The puttering little ministry representative lingering outside the passage. Unwilling to go in.
It only took ▙◀ a few moments to finally collect itself for the answer.
"As I am sure you are aware Siren are not common and they are not the easiest to keep properly fed and cared for"
Pylo scoffed, so she and her family eat a bit more than the reef tenders or the little orbs of the technicians. But that was hardly fair, they lived on practically nothing but a bit of water and some carbon!
The tower of compartments continued in that soft slightly annoyingly patient tone.
"Furthermore, of the dozen local Sirens I know of being anywhere near Petalweft Salts three are barred from entering any offices with vital documentation due to past offenses. Four will not leave their current lodgings for any reason without a formal declaration of marriage, full courtship expense payment funds provided up front and a dowery including satisfaction bonus clauses."
Pylo scowled a bit to herself, what kind of Sirens had to beg for that kind of thing? She eased her way slowly along the passage, listening to the quiet buzz and hum of happy but fairly comatose residents.
"The last five are suspected of fraud and one is publicly under investigation for criminal hoarding. To put it bluntly those members of your species that live in Redweed are rarely aligned with the efforts of the Ministries and those that do are rare and require exorbitant compensation and personal favors."
If it was delivered in anything but that calm and polite tone Pylo would have been offended. The implication that somehow Sirens were 'unlawful' or selfish in some subtle form of their heritage?
Well!
If that is what the wastrel orphans that had washed up here in Redweed had beget it was no wonder they could not even get one to help out with something this simple.
It explain why no one had bothered to do what she just did to track down the errant terrans. Alas this was a small and mostly rural habitat after all. Despite its pretensions of grandeur and civilization.
Hardly better than Terra really.
Then again if no one else had the means to poll the torporing revelers this was something only she could do right? So it came down to Pylo to meander into the subtly curving hallway and do what no one else was capable or willing to.
Which she really should get back too.
There were not any of the piles of exhausted clerks here. But there was a teeming audience all the same embedded in the walls. Even though the passage had no branches or particularly sharp bends she thought it would be good to check this was the right way.
These people were not as utterly spent as the ones outside, but they did still feel of heavy fatigue and in quite a few of their sealed capsules signs of quickening eggs.
So might as well treat them equally gently.
"Qusho qush qush qou? Did a trio of figures come through this way? I am Pylo and I do need to find them and make sure they are safe"
Several of the individuals in their cans set into the walls stirred, some suckled nutrients or stimulants from feeding tubes to bring their minds to more readiness.
Most however were too groggy or turgid to bother.
Pylo had to prod and nudge across the walls a few times before finding even one awake enough and willing to actually talk.
"Nmhnm... Love-love-qush? Neh-mah-nah! I filed all my breeding forms already! And I drank my entire tank of boni praise juice! No more seeds! All full and plump in my can here!"
Pylo huffed and worked at the intent a little more carefully, apparently the dialect was a bit different here.
"I just want to know if they came this way. Trio in a bubble with a-"
"Oh-neh-mah-ya! Yes Yes Yush-ush! I remember! They filed... they filed so many boni! So many many many boni! Enough boni for me to plump me and my daughters daughters daughters daughters full of eggs! Generations down so many openings! So rich is I! So rich is we! Live sweet and file and drink the praise-juice!"
Pylo tilted her head, that sounded ominous. It sounded like maybe some one had started paying for things they should not have.
Dangerously contractually protected things that Pylo would need to purchase back.
"How did they pay you the bonuses? Do you have a file for tha-"
"Oh sure-sho-sweet... Such a good-best portfolio is mine... will tally and tally to... I'll just-jush-ush... ur? ... MUR?!"
The soppy minded individual suddenly turned icy cold and then the little clerk in a can convulsed and pulled an almost toxic draw of entirely less pleasant stimulants into itself.
Spiking their mood down into fear and terror.
"Where- Where is the Portfolio?! Where is the accounts?! THe ledger! No-nonnononononnoOOO! Where is the tally?! Hey HEY! Wake up all! The tally! The count is gone! THE COUNT IS GONE! Alert! Catastrophe! apocalypse! The count is gone! The Accounts are missing! THE ACCOUNTS ARE MISSING!"
