“Corporal, there is a reason I’m asking you this question. Believe me, if I knew, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“You mean you haven’t looked it up yet?” Kedryn asked, his burnished silver eyebrows raising in surprise.

“Unless you have access to a computer and a super strong wi-fi signal that works on this planet, then no. You and Riya are my only sources of information.”

There was another awkward pause as several emotions crossed Kedryn face, ranging from confusion to surprise, ending on cautious pity.

“Sir, you do realize everything on your status page is interactive, right? All you need to do is focus on the topic you want to learn about, and an explanation should appear.”

The air stilled as a mixture of emotions threatened to crack Glade’s carefully constructed mask.

“Let me see if I get this straight,” Glade said after a long, doubly awkward pause. “You’re telling me that after hours of talking, you assumed I knew my status page was interactive?”

“Well, that should have been intuitive...” Kedryn began. Glade didn’t let him finish. He had endured Kedryn’s hours long explanations on character builds, classes, magic systems, quests, min-maxing strategies, and who knew what else. Overwhelm didn’t even begin to describe his mental state. And now, he was learning that all he had to do was focus on a subject on his screen and a prompt with a detailed explanation would appear?

“How long did it take before I even knew there was such a thing as a status page?” Glade asked in a slow, deliberate voice.

“That wasn’t…” Kedryn started to say.

“An hour after we left the beetle’s cavern. And how long after that before you showed me how to bring it up so I could see it for the first time?”

“Sir, I can see your point…”

“Thirty minutes ago. After we found this place to rest. So please, elaborate why you think I would have any idea that a status page was interactive?”

There was a long pause where Kedryn looked down, the fire surging higher within his hands as the kid turned his full attention on cooking the meat in front of him.

“Good answer,” Glade growled, throwing another piece of beetle meat onto their makeshift stove. For what felt like the thousandth time, Glade lamented the fact he was stuck with the Kid. Mother was far better suited to dealing with these kinds of problems.

Kedryn focused intently on the fire, his normally exuberant smile fading into what was clearly a dejected frown. Glade sighed. A little rebuke and the kid went all sad puppy on him. The kid should be glad he wasn’t taking a more direct approach. Every step of the way Kedryn had been the proverbial thorn in his backside. A no kidding walking disaster.

Sure, the kid had some redeeming qualities. Like the unbelievable skills he displayed with the Godfather’s computers. Also, his idea about using the grenade against the beetle had been nothing short of inspiring. Not to mention that Kedryn had saved his life by having the adjudicators intervene.

Glade sighed, letting his frustrations flow out of him. It was apparent the Kid needed some mentoring in effective decision making. Like not throwing a small ball of flame at a bug covered in rock. Seriously, how else did Kedryn think that would go?

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Still, Glade could recognize that a measure of the fault lay with him as well. Kedryn was an unknown quantity that was clearly inexperienced in the matters of live combat. And Glade had simply foisted the Kid on the others of his team without getting to know the Corporals strengths and weaknesses.

Sure, ever since the attack on the Godfather’s facility they had been moving from one stressful moment to the next. It’s not every day you get blasted through a wormhole, survive an altercation with godlike beings, and fight nightmares come to life.

But that didn’t remove the fact that stress, regardless of the circumstances, always ground away at the edges of effective decision making. And their collective decision making to this point was not the stellar performance he knew they were capable of.

Seeing Kedryn’s forlorn expression reminded him that his soldier was likely struggling just as much as he was. Maybe more. Sure, the kid wore his excitement on his sleeve. But that wasn’t an excuse to not learn more about his newest charge and begin working with him. They were finally at a point where they could process everything that had happened. The least he could do was try to show a bit of empathy.

Knowing he was likely going to regret it, Glade decided to soften his tone.

“I’m going to take some time and study my status page. Is there anything else I should know before I begin?” Glade asked.

Kedryn looked up from tending the fire, hope peeking through the gloomy expression on his face while Glade braced himself for another round of nonsensical discussion.

“Maybe...,” Kedryn said tentatively. “I mean, you would probably figure this out on your own, but just in case, are you aware that you can auto-minimize your notifications so you can read them later? I’m sure that could be useful, so you aren’t distracted in a future fight.”

“That’s good to know,” Glade responded, pleasantly surprised. Finally, he was getting some useful information.

It took several minutes, but for the first time since arriving on this forsaken planet Glade felt like he was making progress. Kedryn walked him through what he knew of the icons floating in his peripheral vision and how to hide or bring them up by flexing his will.

How strange that these little bars represented his health and endurance levels. Glade ignored the description on mana. Pulling rabbits out of hats wasn’t really his thing.

Lastly, Kedryn explained how to use the notification system. Following the corporals advise, Glade mentally selected the scroll icon and was inundated with dozens of unread messages, each layering over the other in a deluge of information.

“Gahh!” Glade cried as he fell on his backside, futilely waving his free hand in the air to ward off the influx of messages.

“Did you open your notifications?” Kedryn asked, his excitable personality taking center stage. “How many do you have waiting for you?”

“I don’t know…” Glade began, but no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than a number popped to the forefront of his thoughts. “Huh. Looks I have 42.”

“Ah, the answer to life, the universe, and everything,” Kedryn responded with a knowing smile.

“What?” Glade asked, distracted by the mass of open notifications before him.

“Never mind,” Kedryn sighed, his shoulders slumping. “What have you been doing with your prompts?”

“Ignoring them mostly,” Glade responded, trying to figure out the best way to read through the list of messages. “Pushing them away before they pop up.”

“That’s… one way to deal with them,” Kedryn said slowly. “From what I’ve experienced, the notification system is extremely flexible. Try and organize the prompts and see what happens.”

“Like, alphabetical?” Glade asked. In moments the messages re-organized themselves into one long list that started with attentions, congratulations, notes, and several other groups in alphabetical order.

“Well, the good news is that it worked,” Glade said. “But not very useful.”

“What about by category? Try separating them into groups of combat notifications, skills gained, and the like.” Kedryn said.

The list immediately reorganized itself.

Glade’s eyebrows rose in surprise. Kedryn was right. The system’s flexibility and responsiveness was incredible. Far more advanced than any computer program he had used back home.

For once, Glade was happy to have asked Kedryn for help. After tinkering with the mental settings, he finally organized the system chronologically.

Three stacks of notifications appeared, separated under the topics Domain of the Eight, Magma Beetle Cavern, and The Grotto.

Now he was getting somewhere.