“Relax,” Hunter breathed out the word like a sigh. He watched Aera take a deep breath. Her shoulders sank slightly. Her jaw loosened and her lips parted. She breathed in again, and he saw her fingers and her wrists go slightly more limp in her lap.
“Back straight,” he said. She pursed her lips and straightened her back. Breathing again, she went through another cycle of relaxation, her body loosening as her attention slowly moved around her body.
“Good,” Hunter said, “breathe normally. Let the feeling of rest in your body seep into your mind.”
He walked around her. Sunlight shone through Barnum’s soul. He hadn’t remembered there being as many pillars here before, but it felt right. There was no warmth, and there was no cold. He felt no etheric presence, so whatever they used to control the temperature must have been strictly electronic. He was impressed.
He said as much, and Aera nodded wordlessly in agreement as she walked beside him.
“Didn’t I just tell you to relax?” he said.
She looked him in the eye.
“There’s so much space inside,” she said. Hunter laughed, knowing what she was referring to.
“Yes! The space is everywhere, and you can imagine it extending infinitely in all directions. If you focus on that, you can relax even more deeply.”
She nodded and considered his words, shifting in her seated position at the center of the soul. He continued walking around her, tracing the edge of the strange gazebo they had found.
Was it always like this? Pillared, with a vast blue sky beyond, sunlight streaming in from everywhere, yet with no apparent source?
The shadows cast by the pillars all pointed towards the center, where Aera sat, breathing and out, deeply relaxed.
“My AR is higher than yours,” she said, “so this should be pretty easy for me.”
“Well, that’s what I’m wondering,” he said, “if you don’t have a sensitivity, can you still use the internal arts?”
They tiptoed down the street, observing hundreds of people as they sat quietly with their drawstones. He could feel etherium flowing towards them from all directions.
“It’s like the world is taking a breath,” Aera said. She was holding a drawstone now, too. Where had she gotten it? She must have always had it.
“This one is bigger than any I’ve felt before,” Hunter said. Aera nodded.
“Should we tell someone?” She asked.
“Why? This isn’t an ether storm, it’s just the internal arts.”
“How do you know?” She asked.
“Because they’re different,” he replied, thinking that it was the most obvious fact in the world.
“Well, as long as you know it’s safe, I’ll trust you,” she said.
The amount of etherium flowing towards them increased. Then it increased again and again.
“Aera, slow down,” he said, feeling some concern. “This is a lot.”
“Jealous?” She asked. The spotless blue sky was now growing cloudy around the soul. There wasn’t another person in sight, just the two of them, the gathering storm, and Aera at the center of the whirlwind.
He stepped towards her.
“Aera, I think you should take it easy.”
“You really think that after giving your secrets to me, you can just take them away? They’re mine now. Besides, you said it was safe.”
He suddenly realized that he never actually said that the internal arts were safe.
“I didn’t,” he said, “as far as I know, this made my father into who he was.”
Aera opened her eyes. There was something inside her, a glowing light that shone through her skin, exposing her skeleton, her muscles, and her veins.
“Is that what you’re trying to make me? A killer?” she asked, rage contorting her features. Once more, the etheric flow increased, and it lifted her from the ground. The clouds swirled around them as if they were in the eye of a tornado, yet the etherium felt like a malevolent wind, buffeting them.
Her eyes shone brighter, and she screamed.
“Aera! Drop the drawstone, it’s not worth the risk!” he yelled.
The clouds behind her shifted into an amalgamation resembling her face. It spoke, and the world rumbled with her voice.
“You did this to me!” she screamed. She moved her arm, and the storm gathered closer. Paralysis gripped him, and her inner glow intensified. He could only watch as her skin charred, and the light within, shining now through her eyes and her mouth, took on the tone of deep oranges and reds.
The face in the contracting storm glowed as well. As she screamed, so the storm followed, and the noise was like terror incarnate.
“You did this!“You did this!” she said, pointing at him; the inner light burst through her like a nova, reducing her to ash.
“Aera!” Hunter screamed, sitting up in his bed, panting and sweating. One hand gripped his chest, the other reached forward towards…
His own reflection in the mirror across from his bed. He panted and sighed. It was just a dream. He laid back down in his bed, one arm over his forehead, and he closed his eyes. He hadn’t had a dream that intense since he’d been in the hospital after Pippen Visgold ganged up on him with his henchmen. Hunter stilled his breath as best as he could and went through some of his relaxation exercises.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
There was a soft symphony of hurrying footsteps and excited voices outside of his quarters. The muffled sound of a voice coming through the ship’s intercom was so familiar to him now. It wouldn’t feel like a proper morning without the feeling of an active ship, full of life at all hours of the day and night cycle.
Today differed from other mornings, though. Today was landing day. Almost everyone would be awake now, preparing for the grand finale of their long journey through countless miles of space. In mere hours, they would cross the threshold into a new world, and start setting the foundations for the colony they would come to call their home.