Pylo looked around herself, face taking on a frown for no one present but herself. Damn terran mannerisms.
The jars lining the walls were spiking from happy torpor to terror filled shock and anguished panic.
"My ledger is blank?! MY LEDGER IS BLANK! HOW IS MY LEDGER BLANK!? I'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN A BLANK LEDGER! WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!"
Pylo tried to get a thought in edgewise but the whole place was starting to buzz and churn with rapidly rising traffic and a cascading wave of panic and terror. She could feel starting to even jolt the lazy exhausted clumps outside into sudden frenzy driven motion.
That didn't sound healthy.
"Uh I guess I'll just get going to find them down this way then?"
No one seemed inclined to pay attention to here though.
"How am I going to get my nutrient restock?! I can't show my needs tally! I DON'T HAVE A NEEDS TALLY?!"
Well except ▙◀ , who seemed somewhat smug.
"Perhaps more delicacy would have been in order Mistress Courtesan? Either I will send word to have emergency triage services dispatched. Hopefully we can prevent any deaths from over-exertion of the juvenile clerks."
Pylo fumed and focused on the task of navigating through the tunnel as little indicator lights and signaling arrays sparked and spurted to life all around her to give voice to the rising wail of horror that was filling the district.
"Where is my ACCOUNT?! All MY investments!? I quickened a thousand brood for the payout of those futures! How am I going to FEED THEM?! How am I going to feed MYSELF?!"
It was confusion and terror ringing out of every wall of the hallway. It bombarded Pylo in waves. Terrible revelation on terrible revelation collapsing over each other and spiking more to awaken and check their own little corner of the situation and then add their shouts and confusion to the tumult.
It made what should have been a simple drifting float into a grueling endurance test for Pylo's senses.
But it was under these conditions that eventually she found her charges, curled up asleep inside the bubble with the mechanical limbs furled against a wall. Tucked around a curve in the hallway.
It was a relief to see them safe and whole.
Although on closer inspection Pylo was pretty sure they were not supposed to be oozing that much or have those kinds of bits on their outsides like that!
In fact that probably was not good or safe at all.
This could be bad. This could be really bad! Possibly as bad as when Aleph had a little problem with Pylo shouting at her.
What was worse she didn't have a convenient species expert conscious and willing to tell her what to do if terrans were leaking like this! She would have to try and read the books stored with Tunie and figure something out?
This was really bad, Pylo was not her sister.
She was not a doctor.
She was going to void the contract!
"Oh... That does not look right at all"
The pile of blocks broke through her spiraling panic attack and the wailing halls of despair without a hint of concern to her tone.
▙◀ had a way being calm that up until this very moment had been starting to grate Pylo a little bit.
But just then with the complete break down of her contract looming up in the future and surrounded by screaming voices of despair on fore-aft-dorsal and ventral sides?
She kind of appreciated it. It helped her take on a similar detached tone even with her spores trying to burst out all over in mild panic.
It centered her. Maybe this would not be so bad.
"No, no it does not... I'm pretty sure they are not supposed to be leaking like that or have those things embedded in those parts."
The block unfolded itself a bit, slender limbs extending into the membrane and past it to gently brush one of Pylo's charges.
"Well, I think I can help a bit with this..."
And Pylo felt a huge relief at the assurance the blocky little technician felt about her chances to prevent this disaster.
This was probably going to turn out fine!
Today's update took a while to illustrate but I was feeling like I should do a bit of a higher detailed image of pylo then usual. And there was also all the stuff I needed in the background.
What's Everyone think of the story and art so far?
Still holding up with why you started reading in the first place? things drifting a bit away from your preference?
Aleph felt like she should have the mother of all headaches. But if anything besides the jumbled confusion of exactly what had just happened her head was clearer then she ever remembered it being.
Her muscles were sore certainly, her heart felt like it must have beat a few years off her life before she...
Did she pass out?
It was really hazy exactly what had happened and in what order. She remembers everything getting really bright and really fast but also simultaneously slow.
