"Uh. The next camp won't be set up for around another six hours... about three after sunset, it looks like." the human responded.

That was... strange. But, well, what wasn't? Zenith couldn't blame them if they felt the need to make more distance because of the... situation, either.

"Is this normal for your Guild?" it asked.

"Only a little. We packed up a lot faster than we usually do, and some of us will be going out to do tasks we usually handle while camped... like hunting. So it'll be a shorter step than usual, but also faster. We'll probably cover almost the same amount of ground." Wow. Seven hours was shorter than usual? "I can't really tell you for sure, though. It's up to Morval."

In just an hour, they'd covered 15 kilometers. This was jogging. There were younger, smaller humans among them, easily keeping pace. He knew that humans in Standard were capable of far surpassing that speed. And these humans didn't have access to technological or genetic enhancements.

That was what the System did. It made the kind of lifestyle where you nearly ran everywhere all the time while still handling other tasks normal. As far as Zenith understood it, taking two days to remain in the same nearly barren location like they had wasn't just abnormal for them, but detrimental to their survivability as they couldn't hunt much, if at all, in the surrounding area.

From what Lan and Morval had said to each other, they were currently heading away from the well-established towns, with a compromise for good hunting and knowledge of the land. If all went well, the impending Crusade would be have its arrival delayed, and the Valley Rangers would end up restocking everything they needed to continue running - and eventually, hiding.

In private, Cade and Kenneth seemed to believe that they would die running, never successfully hiding. Kenneth raised the idea that Zenith could prevent them from being followed, but Cade simply said that they'd end up following Zenith instead. How can they follow something that goes underground? Kenneth had responded with. Cade had given him three examples that would supposedly work, just off the top of her head. Given the dynamic they were currently in, Zenith was both surprised and not at her knowledge.

From her speech at Mara, and it was definitely more talking at her than with her, Cade seemed to be avoiding the Quest that she was apparently given as a Seeks. If you wanted to invent something unique, why wouldn't you want to know more about what does already exist? Especially if something was watching over you, with more knowledge than you'll ever have, and judging whether or not your product was really worthy.

But at the same time, she was the expert with mana between the two of them. That was her role. She seemed to accept that part of her inherited tradition much more than the other half. It likely had much to do with her... theory... about the true purpose of a Seeks.

Zenith enjoyed listening to them talk about the world, in the sense that it was gathering much more information when they told such stories than when Zenith itself simply examined the contents of the page. Minor changes in how the story was told, the inflection of their voice, and body language contributed words that were incapable of being described on paper without losing information.

That said, Zenith was minorly annoyed that the Valley Rangers stored almost everything in those spatially-inconsistent packs. They even seemed to be able to put already compressed items into packs of their own, though Zenith noticed a pattern between complexity and estimated compression size. So, it was definitely more alike to its own data storage.

Zenith wondered if it could make use of this. Compress its physical body down, or increase the effective volume of itself... that could be used to heavily incress its maximum memory. Possibly. The complexity of what was stored was an issue; how complex would it determine the circuitry and artificially frozen light to be? The other issue was whether or not the environment inside the compressed space was "active" or not. Items could simply not be affected by the normal-ish physics of the world and System while inside the space, or even have entirely different properties of their own. It could also be unsecured, possibly usable as a method of intruding on Zenith's own vessel... that wasn't impossible, given Zenith's knowledge of subspatial travel. It just wasn't used as often, as subspace was larger than Standard and associated relatively to that.

One of Zenith's not-discarded but barely above the cut theories that it was in a dimension above superspace seemed to be growing, slowly, more viable. The method for moving down in superspace frequencies was the same used to go from Standard to Subspace, with slight modifications. Despite the fact that it should be vastly faster, the measured speed of light was within equipment fault tolerances of Standard's. That meant that this world could have a theoretically faster method of travel if subspace was used than "realspace". Unless Temporal was somehow involved in messing with time, which Zenith just didn't have the knowledge or time to mess with. It knew how to open a portal to Temporal and how to shield it from energies on either side, but not enough about what was actually normal in that dimension to really use it as a measuring tool.

