The glitchling looked at Mayana and Kiresula, looking hurt, not just bodily but also spiritually. “What happened?” Mayana and Kiresula asked simultaneously. Their voices were full of worry.
Kju gave a lopsided grin: “I learned that my classes are not good for combat against a group of freshly minted classed ones. Also, we needed to get to a source of synthic magic and were attacked by stray dogs on the way there.” He spoke the words ‘classed ones’ in Je-ashvehanu.
Kiresula was concerned and spoke in Je-ashvehanu: “Was it the classed ones or the hounds that messed you up?”
Kju looked a bit embarrassed and responded: “Dogs. I had to make sure no one…” he points to one of the wounds.
“Gets hurt?” Kiresula suggested.
Kju nodded vaguely: “Yes, I hope. I speak badly.”
Kiresula nodded: “We write?”
Kju responded: “Yeah.”
On the way back, Kju told them the story of their group by writing on their backs. He found the group of glitchlings, told them about how people in Memleket gained their classes and offered to assist with gaining classes. They accepted and led him to a place of synthic magic in the caverns. Unfortunately, the caverns had wild dogs and those attacked the group, but Kju was able to fight them off. He sustained some injuries, but was able to fend off the animals to get to the synthic magic. There, he helped people get classes and a newly minted healer was able to weaken the impact of the wounds, making sure they would heal better. He had also asked to relay to the rainbow house that they had arrived and were okay.
They had to stay a day in their cells and Kiresula spent most of it pacing and talking to herself, constantly wondering what happened and what went wrong. She felt restless, angry and at times hopeless. She was not sure what would happen to Kedsel, to Kju, to her, and most importantly to Mayana. And she missed her. A lot. Eventually, she fell asleep, dreaming nightmares in which she searched for her family, her brother and in one dream, her own reflection. It was before dawn that she decided to stop trying to sleep and checked her system. She checked the resources that she could assign. Her level 3 as an Elemental-Somatic Mage gave her 3 points that she could use for spells; she checked the list if there was anything worth three points that was useful. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot on that list and it would only be available from level 5 on. She let out a sigh. She paced again, waiting for breakfast.
It was more than a thousand steps later (that was when she lost count) that Haina arrived with breakfast and information: “Hello Kiresula. Good news and bad news: The good news: We found Kedsel. She is alive and well. She was hidden in a forest near Memleket.”
Kiresula nodded: “That is good. How is she doing?”
He responded: “Not good. She was hiding from the Holy Order and suffered massive accumulation of broken magic as well as malnutrition. She basically doesn’t want to deal with the Holy Order anymore. I understand it after what I heard from her. She wants to talk to you however. Maybe you can talk to her. I got a sending stone for instant communication. She has the correspondent one. Can you do that?”
She responded: “I guess so, I don’t feel like I can persuade anyone well.“
He smiled vaguely: “I don’t think that you are very persuasive either, but that is why she wanted to talk to you. She said you cannot lie to save your life. And I mean, you can’t. No insult.”
She nodded: “None taken. I know my status screen.”
He seemed a tad confused but didn’t ask, instead responded: “I will leave you with the sending stone until this evening. Is that okay?” He handed her the sending stone.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
She took the stone: “Thanks! But… how can I invoke it?”
He spoke to her suddenly like a child, as if this question had invoked his deep-seated need to explain the obvious to someone: “You channel some magic into…” he suddenly stopped like a wind-up toy that needed winding up again. “Oh, you don’t have any magic, right?”
“I have no conventional magic, that is right,” she confirmed.
He looked frustrated: “In that case, I will have to remain here with you. But please be honest.”
She nodded: “I would prefer Mayana, but sure.”
There was a pause, then the stone glowed and Kiresula spoke: “Hey Kedsel, you around?”
After a long pause of at least a dozen breaths, there was a response: “Hey, Kirey, is that you?”
She waited until the stone glowed, which it didn’t until she glared at Haina: “It is me indeed. Currently, I am in a holding facility of the Holy Order, hoping that Haina’s harebrained scheme works.”
Haina glared at her but didn’t say anything.
After another pause, there was a response: “Yeah, I understand that you too are in a weird position. Is the Holy Order really that much after me?”
She glared at Haina until the stone glowed: “Yeah, I have no idea why, but they zeroed in on you in Jetahkalesa according to Mayana and also here. I think they have convinced themselves that we glitchlings did something to you and that sheer concept seems to frustrate them to no end. They hate the idea that one of them had been bested by a glitchling more than glitchlings themselves. And they do not like glitchlings because they cannot progress in the system at all – and they believe that they cause some kind of weird behaviour with disappearing stats in the status screen. Which, I mean, they are not wrong, but they are tshanjats off! I mean, from what I understand that is what happened to you: You gained a skill that isn’t seen by the Holy Order and the skills of the [Cleric]s. In your stat screen, it’s green, yes?”
Haina’s expression looked first confused, then angry, and eventually confused.
The response was much faster: “Yeah, that is right. How do you know?”
She responded as soon as the rock glowed: “I don’t. I guessed. Now, I cannot talk freely because I cannot use this artefact myself.” This caused her to be glared at by Haina, to which she shrugged. “Do you speak the Island-and-Coast language?”
The response was a simple “No.”
She glared at the [cleric] until the rock glowed: “I can talk freely to you if you can go to the black cat ruins near Jetahkalesa. Right, Haina?”
Haina nodded.
“Yeah, he agrees. If your skill grants you higher synthic resistance, we can get in there and he will not be able to follow us. In addition, that’s where Xekuan is.”
“My brother is there?” she asked, confused.
“He glitched. He ran into the ruins in our pursuit. Inside of the ruins is a glitchling settlement. They speak Island-and-Coast language, or Je-ashvehanu, so I learned a bit,” she explained.
She looked at Haina.
“Is he…” Kedsel wanted to ask but stopped.
Kiresula responded: “He coped when I last saw him. I am sure that he will love the class change from a [Holy Guard] as he seemed quite disenchanted.”
Kedsel asked angrily: “You call glitching a class change‽ Is that what you think‽ You should know what kind of horrible changes come with it. I have seen how long it took you to get at least slightly better‽”
Kiresula took a step back. The anger was scary. Only when the rock lit up again, she spoke: “I would like to explain things later, until then, please assume that I misspoke.”
Kedsel asked suspiciously: “Is this related to something the Holy Order told you to say?”
Kiresula shook her head before she realised that this was not visible: “No, this is related to something that the Holy Order doesn’t like hearing and what I assume was behind a purge against a glitchling community. Mayana and I, we only talked about it in Je-ashvehanu despite us not really speaking it well. Something that took me a long time to figure out. I had some knowledge when we delved, but only a bit. Now, I have learned a lot more. That’s why I am so cautious.”
There was a pause. Kiresula started pacing again. Then the response was: “So, you want to tell me not about the Holy Order but about… whatever it is they should not know?”
Kiresula stopped and shook her head: “It’s both. I want to give you the information you need to understand what is going on… and if you could save our asses, that would be great! So far, I can tell you that Haina is working with the situation despite being kept in the dark about the interna.”
There was a pause. Then Kedsel confirmed: “Okay, sure, that sounds good. We can do that.”