She remembers feeling like she could run up the side of the rim wall.
She kind of feels like maybe she sort of tried to do that in the confined space of the bubble?
Her nose wrinkled at the sudden accosting of putrid stink. A mix of vomit, shit and sweat along with a bitter metallic tang.
But even with the awful smell that seemed to be permeating the bubble's air she felt amazing.
Just what the hell had been in that sludgy jelly the 'sensatiologist' had mixed up under the restrictions of Terran biology and health?
It had tasted like sweet milk or light fluffy butter honestly, almost like a firm whipcream. But with a consistency like a firm fruit or very tenderized meat? A kind of tough pudding?
There was resistance to her teeth that was pleasant but not overly tough. The texture was just fibrous enough to be satisfying and and a fresh and clean feeling to her teeth and mouth after she finished chewing and swallowing it.
She would have enjoyed it as a desert or something. Maybe not a full meal?
Quarti and Omega had waited a bit while she eat it, then when she didn't immediately throw up or explode they had tried theirs daintily.
Quarti had made some kind of lewd joke which Aleph had found incredibly funny for some reason?
Then she had started noticing just how VIBRANT all of Omega's colors were or how incredibly nice everything felt and the jolt of energy had started rolling up and down her spine.
Her own heart beat had felt like it was playing it's own wonderful music and everything was just suddenly so happy and nice!
There had been a lot of lights, and then motion. At some point her and Quarti had gotten a hold of the controls of the walker and then everything had just been so much more fun! They had gone just SO FAST and the colors?
Omega had said something about spirits leaking, but Quarti had started to talk all slow and smooth and it had made sense.
Like it had been important for them to remember they had to drink a lot of water? And to breath and that was like vital but somehow that had become incredibly hard to focus on against literally everything else.
They had eventually stopped being surrounded by whirling colors and flashing and then Omega had started talking to a wall she thinks.
It was probably some kind of person because then Quarti joined her and the two of them had apparently struck up some kind of bargain? Then Quarti sang and there was an exchange of stuff and then they were drinking something even MORE delicious or maybe it was the same kind of delicious and everything just got kind of sideways from there.
And now Aleph was a little unclear on if she had actually had a conversation with her own toes. Like it was completely possible that had been an alien on the outside of the bubble that LOOKED like her toes, but in her previous state she was not sure she would have been able to tell the difference. And just what had it meant that the meaning of truth was to count the bubbles?
She was pretty sure she had not been in her right mind for quite some time. In fact thinking back she was pretty sure Quarti had been making perfect sense the entire time which more or less cinched it that she must have been off her gourd.
Aleph had tried a bit of a wine and danced when she was younger in the village, and the few times Omega gave her breaks during her training. She had gotten 'pretty drunk' but that had been NOTHING like this. She still could not fully puzzle out what had occured.
If this had been back home on Terra at least two thirds of the things she remembered she would have been certain were impossible.
But she was apparently in an alien habitat with rooms bigger than her entire home country. So all bets were off how much of the past-
She tried to reach for resonance to get a date stamp from her amulet and felt a burning ache of exhausted symbiotes.
Okay whatever time it was. However much had passed she was unsure what portion of it had actually occurred.
Was that whole period where she felt like she was falling into the eye of a giant fuzzy puppy real? Or was there really a giant animal covered if adorable fluff lounging around somewhere?
Did the sun slip out of a hallway, turn into a spectacular rainbow of threads and then dissolve away with a little chirp of embarrassment or did she invent that one?
Did quarti actually recite the entire history of the Mesocarid Empire's thousand year golden age in limerick form? Aleph could not remember half the words or whether they even ryhmed properly with one another.
Did they eat the shiny glittery stuff before or after the third drink run that had the delicious water that tasted like spice and salt?
Had she actually kissed an alien or had that been a piece of plumbing she pulled into the bubble?
Was it both?
Either way Aleph was surrounded by awful and she was starting to suspect someone (possibly her) had soiled themselves INSIDE the bubble.
And wait... what had woken her up in the first place?
It hadn't been the smell.