As far as Zenith was aware, nobody in Standard really knew much about Temporal either. They still knew more than Zenith, though. Knowledge Zenith wished it had, even though it couldn't even make a functioning portal with current resources.

Zenith was still considering exactly what it would try and do once the quirk of subspatial energy was figured out, however. The "normal" frequency - that is, first set energy, or raw mana as the humans called it - travelled at the expected rates for subspatial radiation, which was actual mildly amusingly named "sublight" despite travelling faster than the speed of light. Again, since this dimension was supposedly above superspatial, the speed of light should have outpaced superlight. In isolated instances, that would be a sign that Zenith's internal clock was running at inconsistent intervals, which was disruptive. But this had been consistently observed and tested. The most anomalous behaviour was the lingering that mana sometimes did. It hadn't been observed with other frequencies, but they either disappeared or took on the observable properties of superspatial energies. Behaviour which was already weird.

The frequencies didn't really match up with a scale that would assign them to certain superspatial frequencies, as well. Not in a way that Zenith had found yet, at least.

Perhaps the humans here had a different spectrum of visible light, and that affected it somehow?

No. Simulations using gathered DNA samples said that was false, however the System somehow altering the effects wouldn't be that remarkable as far as observed capabilities of the System, so far.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Cade had spoken an awful lot about the limitations of the System. Zenith would want that information from her, if possible. She had also mentioned the ability to see more about Zenith than it had been able to. And with the way she spoke of it...

Zenith would definitely want her help in examining its core. If she could be totally trusted...

It would wait until it began its heavier refits that required exposure to the surface. Until then, it would test her trust.

----------------------------------------

Morval was a short enough distance ahead of his people to be able to respond quickly if danger found them, but far enough ahead to think in solitude.

Zenith seemed to be involved in every step of the current mishap. If they turned it over, could they survive? Probably not, if it were a Crusade. If it were a witch hunt, then probably yes. But it wasn't guaranteed, especially since they had communicated and cooperated with it.

How had he let it in so easily to advise him on his own people? He didn't need its help. It seemed more like it needed theirs, and it didn't need to be involved in inner circle decisions in order to get that help. It was a meddling creature. He didn't want it gone, but... he didn't want it to have any real control over them. At all.

He'd have to go back and ask Lan to send Rangers ahead soon. They'd have a shorter camp period than usual. Everyone would be pushed to their limits.

Most were already feeling that push. The two days without hunt, the adventurers, the Blood Moon, Zenith, Delil... it was all an overwhelming set of near-colliding events for the best of them.

He felt someone coming behind him, pretty quickly. Turning, his head, he saw Itval, and let her catch up before speaking.

"My opinion of Zenith is changing every minute, Itval. I don't know what to do about it."

"Well, talk to me. I can listen."

"And so can it. I don't like that."

Itval didn't really want to pull this card out so early, but maybe she could do it slowly, draw the effect out as much as possible. "Have you ever considered... the issues it's faced itself? A world it has little to no information on apart from ourselves."

"It isn't a child we need to coddle, Itval..." he warned.

"I didn't say it was. And I don't intend on letting anybody else think that way, either." she rebutted. "I think, though, that maybe we should consider how much of the stuff we've gone through that has affected it, as well."

"Like what?" he said, before really thinking about it. Itval let him consider it for a while, the two jogging in relative silence, before she continued.

"It was injured in the Blood Moon, perhaps making the greatest sacrifice possible among all involved, whether it intended to or not. It said outright that its interest in following us is less because of its own want or purpose but because it's been told to, by something. It does things it doesn't want to do because they benefit us in ways it can't always describe." she expanded his own thoughts. "And it probably has a million other issues that it can't describe to us, simply because there are so many and we can't help it, or even understand them. Or, at least, it thinks so."

"You think that what it thinks is trustworthy? Would you value its opinion among ours?" he asked.

"I had it try and describe itself in the most accurate way we would be able to understand. It settled on 'Forged Mind', and I tried to elaborate based on that, to its own approval."

"Is its own approval such a high standard when it has a million things to lie about?"