He checked the time. He still had a couple of hours before the crew assembled for the Captain’s landing-day speech. His job during the speech would be to stand beside Trey and Aera, nodding and smiling as the Captain spoke whatever words he’d come up with. Hunter imagined this might be a historic occasion, and future generations might read his speech.
Ideally.
If they could secure enough resources, be self sustaining, and didn’t all get wiped out by some nasty alien parasite or exotic germ which would rapidly reproduce and consume them from the inside out.
Could he be sure of the probability of that happening? Absolutely not. Biology wasn’t an interest of his. Their knowledge of the world they were about to settle was dwarfed by their ignorance.
Hunter got out of bed and sat down to meditate, setting his timer for 45 minutes. He thought about his progress and wondered what the next few years would look like. He’d already learned the first 3 of the 4 techniques his father had developed in order to speed up his AR growth. After the initial growth spurt, his AR had almost doubled. But he’d reached a point that mere attunement to his channels wouldn’t have much of an effect. He needed to learn how to grow new channels. From there, he could raise his AR at a rate of one point per week, approximately. He imagined his progress had been much faster than his fathers, who had said that once he’d been able to grow his own channels, he’d seen his AR rise by 3 every month.
If Hunter didn’t practice the techniques, his AR would rise at the rate of a normal adult male. Probably faster, given his genetics. By the time he was 40 years old, his AR could be in the 80s or 90’s if he had casual contact with drawstones for the rest of his life. Given his line of work, he could probably hit the 100s before he reached his midlife.
Now that his AR wasnt hindered by some deep psychological trauma, his midlife might be well into his 50’s or 60’s. So he could even see his AR naturally rise to 150 of he didn’t practice the inner arts ever again. He might even develop a new mutation. How interesting would that be?
The internal arts had only been relevant when his AR had been stuck, and he was facing a lifetime of struggle.
But things were different now. The problem was solved. So what use was the internal arts? Just getting stronger? Living longer? What use did he have for any of that right now? He’d live plenty long and be plenty strong as it was.
If he pushed himself, and ended up with an AR in the 300s, or 400s, or 500s, what would happen to him along the way? He wasn’t sure he liked the answer.
Who had his father become, and who would he have been if this obsession hadn’t driven him so far? What would happen if someone tampered with their etheric channels? His father’s journals stated that he had noticed no negative side effects—but this same man had experimented on and killed innocent people for this work; therefore, could his judgment be trusted?
Probably not.
That being said, he’d come so far. He felt it would be a shame to stop practicing altogether.
His alarm beeped, and he sighed.
Maybe it was best to turn the whole thing over to Oberon Researchers, and they could find ethical ways to understand it and its potential side effects. They might even come up with a way to speed up the growth of AR which was guaranteed to be safe.
After showering and dressing, he finished the paperwork that had been assigned to him a week prior to register him as a citizen of the new colony.
After placing his ring on his finger, he checked his uniform in the mirror. He figured he’d do Aera proud and present himself as she hoped an Oberon heir would. He smoothed his uniform out as best as he could and then stepped out the door of his quarters.
The door slid open and Hunter braced himself to face the expectant faces of the passing crewmen.
“Sir,” a young man greeted as Hunter stepped out. He was older than Hunter, but still young compared to all the command stuff he’d grown used to being around. The crewman was a Junior Crewman, judging by the single white pip on the collar of his light grey tunic.
Hunter returned the greeting, hiding his internal grimace with a polite smile. He was taking his queue from Trey.
“As you were,” he told the crewman. Hunter felt a small sense of relief when the young man left. But he tensed up immediately when another crewman greeted him with the honorific of a superior officer. Hunter gave another as-you-were and walked with speed to meet up with Aera in the mess hall.
He was starving and couldn’t wait to get off the ship. It had served them well on their long journey between worlds, but having a bunch of grown men and women referring to him as if he were superior — as if his authority trumped their own individual expertise, it made him cringe.
Aera somehow handled it with grace. Then again, she was born to the role. Hunter figured he’d be able to adjust, eventually. When ‘eventually’ was might as well have stretched out in to this later decades, as far as he was concerned.
Turning into the mess hall was like a weight lifting off of his shoulders. Their conversations and meals preoccupied most people there, so they didn’t notice him. He was grateful he wasn’t the captain, to whom the ship afforded supreme respect, almost like a king.
He’d been in the mess hall when Captain Gregor had come for dinner with the crew. The captain’s arrival was announced as soon as he entered the hall. The mess hall wasn’t like other parts of the ship, where everyone would have to salute when the captain passed by, but an acknowledgement the likes of which Hunter had received on his way there was the bare minimum.
“Hey, you,” he said, sitting across from Aera. She dismissed her assistants, but Hunter saw that their food was only half eaten. He frowned.
“I don’t mind if they stay,” he said to her. She shrugged and nodded towards them.
