PART VI - EXPLORING RECORDS

The Arkan returned the hug, and warm memories of her grandfather poured into Callie. With the size difference, she almost felt as if she was still only ten, and she had to resist the impulse to break into homesick tears. Her eyes welled a little bit, though, all the same. On breaking the hug, she saw Pelidri’s had as well.

“Sorry,” Callie mumbled, as she backed away to return to her chair.

“It’s quite alright. My wife during my last cycle, my fifth one, was a Gnome. I’ve long learned that hugging is the nature of your people.”

Callie blushed at that, and then tried to hide it by taking a sip from her water cup with both hands.

“Xera tells me you have a Bookkeeping perk, and enjoy numbers and organizing. Would you care to see something regarding your theory, Little One?” Pelidri asked, seeming to casually change the topic as he ran a thumb under one of his eyes, as if there hadn’t just been an emotional moment.

“Uh, sure?” Callie said, a bit of a questioning in her tone. She couldn’t really say no.

Pelidri gestured towards the stack of books on the table, and then leaned forward to pull the thinnest from the bottom of one pile. “Take a look at this.”

The book Callie was handed was hardcover, said covers seeming to be crafted from a thin piece of very hard wood, sewn tightly with leather strings to another piece that served as a spine. Inside were dozens of pages that were originally blank, but were now filled with notes, drawings and other information, in many different styles of handwriting. The pages very much had the feel of paper, although a little thicker than she would have found back home. Quickly, she started to scan over the writing.

“Records from one of the training terms, right?” Callie said after a moment of digesting the contents.

Leaning forward, Pelidri tapped the open book a couple times. “I had the Colonel fetch them all for me. That one is from the very first group of recruits that came through here. There were only five of them. Your Major was one, in fact.”

Callie paged more, finding records from the quartermasters outlining supplies that had been used, others detailing deficiencies and additions needed to the staffing or equipment. There was even a large-lettered entry, bolded and circled several times, with multiple arrows pointing to it, that said ‘get a damn Culinar!’. Then, sure enough, she came to a few pages devoted to Major Celeste, then Bladedancer Recruit Celeste. It went on to detail her advancement, skills and perks received, as well as multiple disciplinary issues. It seemed she got in trouble for a lot more than just sleeping around. Still, at the end of her section, there was an entry note from Thorn that simply said, ‘recommended for officer consideration’.

“Huh,” Callie said, “I didn’t know the Major got in that much trouble.”

“Yes, it seems she was quite the miscreant,” Pelidri replied with a chuckle.

Callie turned the page, finding the start of a section regarding Vonn, and unlike Major Celeste, Vonn’s report was largely exemplary. Excellent marks across the board for her Ranger training, and no records of getting into any trouble except for a single entry that said, ‘questions authority’. There was nothing more to detail what might have led to that note, but it was still an interesting tidbit to know about her substitute trainer.

“Whoa!” Callie exclaimed as she turned to the next page. Then she grinned, a tiny bit of sly evilness in her wide eyes.

“Is something wrong?”

“What? No, no. Nothing is wrong,” Callie said, still grinning. “It’s just that this section is about Trainer Olin. Well, he was a recruit back then.”

“Ahh, yes, I saw that. It seems he was a very good recruit and showed great promise. That promise apparently has proven correct, although it’s a pity he left the army. It was good they convinced him to at least return as a civilian to train others.”

That’s what the summary note at the end said about Olin, in fact. ‘Excellent soldier with mentoring disposition. Recommend trainer focus’. That wasn’t what was important, though. What was important was the fact that Olin was the only Bladeweaver present for the first session. Callie needed to figure out how to exploit this new information in a way that would maximize the grief she could give Major Celeste.

“So, tell me, Little One, what do you see?”

“Um …” Callie said, stalling for time. Quickly she glanced through the last two recruits, but didn’t see anything that jumped out at her. “I’m not sure. I’m missing something, right?”

“Here,” Pelidri said, taking the book from Callie and handing her a second one, this one a little thicker. “This is the second group that came through here. Skip to the section about the recruits and tell me what you see.”

Flipping ahead, Callie started to page through the fifteen to twenty recruits, seeing an entry for the Duelist trainer, Cylanae, who was apparently even more-questioning of authority than Vonn had been. Then, she got to one of the Combat Healers and there was a large entry in red. ‘MELDED SKILL’ it said, going on to detail how the recruit could project an impenetrable dome around herself that would even reflect incoming offensive magic back to the original caster. It was a perfect skill for someone that needed to safely focus on a downed ally in the middle of a fight. Continuing, Callie soon found another entry for a melded skill, this one a Martialist receiving the ability to heal themselves proportionally to the damage they dealt.