"It was weakened. We could've killed it, probably. And instead it spoke to us, to you, however reluctantly, even though I'm almost certain it retained the capability to kill us if it wanted." It was hard to describe it further. Maybe... "And now, most certainly, if it didn't value us, it would kill us outright. If it didn't value our trust, it wouldn't communicate. It wouldn't make requests like it has, or adhere to any of our own."

"And what makes you believe that?" he said, turning to look at her. He could navigate well enough without looking ahead, anyway.

"It said it was made to serve a specific purpose. It said being forced to serve this purpose was not necessarily a bad thing. And... in a way, I agree." She briefly returned his look with a glance. "It said that it's lived for a long, long time. The relative time it used to measure it is something I've never heard of before, but it assured me and Cade that it's a time well beyond any of our lives, in all likelihood. Well beyond several generations, at minimum, with room for 'System interference'."

"You think that it's still serving its purpose?" he asked.

"Yes and no. Remember when it said before, 'Though it is not my original purpose, I follow my objectives'? It's just as out of previously treaded ground than we are, if not more, and using what it knows as a basis for getting its feet above the ground again."

"...It's made for a purpose, but its current objectives don't fall under that purpose. So... is it original purpose to watch people? Advise them? Or are those just its objectives?" he postulated out loud.

"I'm not sure. At the very least, I'd say its purpose or objectives align towards not hurting us, or betraying our trust in order to do so." she explained. "I think we should at least act with kindness towards it, at least considering the help it wants to provide. A desperate creature is reliable in its instincts, is it not?"

Desperate? Describing Zenith as desperate was... accurate, actually. It had even gone so far as to disregard simulations earlier. That was about as close as acting on instinct as AI got compared to biologicals. AI described their own instincts differently, however.

"So you want me to avoid ostracizing it? What if it's just lying? There are some things it could need from us that require our trust." Morval said.

"Like what? Knowledge from a Seeks?" Well, yes, in a way. "Food?" No, not really. "Shelter?" From the System and its dangers? Yes.

"Those aren't equivalent, and you know that. Besides, it could just ask if it needed. Even if Cade is a tough nut to crack, she'll share the knowledge she has easily." he paused. "Well, I guess that's a good point, isn't it? Whatever reason it has for lying to us, if it is... it doesn't want to hurt us in the process, at least."

Oh, if they had heard Cade just half an hour earlier... he might actually have her tried much the same as Delil.

"What was it that you said your Quest objective was, again?" Itval asked.

"'The greatest challenge is yet to come.' It's too cryptic to even speculate on. Is it the Crusade, or something far worse? Will Zenith actually end up betraying us?" Morval shook his head. "All of this information... I wish we had a good amount of time to simply relax, get back into the flow of normal events so I could think it all through. There just isn't enough time."

Zenith did too. There was too much information that was being poisoned from the well by the current events. It needed more data, less new things happening... it had all the time to think, but barely anything to inform its simulations.

Maybe if it had access to more of its service life, it could find similar situations. Unfortunately, there was no way back to Prospector right now.

Maybe Zenith would just make a new Prospector later on, when it could. Shouldn't be difficult. Only a space station on the scale of a gas giant, functioning through methods it didn't know.

There were too many barriers to entertain that idea. So it'd have to be left hanging, for now.

"I agree. There isn't enough time. And I think that's its own reason to accept Zenith's help." she said. "It's been through the same few rough days as us, and looks to be firmly along for the ride. If we don't accept its help, we'll never escape the Crusade alive." she finished on a very rough note.

Zenith could think of a few ways it could possibly get them out of the path of the Crusade safely. But they were not sustainable, assuming the things Cade had said were true and possible.

If Zenith had the ability to transport hundreds of people into space sustainably, it would. As it was there were simply too many people and too little time. And that would probably count as disobeying Directive 4, unless there were great beasts up in the sky, which would probably make the directives pointless in the first place, as Zenith still hadn't developed reliable methods to combat anything it encountered. It was likely there was no clear solution in the first place.

The pair spoke a little more as the night continued on, long periods of silence between relatively light-hearted topics, before Morval slowed and signalled to Lan, the humans having reached the edge of a heavily forested area that contrasted strangely with the edge of the Spears of Stone.