She noticed that afterwards.
Oh yeah it was the nice massage.
That was much too many fingers to be Omega or Quarti, or even both of them combined.
She looked around with protesting neck muscles to confirm.
Yep that was not Omega or quarti kneading the aches out of her joints with the care she might give an injured baby bird.
She sneezed when one poked up her nostril.
Why was she being gently massaged and prodded by soft scaled silvery tentacles all over?
Oh yeah she should probably talk.
"Zgrk?"
Oh right she had been singing WITH quarti a lot during the romp, the burning rasp of her throat confirmed it.
Well damn.
So there is something I love about big properly diverse sci-fi settings like this one I've made. And that is you can probably fit almost any character into it as a cameo. Translation of a few things may be required but as I said in my Warhammer 40k story about adorable fluffy snakes "With enough Tries anything is possible..."
So Redweed is a very big place with a lot of 'tries' available. It has enough 'room' that in spite of the weird alien critters (and also because of them) there is room to have almost anyone show up somewhere.
Now where am I going with all of this?
Well I am going to need to populate a pretty sizable crowd of traders and dignitaries/citizens from Redweed's population another episode or two down the line and I could use some help getting characters/templates to use for that.
So since the 'mystery' of just what happened with the Terrans is revealed and it's pretty obvious most everyone who participated actually guessed right in some form I might as well open it up to suggestions from anyone reading this.
Think of it kind of like a coffee shop or highschool AU of whatever you suggest.
But any suggestions, characters, cameos or what have you will be Reef-ified instead.
Once again Tunie's crew proved how awesome and best they were!
The port had lost the passengers. To be fair Tunie could kind of relate, she often lost things that were inside of herself. This is part of why a Ship had Crew.
Although precisely why the Port did not have their own crew was confusing.
After all were not Ports where crew came from? Should they not have plenty of crew to ask to look for the missing passengers?
Tunie mused on things and listened to reports on the port and crew morale.
Oh that was not a good thing. Apparently the passengers had attempted to have a silly crew thing with the port before Tunie's Crew could get involved.
That was actually a bit rude of them, it interrupted her Crew's Brushie time. And this was vexing.
Her Crew was making a lot of noise and they were all apparently on the way back to Tunie now having secured the passengers. The ports were making a lot of noise though!
The port did not appreciate the degree of damage that had been enacted. Apparently some of the local ecosphere were ill prepared for some kind of trade the passengers did and it made the whole thing very sick and imbalanced.
Tunie checked in with the other ships. Her many eyes selecting and transmitting the happenings with the port as they developed.
Orgah was big and heavy and a bit slower to reach the limits of speed compared to Tunie. But she also had a bit of a feisty feral streak that everyone agreed probably came from her father.
She was of a mind that once the passengers were aboard Tunie and she was fully fueled up she should spend a bit of that to make a full throttle pass of port and hit them with rocks.
If it came to that Orgah was one who would be in favor of aggression being just for Tunie and her crew if it came to a Trade Tribunal.
Her crew seemed to be more concerned with the loss of a lucrative grist and fuel source that had at least another two or three trade runs left in it on their schedule and probably would temper their ships malevolence but unless they were very mean they would not insist against Orgah's wishes to actually press for sanctions if it came to a fight.
Actually the big hauler was so incensed over the treatment of her new favorite jokester that Tunie was pretty sure her crew was having to be very convincing to keep her from trying to do the same as soon as they finished their own business and refuel.
Lutish and Azure were both older male ships and seemed to share a lot of their opinions with one another. They might as well be brothers honestly even though their parents were hardly related at all. Although the precise focus was different.
Azure was of the opinion that any annoyances and quibbling over passengers was already pre-paid for in the form of the Port's generosity. It was a good gig and the Ships and their crews should cultivate and encourage the behavior until Redweed collapse from starvation trying to meet their obligations of charity.
Even onto sacrificing the good will of a outreach contract by voiding it. Most of Azure's crew were pretty fresh and there was a bit of a churn there. This put the ship nominally in charge of what the trade policy was in large scale, leaving the crew to just enact the desired outcomes from port stops.