“I see a couple melded skills,” Callie said, flipping back towards the start of the recruit section. “More recruits were here for this session, too, but that’s about it. I’m guessing I’m still not seeing it, am I?”

Pelidri had already pulled a third book from the bottom of its pile and quickly swapped it for the one Callie was holding. This one was even thicker, and the first thing she noticed was an entry on the first page that read ‘Finally got a Culinar!!!’ with arrows and a half-dozen hearts around it. Callie had no idea who would have drawn pretty little hearts, and decided to pretend it was the Legate, just because that was the funniest possible answer.

Then she reached the recruit section of the logs. All told, there were forty-three recruits for this third term, although two Dwarves were sent to basic training the first day, before Symbiote bonding, for getting into fights. She flipped through, seeing the usual range of observations and commentary, as well as perhaps twenty notations of melded or off-class skills. She also recognized Cheena’s name as one of the Shaman recruits, although there was nothing indicating she received any powers out of the ordinary, and apparently respected authority.

“What do you see now?”

“A lot more melded and off-class skills,” Callie said, gesturing to a Ranger that had received the ability to pulse out a stunning aura around themself to a range of about five meters. That actually would be quite useful if they were ever overwhelmed at melee range.

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“Mmm hmm,” Pelidri agreed. Then, he pulled the third logbook away, replacing it with another. “Now, take a look at what happened here. Fourth term.”

Immediately, Callie flipped through the preliminary stuff, going straight for the recruit records. Her eyes shot wide as she reached it and started to leaf through the pages. “Whoa!”

“I know,” the Arkan said, nodding in understanding agreement.

Nearly every single recruit had been notated as receiving at least one melded or off-class skill. A few got one as early as Bronze, or in one case, two, but at Silver it was red on most pages. A Paladin with Dash. A Martialist throwing fireballs. A Ranger that was able to conjure a cloud of arrows that encircled them at high speed, injuring anyone that might get too close. “Most of them have something,” Callie said, looking up to the Arkan for confirmation. “What changed this session compared to the previous? More people?”

“There were a few more recruits this time, somewhere in the low fifties, but turn back to the beginning; the third or fourth page.”

Callie flipped to the front, and then started turning pages.

“There!” Pelidri said. He leaned forward and pointed. “Right there. I think that’s what did it.”

“Huh,” Callie replied, digesting what she was reading. “That’s … interesting.” It wasn’t really a noteworthy entry. There were no circles or arrows or the Legate’s pretty little hearts to make it stand out, but now seeing the words, they almost glowed like a beacon. ‘Rather than house the same classes together, to encourage cross-class collaboration we will assign a variety of classes to each bunkhouse this term’.

“It didn’t work out perfectly,” Pelidri continued, making a ‘so-so’ motion with his hand. “From what the notes the next session say, there were too many personality conflicts when the recruits were arbitrarily assigned, which led to a headache of having to move people around later in the term. Instead, for the fifth one, they let the recruits form their own groups if they wanted to when they arrived, but the housing quartermaster had instructions to try to mix up the classes if possible, where there was space.”

“When we arrived,” Callie began, thinking back to that first day that seemed almost a lifetime ago, “we were allowed to be together if we found other friends. For me, there were five of us, and Pixyl was added as the sixth because we had an empty bunk. Each of us is a different class.”

“There you are,” Pelidri said.

“Do you have the one for this term?” Callie asked, closing the book she was holding and setting it on the table.

“It’s all still loose pages around the camp,” Pelidri replied, “so it hasn’t been collected and bound yet, and won’t be until the end of the term.” He reached and pulled out one of the thickest books. “This is the most-recent term, though.”

Callie opened the most-recent book and quickly paged to where the individual recruits were recorded. “Wow!” Every single recruit had red entries, most at least two. Page after page of melded skills and perks, or off-class versions of something. There was even a Paladin that could summon some kind of ghostly battle armor over five meters tall. It amplified their strength and absorbed damage, much like one of those mech suits in the Japanese cartoons her nerdy friends at college liked. It even came with an appropriately mech-sized summoned shield and sword, and could lob explosive bombs.

While Callie already knew from Morpheus that the Symbiotes were teaching things to each other, to see the progression via raw data was absolutely fascinating. If she had to speculate wildly based on what she was seeing, there needed to be both a critical mass of Symbiotes present, and a large enough variety of classes in close proximity for long durations, such as sleeping in the same bunkhouse, to maximize the potential for learning something special. They might also need to be low-tier, so that they’d rank up quickly - higher tiers would be too slow . Early terms either lacked enough students or housed them by class, reducing the intermingling needed. But once the number of recruits got high enough, and the residents of each cabin were largely made up of different classes, the little slugs really got to chatting and inspiring each other. Still, Callie wondered out loud, “How did Thorn and the rest not see this pattern? For that matter, how has this never been discovered elsewhere?”