“It’s alright, Mr. Oberon. We’ve each got a hundred things to get done before we land, so we can eat the rest of this later,” one assistant said. Hunter wouldn’t argue with them if they’d made up their minds.
After they’d left, Aera cocked her head at him and raised an eyebrow. Her eyes quickly flicked to his right hand, where he was wearing the black onyx signet ring.
“You didn’t correct them,” she said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“When they called you Mr. Oberon,” Aera said, “you’re usually pretty quick to correct them.”
It was Hunter’s turn to shrug.
“What’s the plan for today, boss?” he asked, not really sure what more needed to be said. Maybe he didn’t mind being an Oberon. His last name didn’t really feel relevant anymore. His attachment to the name, even after hearing about what his father had done, was nothing more than his reluctance to let go of the past.
If there’s one thing Hunter had realized over the last year, was that he’d changed. He was compelled to learn much about himself and to push for growth within a short time, resulting in the loss of his former identity.
He didn’t need to be a Koar anymore. It meant nothing to him but pain and shame.
Aera studied him for a second, and he hid nothing. There was nothing to hide.
“The plan,” she said, wolfing down some eggs, “is the same as it’s always been. As soon as we touch down, there will be a deep assessment of the outpost’s facilities. Based on the outpost’s status, we’ll decide which plan we’ve built will be the most relevant for the foundations of the new colony. We’ll only have about a week before the first wave of ships arrives, so we’ll need to build enough housing for a few thousand people, and a pipeline for them to plug into in order to prepare for the waves after that. The third wave will be the largest, since it will include the bulk of our military fleet, as well as the remaining colonists from the furthest outposts.”
“We need to build a few thousand houses in a week?” Hunter asked.
“Prefabs,” Aera said, “pre-fabricated modules. Not enough for all the housing we’ll need, but it’ll cover most it if we double or triple-up on the amount of people in each home. The rest will be bound to ships for a while. We’ve just finished setting up the registration system for housing assignments. We are thinking of a town-house/apartment model for most of our living quarters. The living quarters will be cramped for a year, but most people will have their own space soon after that.”
Hunter sighed.
“Cramped. Great.”
“Us three will live together, so you won’t be sleeping among strangers. We’ll try to keep families and friends together as much as possible, but there’s only so much we can do, especially when we’re in such a rush. However, if you want to help speed the process along…”
Hunter considered her words.
“Yeah, if you can get me a meeting with whoever is in charge of the construction effort, I’ll see what I can do.”
“You’ve finished your leadership modules, right?” she asked. He nodded.
“So you know the importance of meeting people’s standards whenever you can. We’re compromising with them right now, telling them that a short-term sacrifice is going to pay off in the long run. It’s our job to meet that payoff, and if my father were here, he’d probably say that we would want to exceed it.”
Hunter hummed.
“I feel like my workload has just multiplied,” he said. Aera carefully laid down her fork and looked him in the eye.
“It has. And it will probably multiply again, and we’ll be facing many threats that wouldn’t have been a problem back home, or in any other world that we’ve discovered so far. Is that going to be a problem?”
He sputtered slightly, surprised by the sudden change in tone.
Hunter, your complete commitment is crucial to me. I know what you’re capable of when you set your mind to getting something done. I’ve seen it. It’s impressive, but you’re not the person who can force themselves to do something if you don’t believe in it.”
He shook his head. He understood what she was saying, but he wasn’t sure where exactly this was coming from.
“I wasn’t really complaining about it,” he said, “but maybe I’d be lying to myself if I said I wasn’t at least a bit intimidated by the marathon ahead of us. When you say threats, you mean the beast waves, right?”
Aera nodded.
“Yeah, the beat waves. We still don’t understand them, but that doesn’t mean we never will. Until we do, we treat them as just another hazard. And your being intimidated by the workload is fair. But let me know if you suddenly feel like its too much for you. You’re going to be integral to helping install the colony’s infrastructure, and be mindful of the fact that once you’ve shared your father’s research, and yours, we’ll probably want to upgrade that infrastructure without too much hassle.”
“‘We,’ she says,” Hunter laughed, “yeah, I get it. You want to make sure I’m meeting everyone halfway. Uneven development might lead to problems down the road, so we need to keep pace with each other.”
“Exactly. Your leadership modules are paying off,” she said, sounding pleased. “You did well with your uniform this morning, by the way.”
Hunter felt gratified that she noticed. If she did, others did as well. Maybe they’d have some small, genuine respect for the teenager they’re all supposed to refer to as ‘sir.’
They both finished their meals and decided to meet up on the observation deck after the Captain’s speech to watch the approach to Skyhold with the best view the ship can offer. He was looking forward to getting a breath of fresh air after the shield goes down. It’ll be the first deactivation since the ship started its journey, and Hunter imagined that the fresh air was sure to be like a reinvigorating tonic.