To be honest it seemed kind of thugish to Tunie to treat crew and ports like Azure seemed wont to do.
Lutish was in agreement of course with Azure, but tempered the barbaric intonation that the outreach contracts were less important with simply saying the passengers needed to be recovered and any damages to their contract compensated by Redweed. But that this should be offset by reparations for damages and losses incurred by the passenger's activity that was far in excess of proper trader decorum.
The two of them got into a bit of a heavy argument over it and Lutish' crew apparently had to intervene calm him down before he rattled their dock too badly.
Azure apparently was intent to try and get clear of this whole mess. Outbound as he was.
So if it became a tribunal of Tunie and her Crew vs the port of Redweed it would definitely not be in her favor that they voted. Sure Azure and his crew were not going to attend but he also had friends and contacts elsewhere and if the Tribunal was divided on proper recourse a great council might be declared and then Azure's connections in the broader Trade ships would come to weigh more heavily then just whoever was locally available.
Tunie could relate, getting FULL bellies was a massive boon to be able to trust reliably from a port and if she had been in the reverse position with the other ships she would have probably been upset that this could jeopardize that. She might have even voted in a Tribunal against herself if it came to that.
That said she carefully memorized the relevant traits of Lutish and Azure. She was going to write explicitly in her future nesting contracts to forbid them or any like them from siring any of HER offspring even if they were the last Ships in the reef.
Yes it was kind of petty but it was her future eggs and she could decide who got to fertilize them out of spite if she wanted too.
Then there was Wiggles and Boojun who personally did not seem terribly invested in either direction but whose crews seemed gravely concerned. It was kind of funny to listen to the bored ships relay the well wishes and queries of their crews who were desperately trying to get enough details to know what was going on.
Considering how noncommittal the ships were Tunie had trouble judging which way those Traders would favor in a tribunal. She wished her crew would get back so they could confer on this.
Her Crew was much better at this kind of thing.
Tunie was just a ship and all this talking and arguing was exhausting her.
Also part of her (the aft most parts who were still waiting for their turn!) was still very upset and wanted to get back to brushies!
It was so complicated being a ship.
Her Crew and passengers had it so much easier.
They just had to run around, and their food was HUGE to them and everywhere and they didn't have to worry about pushy Ports upsetting contracts or violent friends that wanted to throw rocks at said ports who were also friendly and gave her so much good grist!
Well...
Tunie was a Ship and Crew and Passengers were Not-Ships.
No point crying over destabilized feathers.
You just shed them as quickly as possible and accelerated to minimum safe distance hoping no one else was in the bast radius.
Writing Tunie is always a treat, I'm tempted to do a whole 'episode' just from the perspective of Tunie.
An anatomical feature of most of the Velavita Order. The F'teropod is a highly modified form of reso-material defensive cladding. Although the precise shape and purpose varies greatly across species in Order Velavita.
A distinguishing trait of true F'teropods vs other defensive reso-material tissues is the mobility of the elements and the Ether Interaction.
In broad structure F'teropods have a core shaft which contains the metabolic and particle accelerator mechanisms with branching tines that contain the majority of the Ether Interaction facilitating lattices. The symmetry, number of branches and even the proportion of shaft vs tines vs sub tines is highly variable.
F'teropods Ether Interactions provide all Velavita with a mechanism for momentum and energy transfer into the Ether. This can depending on the species and anatomy of the F'teropod allow for the following: linear acceleration, heat dispersal, impact dissipation, structural support and other rarer applications.
In linear acceleration adaptations F'teropods form many parallel tines aligning their lattice with the orientation of acceleration. At higher ideal energies the tines will be joined to a thicker shaft and the over all dimensions of the F'teropod increases.
For heat dispersal F'teropod structures favor more branches and maximizing total surface area, the dimensions of the tines (especially the thickness) is directly proportionate to the ideal heat dispersal temperature. With thicker tines favoring a higher ideal dispersal temperature.
Impact dissipation adaptations favor overlapping or woven tine structures, this creates radial lattices that bleed off energy in waves out from any given impact point into the ether.