The Arkan shrugged. “It took well over a year to get to results like this, so I think it just crept up on them. I also noticed the pages for each class have different writing, so they are likely completed by the individual trainers. Some of those early trainers have been replaced over time, and nobody ever had a reason to go back and compare the current recruits as a whole to those earlier records, so no one ever saw that pattern of what was happening. If I was in Thorn’s place, I may not have noticed it either.”

“I could actually see that happening,” Callie said in understanding. That was an important lesson from a statistics class back in college. Sometimes you had to look at data in the aggregate to see the patterns that weren’t evident if you just picked smaller samples or moments in time. “What about someone discovering this elsewhere?”

“Think about it, Little One. Worms are already rare enough, but Advanced classes? Incredibly, incredibly rare, and all types quite expensive. What kinds of opportunities could there have been for a large enough variety of Advanced worms to be together, for a long enough period of time, with them all being carried by low-tier hosts undergoing rigorous training? Even in places where large groups of the wealthy might assemble, or at high-ranked military gatherings, most of those hosts will be at least Gold tier, and not in a training environment like here.”

“Huh,” Callie huffed, thinking it through. “When you put it that way …”

“So, I think you and your Master Trainer are on to something here,” Pelidri said, standing up and cracking his back as he made a wincing face. “He wants to experiment with the next term by bringing some Warriors for training, giving them Symbiotes, to see if they learn Advanced class skills. That’s quite a bit less expensive an investment, and if that’s successful, it could redefine how we train troops.” Pelidri casually walked over to the door and opened it, concluding his thought with, “It could redefine a lot of things, actually.”

Sitting outside the doorway on the porch steps was an absolutely soaked, shivering Pixyl. Apparently Callie had been so engrossed in the logbooks and the conversation, she hadn’t even noticed it had started to rain. Not just rain, but an absolute downpour. There was no thunder or lightning, but the rain was, for the moment, so thick as to make it hard to even see the guest cabin across the way.

“Pixyl!” Callie said, scrambling from her chair. “I thought you were going back home?”

“I d-d-didn’t think you would b-b-be very long,” she replied. Callie wasn’t sure if she was stuttering or if her teeth were chattering. She was definitely shivering pretty violently, though.

“Well. shake yourself off and come on in,” the Arkan said, gesturing the Pixie through the door. “I’ll get you a towel and make you some hot tea.”

Pixyl looked from the Arkan to Callie and then back again, seeming reluctant to intrude, or more likely simply intimidated. Rainwater dribbled down her face and off the end of her wings, and her wet hair hung matted, making her look like some poor, pathetic blue-furred cat that had fallen into a lake.

“Come on,” Pelidri re-emphasized, gesturing again. “Inside!”

Swallowing hard, Pixyl fluttered her wings like a hummingbird to shake off the rain, and then stepped inside.

“Wait there,” Pelidri ordered, pointing to the spot where Pixyl was standing. He danced around her and walked towards what Callie assumed was a bathroom of some kind. A moment later he returned with a small stack of towels, grabbing a blanket off his bed as he passed. He gave one of the towels to Pixyl and set the others on a chair, while hanging the blanket over the chair’s back. “Dry yourself off a bit and then go get out of those wet things and wrap yourself in the blanket. Give me a few minutes on the tea.”

The Arkan walked into the prep area, taking down a mug and small teapot. He had a metal tea infuser that he filled with leaves from a small tin, and then added some water. From another stoneware bowl, he picked up a ping pong ball sized object, adding it to the teapot and then blowing on the end of his fingers. “Heating stones,” he clarified to the girls, pointing to the bowl. “I always travel with some so I can easily make tea. It will only take a few minutes.”

“I can’t believe you sat out there in the rain,” Callie scolded as she took the towel from Pixyl and started to dry her off. “You’re getting water everywhere, you goof.”

“I d-d-didn’t want to interrupt. And I wanted to w-w-walk back with you if it d-d-didn’t go well.”

Callie rolled her eyes and ruffled Pixyl’s hair with the towel, being just a little extra aggressive for emphasis as she mussed it up. “You are simply soaked!”

Pelidri for his part smirked at the two, instinctively keeping perfect track of when the tea would be ready. “Well, since we have some time, why don’t you both tell me of your mission to destroy the bogwump nest? From what the Commandant said, it sounds like quite the exciting adventure, especially being led by a Bronze Tier Gnome in only her second week of training. I’d love to hear the full story. They also mentioned something about Elementals? Oh, Corporal-Major, you must tell me all about how you distinguished yourself on the first day. A Bronze Sword; quite the achievement.”

Pixyl blushed at the reminder and looked away.

“Also, Little One, apparently you stole some unicorn blood?”