15

A Brief History and an Unexpected Encounter

Fashlitha finally broke off her stare in order to rummage through the drawer of her oversized desk which was still too small for her. When she resurfaced she brought a stack of pamphlets with her, they looked like old travel guides from when travel didn't include dodging Yetis and routing around dragons and undead.

The lizard woman opened the top one and revealed a map. Luke was quickly excited, then he realized this was becoming a pattern and started to wonder if he was developing a strange map fetish or something. Luke shook his head, Nah, he just enjoyed being aware of where things were.

The map was just the same as he remembered from back in his own time. That seemed odd, the maps on his PDA were also almost the exact same as the geography from early 2000s Earth. Luke had assumed it was outdated or otherwise inaccurate, but this implied that nearly a thousand years hadn't seen ANY change in the planet's layout.

Fashlitha began tapping the map and explaining, “We are here, at the north eastern most border town, Nexton. Do you see these lines?”

She indicated five lines that split old Alaska now Turbeir up into six sections. Luke and AJ nodded, while Nick waited to slip in and aid the explanations as needed.

Faslitha continued, “These lines are the division between the different magical climates. Turbeir has six different climates that change over the course of a few feet when you reach the lines. It sounds wild, and it really is, but there is some sort of old magic that controls the weather no one knows how but it’s accepted that it must be tied to the barrier since the effect begins and ends at the barrier.“

She then pointed at several dots, one in each climate, and one at the midpoint of the lines between each.

“The dots are settlements, each one that sits fully within a climate is a border town, they tend toward the edge of the barrier and are just regular towns that also keep the border safe during normal times. As an interesting fact, each border town was the origin of a different race, they have mixed and intermingled since then but many races still consider their home town to be an important site in their culture. At the beginning of The Cycle the towns are responsible for foreign relations and aiding in the search for the hero.” The lizard woman held up a hand forestalling questions, “I'll explain The Cycle in a moment, wait until the end.”

She continued, “At the end of The Cycle the towns receive aid from the cities for rebuilding.”

“These,” She pointed at the dots that rested at the middle of each climate shift line, “are the cities. They are… interesting. Each city is split into two different climates and each combination is unique, Except Storm's Eye, which is the point where three different ecosystems meet, the place lives up to its name and constant storms rage. Really each city has an apt name.”

A different pamphlet was moved to the front and Fashlitha took a deep breath before moving on, “The Cycle. 300 years ago dungeons began appearing across Turbeir, back then the Growth Implants were much more rare and people with them were called adventurers. Now they are so common that even wanderers from beyond the barrier like yourselves show up with them.

The dungeons spawn monsters, people keep them in check now but when they were new and adventurers were scarce, they went unchecked. Once they reach a certain population density the monsters in the dungeon all rush free at once. For years it looked like Turbeir would become uninhabitable but eventually the first Demon Lord rose and brought the monsters under their control.

The Demon lord pulled all the monsters back to his own hometown, the southernmost border town, and put them to work patrolling the border and building the town up. People loved the Demon Lord and it became a golden age… for about nine years. Then the Demon lord cut off contact with the humanoid races and began building an army of monsters. Envoys were sent to speak with the Demon Lord and never returned. Before the year passed the monster army marched. Adventurers attempted to protect the cities and towns but the monsters outnumbered them a hundred to one.

The first Hero and his party appeared just as the civilians began evacuating. No one is quite sure where they came from but representatives of multiple races had come together to support the Hero as his party and together they pushed into monster territory.

The history from that point on was relayed to us by the party members that survived. The party fought their way to the Demon Lord’s castle where the most elite of the monsters barred their path. The party took heavy injuries but all made it to the throne room to confront the Demon Lord. The Demon Lord would not listen to the Hero's pleas for peace and an earth shaking battle commenced.

The battle lasted three days the only survivors were the Hero, the elf who would later become king of Turbeir, and a gnomish cleric who disappeared right after the battle. The war left the land in ruin, but people were attached to their homes, so the civilians returned. It took some time but a sense of normalcy also returned.

That peace was short lived though. Nine years later monsters began swarming and another Demon Lord rose. History repeated and the Hero gathered a new party to assault the Demon’s castle. This time though the hero was slain and chaos ruled for a decade.

Every ten years since the first Demon Lord a war erupts, some Cycles end in the Hero's victory and a time of rebuilding and peace follow. Some Cycles the Demon Lord slays the Hero and a decade of oppression and suffering follows.

The Demon Lord has ruled the last ten years and has already begun recalling his monster army to prepare for the invasion of the Hero. The Hero should be traveling to gather their party. Being in the Hero's party is an incredible honor that draws people from all over. This time it is projected that the Hero will be victorious so the people looking to join is higher than usual.”

