Having somewhat illicitly acquired the gems he needed without spending coin, Jade sent messages to Skyheart Snowsong and Apella, and arranged to use the portal he had just finished the quest to repair the day before.
Jade felt like he was cutting in line, as a member of the guild who had placed the first permanent portal to the moon waved him forward. The portal that he had helped stabilize now carried a never ending stream of traffic.
"You did a great job! The portal has remained stable for several game days now!" the player assured him loudly as people glared.
"Thank you," Hisui's voice sounded calmer than Jade felt as he snatched the message a mischievous flying squirrel dropped on its way by.
The glares subsided as the sturdy dwarf stepped aside for a moment to allow the next wagon through. Jade wasn't really being polite though, he was quickly reading the reply Sky's messenger had just delivered.
"Actually, it's no use trying to send the gems to me, I've already traveled farther west on foot with the Augusmin," she reported.
"What's wrong?" the player who was now trying to help clear the dias path for Hisui's transport spot after the awkward cart, asked far more quietly.
"Nothing, I'm still going through, thank you," Jade replied quickly.
He stepped into the light.
On the other side, he bumped into the back of the cart, which was quickly hauled out of the way. Players milled around the portal in confusion, while another member of the guild that had made the placement tried to sell them dark glasses and maps.
Jade bought a map out of curiosity. It was a higher quality production than he had expected, and updated even as he examined it. This portal and the giant tree were already marked down, as well as the poles and general outlines that had been observed from Living Jade Empire. There were also seven ships, a dozen crash sites, and what looked like the markings for ocean currents.
He checked the names, but his own little ship's location wasn't marked, yet. A large palisade was in construction around the portal, atop a moderately rocky outcrop. Apella logged in, and a moment later her messenger hovered beside Hisui holding a scroll that seemed far too large for a message that Eric could have created in an instant.
--
Jade spent a little longer than he had planned, getting his little airship recharged, but he left Apella and Sky set up to continue their adventures more comfortably.
He logged in for the first test a little nervously.
The first question was far more difficult than he had imagined. "Do you think you are human?"
The tricky part was that the possible answers list included, "yes", "no", "genetically", "mentally", and "mechanically".
Jade made his choices, and then started the second test without taking more than a five minute break.
By the time he finished filling out the color wheel at the end of that test, he was beginning to wonder who had constructed this set of tests, and whether or not they had been human.
The third test was a combination of small, silly little questions: "Have you been affected by others?" There was no way to avoid that as long as your memory worked, was there? "Can you describe emotions with colors?" The language he spoke in his daily life used them as common adjectives, like describing someone as green with envy. "Has your heart beat?" The silly insistence that it must, stabbed Jade hard enough that it made him cry. That harebrained man had known he'd have to answer this question someday.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The seventh test made Jade angry. It was full of questions without answers, but it still followed the standard format of choice selection, so that you were forced to give wrong answers if you completed the test.
The twelfth test asked silly "yes" or "no" questions like, "Can you tell a lie?" Jade couldn't help but wonder what would happen if you lied on that set. Or if he should have lied. If they wanted you to lie about lying, he had already failed.
By the sixteenth test, Jade had given up on trying not to use his orbital server, and was scrounging through every memory either system had stored. He was incredibly tempted to contact other systems, or simply "go online" to look up what a human answer should be. But honor kept him confined to his own resources.
By the twenty-fourth test, Jade was numb. Until he reached the first question again. "Do you think you are human?" There was no, "I don't know." He sat there in front of that unanswered question until the timer stopped.
After a while, a familiar person logged into his orbital server. One of the people who had watched over him for years.
"I'm sorry," Jade said sadly.
Josh Beagle laughed.
Jade stared at the man, as though the sound he had made were incomprehensible.
"She said you'd say that," Josh informed him with amusement.
"My mother?" Jade asked with confusion.
Josh giggled, as though he were decades younger than he currently was. "I," he wheezed, "never thought to ask her," he admitted.
"What are you doing?" Danika Belova asked rather sharply as she logged in next.
It had been a long time since Jade's orbital system had been connected to multiple people at once. He felt oddly shy.
Josh spluttered and explained laughingly, "Probably psychically wounding the child!"
"You're both idiots," Danika muttered.
"Humanity's idiocy at its finest!" Josh declared with sparkling eyes.
"What?" Jade asked blankly.
"Congratulations, you will soon be officially eligible for death and taxes," Danika said dryly.
Jade stared at her for so long that Josh walked across the tiny space and patted him on the shoulder.
"That's ridiculous!" Jade exclaimed.
The exclamation was like pulling a cork from a bottle of a strongly carbonated brew, and his reactions bubbled over, bouncing from emotion to emotion like a drunken dancer.
"The delay is pretty standard, and taxes are inevitable for every form of bureaucracy," Josh pointed out reasonably.
"That's not what I mean!" Jade protested.
He drew a deep breath in preparation for the list of complaints he wanted to make, but Danika interrupted with, "Want to hear what a doctor said about these tests?"
Jade's moment of hesitation inevitably led to curiosity. "Sure," he agreed warily.
The video Danika played showed a very intense man of indeterminate age, who ranted about the ridiculous construction of the questions that had only in part included generally accepted qualifications and guidelines.
"Human test subjects of any race or culture should always be able to pass something like this easily, and testing that should be a standard requirement for this kind of thing!" the doctor declared passionately.
Jade nodded. Especially when the doctor disassembled the question about lying, pointing out that any human who denied it would be lying, even if they never intended to do so.
The emphatic motions the man used seemed so oddly familiar, but even with immediate access to his orbital memory storage here, it took Jade a while to ask, "Is that… is he the person who used to play MatchlessMinion?"
Danika laughed again, so uproariously that it was Josh who answered, "Yeah."
"He's a doctor!?" Jade asked incredulously.
"He is!" Danika assured him.
"Can humans actually pass this test?" Jade asked even more suspiciously as he read the list of failed test subjects that included a famous politician and an even more famous dolphin.
"Some of them," Josh assured him calmly.
"I did!" Danika added.