Structural support applications generally resemble a blend of linear acceleration and impact dissipation, however under most conditions these adaptations are optimized at the smallest and lowest energy Ether Interactions which favors a much smaller tine diameter and length compared to other F'teropods.
Vestigial forms in some species may have structural traits but have lost Ether Interaction due to a modified lattice of the reso-material. Mobility can be expressed very broadly across species. With some having become almost completely immobile while others are effectively fluid. The more mobility within a F'teropod the more flexibility it can have with expressing a variety of adaptations and generally a broader efficiency scope they can utilize, however this tends to come at a cost of stability. In the case of Vestigial F'teropods that no longer have Ether Interaction instability is no longer an adaptive consideration and mobility is normally indicative of other selection pressures.
In Velavita the adaptation is believed to have developed Initially as a means of metabolic energy storage. The external protrusion likely to have been an adaptation for isolating reso-material destabilization events as the F'teropods became more energetic. This isolation eventually culminating in a capacity for shedding for many species. Later the material matrix used for energy storage was adapted to exploit the Ether Interaction.
The precise velocities and forces that Ether Interactions occur at highests efficiency are mutually exclusive in a single F'teropod lattice.
For example many Velavita favor lower energy density for more metabolic accessibility to the Ether Interactions. This makes the peak efficiency of their F'teropods significantly lower energies, accelerations and masses.
However other species specialize in interstellar migration and reach peak efficiencies at significant fractions of the speed of light. This however is at the cost of direct metabolic accessibility of the stored energy for any other use beyond locomotion once resources have been diverted and upscaled to such high energies in the F'teropod system. These species also tend to have much more rigid F'teropods as the energies involved make instability catastrophically maladaptive.
Ya know if you people ask questions I'll probably answer them right?
Also as always thanks to @ArmokGoB for helping keep these entries up to snuff.
Where do you get all these fitting symbols from? Is there a program to make them or are you just searching through giant piles of special characters to find the perfect one?
Love it. The fluffy comfiness of exhausted fluffballs lying around; the soft broodmothers in their tiny round boxes, with the sharply black and thorny Pylo flies along; Groggy, uneven Aleph blearily waking up from someone trying to massage the inside of her nostrils… it's perfect.
…Expecting me to creative in any way… Maybe some form of Doppelganger who automatically mimics surrounding shapes. The humans briefly think they have found more humans, but it actually cannot relate to them at all and does not even use the body the same way. I.e. some part is shaped like an "arm" or "head", but it is obviously not one. As for cameos… perhaps something akin to the symbionts that are Worm-powers. A massively larger organism gives a smaller one an uplink. Bigger one gets some data (or mobility?), smaller one gets extra abilities or mental processing power? Really not sure whether that would fit a provincial setting. Full-on long-distance links and "parahuman" powers sound more like big city magic.
Reading about her is as well. Her wholesome attitude and child-like confusing is refreshing and adorable, though that might just be my human sensibilities. Of course then there is the horror of the fate of the entire Reedweed community being on the line and her just not caring that much…
Pylo floated across from the Redweed Ministry of external affairs' selected advocate. She actively did not fidget or twitch or puff out with nervous spores.
She repeated to herself that this was not a serious accusation threatening her well being or legitimacy.
Even under the worst possible results of this situation she and Tunie would merely be forced to pay for damages. Hardly anything at all for such a small community even if the other traders allowed Redweed to gouge them to the worst conceivable heights.
As with most of the important officials from Redweed it was a stalwart. Which if her read of the tendencies of the species was correct this was probably not the best choice the ministry could have made. But then again it was not an uncommon mistake, Many ports in that awkward stage before proper urbanization were prone to weird species nepotisms like this.
"Esteemed and beloved traders, We have requested your oversight and expertise in resolving this matter of the population center anchored on the ascendant traversal line of Petal Weft Salt's interests and the disaster of the Passengers brought to our humble home of Redweed by the Ship Mistress of the Lesser Void Courier Tunie, Pylo Courtesan."
Pylo looked out to the assembled speakers of those crew representatives that had agreed to stand for a tribunal of the trade peerage for this affair.