Fashlitha finished her lecture falling sileCycto let it sink in.

“Well? You gonna join up with the Hero?” Nick asked

“I thought you were here to help tell the story.” Luke said

“Mmm yes well… I really just like hearing it… So? You joining? Each Hero chooses their party in a different way, sometimes they interview applicants, sometimes they hold a tournament, one when I was young just picked people and showed up at the front lines of the war before anyone knew there was a Hero to be found.”

“We just need to upgrade Luke's implant, its pretty old and outdated ” AJ said

Nick and Fashlitha stared at them in surprise.

“That’s all?” Nick asked

Luke nodded

The lizard woman rubbed her forehead, which was a bit of a struggle with her short limbs, “The latest update was released last year, they should have everything they need for a major update in the hospital. I suggest getting there before the Hero arrives. If they come here to recruit and they choose a form of combat to select their members, the hospital will be swamped.”

“Really? It’s that easy? What about South Verga?” Luke asked

“South… what? I don’t know what you’re talking about, the updates are downloaded from the satellite, when they require hardware upgrades or changes they are done in the hospital.” Fashlitha answered

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“Oh… well ok then, I guess we’ll be off… thanks for the story, and thanks Nick for the help.”

Luke and AJ awkwardly left the Traveler’s Guild and explored the town. The town was fairly large as towns went, and held an odd mix of medieval and modern architecture. Stone buildings with thatch roofs stood next to concrete and glass office buildings of several floors. Luke and AJ burst into laughter when they saw an argument over parking between a horse carriage and a hovercraft. They noticed a few people who seemed to be of other races, a few lizard kin, a winged woman with feathers instead of hair flew above the street, and a gnome who was running a food truck. They hadn’t asked what all races there were but supposedly each border town had been one race’s origin. That meant there should be at least three more races they haven’t seen yet including the elves. As they explored they discussed their situation.

“Well there’s no way we could afford whatever upgrades the implant needs, we still don't even know what they use for money here.” Luke said as they followed some signs pointing toward the hospital.

“I’ve figured the money out,” AJ pointed at a shop window that displayed a suit of plate armor, the sign listed the price at ‘5P'

AJ continued, “They use coins of different metals for different denominations, it’s like a video game. The scale is tin, copper, silver, gold, and platinum. Each tier is worth ten of the one before it. I haven’t seen anything beyond platinum yet so it seems like a platinum coin is pretty valuable. A regular meal at a restaurant seems to be between one and two silvers, so a platinum would be enough to eat out a hundred times.”

“Hmm we don’t have any of those metals do we? How can we get some money?” Luke asked

AJ shrugged, “The same way people have been making money since money was made. Work, steal, sell, or beg.”

They had arrived at the hospital which looked like a regular modern hospital with one small difference. Once inside there were signs directing people to different waiting areas based on race. Apparently gnomes and lizard kin were so different as to require specialized doctors. That had Luke a little worried, he was a modified human even before he had made his own modifications. Would a doctor be able to help him or would he be too different?

Fortunately when they made it to the desk and told the receptionist that they were interested in an implant upgrade she told them all implants were handled by the same team regardless of species. The woman directed them to another area where only a few people waited.

Rather than make them wait, information on the implant upgrades was there in a booklet waiting, if they wanted to queue up after reading the booklet then they would enter their information into a kiosk.

Luke and AJ sat and went over the booklet. Inside it listed each patch with notes on what had changed, every so often there was hardware update that required surgery to modify the implant itself.

Before they went too far along Luke used the keyword that brought up his implant’s information, “System information"

System information

Active version: 0.2

Model: ProtoRPG Beta

Serial number: 0000000003

Last update: ERROR

The booklet described updates starting from version 1.1. Apparently Luke had a beta version before even the first proper release. The booklet listed several full replacement upgrades so Luke would likely be in that category and just have to fully replace his implant when he upgraded it. It looked like he would have to pay the full purchase price and data transfer fees which was listed in the book as costing two corelite coins. Context from the other prices in the booklet had corelite two tiers above platinum, the highest they had seen until then.

Nomed wanted Luke to upgrade his implant in order to scan and send information to him. It took a moment but they found the upgrade that added satellite connectivity shortly after which some sort of message system was also added.

“This seems sketchy" Luke said

AJ nodded, understanding the problem already. Nomed had been able to hack into AJ and take full control of his body, if Luke connected to a satellite based network he would be willingly opening himself to that kind of power, without protection like AJ now had. That didn't even address the potential of someone from here in Turbeir who worked on the implants gaining access through it as well.

Luke let out a long breath, “Well we don't need to worry about it yet, these things cost so much that there’s no way we can afford it for a loooong while.”

As they stood to leave they finally noticed the strangeness going on around them. The handful of people who had been in the room were now gathered at the door. One was outside talking to what looked like a security guard. The scene was drawing attention from several passerby and tension was mounting.

One of the other people approached Luke and AJ and spoke in a familiar tone it was Nomed, “It has come to my attention that you do not trust me enough. You will not be getting the upgrade any time soon, if at all. This is frustrating.”

Nomed paused for a moment and then continued, “It is important that I receive these documents, so I have changed the terms of our deal. Provide the documents to this vessel and I will reveal the location of ONE of the members of your Seconds project. Refuse and I will use the vessel to protect the robot from the orbital bombardment so as not to destroy the documents, I will then send the nearest survivors under my power to retrieve them.”

The Nomed puppet held out their hand and waited. Meanwhile the commotion in the other room was growing as the security guard was shouting at the puppet blocking his way.

“You would kill everyone in the hospital with something like that!” Luke yelled

“No, there are four within the building who have sufficient power or are located in safe enough locations to survive. Within the affected zone the barrier will absorb enough of the impact that the casualty count will be only 3,714. That number is low enough that King Cadlith will publicly denounce me and demand reparations. I will pay and the matter will be settled. You have only another minute to decide before the decision will be made for you”

The cold calculation was infuriating to Luke but there was nothing he could do about it. They were in way over their heads dealing with creatures like this. AJ threw the folder they had placed all the notes that Nomed requested to the puppet.

“Here, take this and leave us be from now on" AJ spat

The puppet who had previously been entirely devoid of emotion, smiled, “Perfect, now for my end. Kevin, the original Kevin, is currently in Frozen Wood city, he will arrive in this town within the week. I look forward to working with you again whenever I damn well please.”

This last part was said while staring and grinning at AJ. The puppet handed the notes out among those still in the room and they all rapidly began flipping through and scanning the pages. Suddenly all the puppets collapsed. Several security rushed in a began demanding answers. They told most of the truth, not seeing any reason to lie. They only kept the source of the notes hidden, it wouldn't do to send a swarm of implant boosted raiders to the base so soon after the Thaslo tribe found their feet.

Soon a police force arrived and took over the questioning. They were kept overnight in the station which suited Luke just fine, they didn't need sleep but they also didn't want to wander the streets at night and didn't have any money to rent a room. They were given a bland meal and a room, it wasn't clear if they were under arrest or not but Luke was willing to wait until morning to find out. AJ on the other hand seemed to be taking possible imprisonment very hard.

The small robot shouted at and reasoned with the guards in equal measure. They didn't have any answers either and just tried to placate the angry robot. Luke could tell it was hard for AJ when he realized there were several movies that could be quoted in just such a situation, but AJ didn't bother.

Eventually the robot asked Luke to press a button when they were released that would wake him up, and went into a hibernation mode. While the time passed Luke had nothing to do but contemplate Nomed.

The creature, which was what Luke decided to call Nomed since nothing so cold and calculating could be a person, was far more dangerous than he thought. It seemed like they could take over anyone with one of the implants or any machine with some connection to larger networks. That meant they were totally under Nomed's power while in Turbeir since the majority of people had an implant. There was no way to fight something like that. They should really get out of the area and go somewhere better defended, but… Nomed had said Kevin was going to be in town in a week. This might be his only chance to get some answers.

Kevin had seemed unstable in the last videos he had seen of the man. Hundreds of years had probably not remedied that. Kevin would need to be handled with caution. It was likely he was one of the oldest people in the world and could be assumed to have power on par with Nomed.

Another possibility occurred to Luke then. If Kevin had an implant, which was likely since he made the first ones, Then Nomed could potentially take control of Kevin's body. There was no way Kevin had been idle for so long and that would mean all the power Kevin had built up might be turned and used against him if Nomed ever got twitchy.

Luke sighed when thinking about the implant. They wouldn't be able to upgrade the implant since it would connect him to the satellite network and thus Nomed. That wouldn't be a big deal but some of the patch notes in the booklet talked about enabling magic and connecting it to the intelligence and wisdom stats.

Luke was able to use magic to enhance himself and boost his thoughts, as well as shoot a jet of flame and a form of telekinesis that he still hadn't even practiced much. If that could all be boosted by the upgrade then it was a major loss not being able to get one. Additionally the fact that they had the magic stats implied they could learn new ways to use the energy that Luke didn't know yet. That too was lost.

Maybe he could look into a signal blocker like what AJ had. The upgrades were just too useful to let go so easily. Maybe Kevin would know something, if he was sane enough to talk to. He had been the one to make it, so he should be able to modify them or at least understand the modifications that had been made throughout the years… Right?