The total number of 'present' representatives varied from one tribunal to the next. Or at least that was how it worked as far as Pylo had seen in the seven tribunals she had been involved in.
Still this was only the second time she was involved as the principle crew (which she was actively trying not to remember last time).
"-We represent . of the lingering rose . Redweed . acknowledge . elements . WE . traders . recognize . The Minister . our vessel . Judgement-"
That was an interesting one, some kind of spindly element or a speaking symbiote from a canner ship.
Spoke in an entirely different cognitive framework then the others.
There was always one of those in every tribunal, some idiosyncratic entity or organization that just did not fit anyone else's cognitive grammar at all. Honestly Pylo didn't mind, the last two times she had been involved in a tribunal she was able to endear herself to the token outcast and sway the vote just that much more to her prefered outcome.
Pylo glanced at the rest of the assembly to see if anyone had anything close to an immediate comprehension of the 'elements of the vessel lingering rose '.
Alas it looked like everyone had fairly up to date translation codices.
Well she didn't need the unfair advantage anyway.
"Hi!"
Everyone present waited for the trader representative to elaborate on their position or ship of origin. Eventually the silence was broken by it seeming to realize perhaps there was more to add.
It was a bit of an odd one, some kind of smoothed over vacuum form? It was not fully spherical but that was a near thing. The ship it had come from offered no explanation or justification for the choice. And the representative itself did not provide a name. It also did not think very deeply about anything as far as Pylo could tell, that said it seemed to have some kind of deep archive of information to draw on, which it seemed inclined to waste on the simplest statements possible?
Could be dangerous.
"I'm Here!"
Everyone shared a mutual reflection on this response before unanimously deciding to proceed with the introductions.
"Zimble-wee-trala-la-do! What a good time we are having, this Ohma of the Perilous Puff is present for these tidings! We are many disturbed by the conduct of the officials of redweed in this action. It is a breach of the trust of Traders to berth our ships here."
That was a peculiar sort of creature, it loomed bigger even then Pylo herself which suggested it was either inefficient or had significantly more room to distribute its intelligence and processing about itself.
Its surface communicative thoughts did not provide the siren with clarity on which, as after things entered or exited those cortices it was encrypted into gibberish as far as Pylo could tell.
"I am Onduilin, I am here on behalf of our ship Lutish and as speaker for the unattending crews in these proceedings. I promise oversight on behalf of my ship and others to make sure that this affair is settled fairly for all trade vessels and crew. Both those here and involved as well as those yet inbound and distant"
That one was a bit smaller than herself, with a ganglionic intelligence that was never the less fairly easy to read and process. She had met a few others of that kind across the reef, although they were by no means numerous.
Pylo was pleased, it was a fairly trader friendly selection of representatives which spoke well for what the voting crews and their vessels would favor. She looked around once more then nodded.
Wait.
She huffed and gave a quick head toss, damn terran mannerisms still leaking. She was spending too much time with the flatlanders, it was getting to be a habit to emote like them.
"I am Pylo, of Family Courtesan. Ship minder of the lesser void courier Tunie. As one of the involved parties I am present to represent the interests of myself, my ship and my passengers"
The stalwart bobbed in the chamber and then emitted in a comfortable trader-dialect of light.
"And I am tea-of-galena of the Ministry of External Affairs. I shall represent the interests of Petalweft Salts and its citizens in this matter as a protectorate and community within the purview of the polis of Redweed and its infrastructure"
There was a pulse of wide light signal that was then echoed by repeaters and signalers in resonance cascading out across all the vessels which felt it in their interest to vote and weigh in on the results of these proceedings.
Pylo took voice to confirm and finalize the gathering.
"As the representative of the principle involved crew and ship I acknowledge and witness these voices and judges. With this do I declare the Trade Tribunal of Redweed Regarding the conduct of the Trade Crew of Tunie and Cargo open"
Ah that was a good breather, now I think I can get started again on this. I will be continuing to update Terror and Peace but every once in a while I'll be dropping more of the adventures and Pylo and Friends as well.
