[Player Log Start!]
[Log Holder: Asadullah Khan]
[Level: 1]
[! This Log has been Translated From Urdu !]
He woke up on a bed. Well… not actually a bed. It was a mattress, he thinks. A bed was too low to give him the view of the room he had.
Wait… where was he? What was this room?
He squinted, trying to lift his head up to see what was around him. In every direction, there were eggshell walls with suspicious stains on them. A warm, golden light ebbed from a lamp on the floor, even though he could clearly see intact lights on the ceiling.
Something creaked to his left, and his head was moving before he could even think. Bright orange eyes stared into his soul. He jumped backwards, his heart in his throat.
“Uh… hey.” He croaked out. The person remained quiet, hands a blur from their fidgeting.
“Are you gonna say anything?” He asked, voice painful with every word. When was the last time he’d drank anything? He had a feeling it was too long.
A glass was offered to him by the person, sweating bullets of condensation. They kept watching him as he latched onto it and drank desperately.
The only hint he had that his savior had said anything at all was when the subtitles popped up underneath him, their real words barely a whisper into Asadullah’s sharp ears.
“Been a while since I talked to anyone. Sorry if my voice is… shot.”
“It’s okay.” Asadullah assured them, tilting the glass completely backwards, letting the last icy drops trickle down his throat, “Where is this? Who are you?”
They mulled it over, looking at him with those same vacant eyes. He thought they were orange at first glance but now, he could see the swirls of brown and green of unique hazel eyes, all mixed together to create the illusion of orange.
“I’m Terry Glasgow. And I’m a guy, kind of, I guess? It’s a little confusing for me, but… yeah. Just use whatever you want.” He whispered, his vocal cords raspy from disuse. Asadullah was taken by surprise by his easy coming out. How could you just… say something like that? It was almost awe-inspiring.
“Cool.” He decided to say instead, “That’s fun. Where are we, Terry?”
The boy brightened up, running his hand through his hair at the address, “Grocery store. Squatting for two years, since the outbreak.”
“Haven’t left even once?” Asadullah blinked, looking around in surprise. The place certainly looked the part. It explained the peculiar smell in the air, a mixture of stale air and body odor. The smell left behind when someone had been living in a room for far too long.
“No.” He replied, “You can’t go. Too dangerous.”
“Not for me.” Asadullah promised, twisting his ears around to bring Terry’s attention to them, “What do you think these were?”
“Cosplay prosthetics?” He guessed. Asadullah didn’t know what those were, but he had the feeling that Terry didn’t quite understand the gravity of the situation.
“No, bro!” He laughed, “This is proof of magic!”
“Right. Magic.” Terry was skeptical.
“Oh, you’ll go along with the floating translation boxes, but you won’t believe the claim of other kinds of magic?” Asadullah frowned.
“But I see the words.” Terry frowned, “Give me proof!”
Asadullah looked at him flatly, before doing a little wriggle and melting into the form of a medium sized cat. Changing his body size too much was tiring, and even with this little trick, the djinn in the bangle protested at the action, and he had to shift back into human pretty quickly.
Still, it did the trick, and Terry stared at him, wonderstruck. In his excitement, he waved his hands, making signs that Asadullah couldn’t parse.
[Languages Incompatible!]
[Preparing Subtitles…]
“Holy shit!!”
“You sound impressed.” Asadullah winked at him.
Terry laughed, continuing to sign, “You can understand me?”
“Yeah, the Console is the one that can provide translations to every language.” Asadullah explained, before deflating as the previous day’s events came back to him, “Shit. We lost the Console. I was supposed to find it. The scent led me all the way here, but I didn’t see anything.”
“What’s this ‘Console’?” Terry asked, still signing along instead of his feathery light whispers, “I’ll help you look for it, if you think it could help.”
“It’s-” Asadullah struggled to explain it, “It’s a thin metal suitcase, with a keyboard on one side, and a glass panel on the other side which lights up. They called it a… lupthop?” He struggled to recreate the exact words they had used for the device. There wasn’t a direct translation for the word, so he had to work with what he had.
“You mean a… laptop?” Terry surmised, breaking his silence when his hands failed. Communication was going to be hell between them, wasn’t it?
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“Yeah!” He nodded, “You know if anyone like that passed by?”
Terry dug his nails into his hands, eyes fixed on the ground. Then, he span on his heel and walked out of the room. Asadullah frowned and followed after him, taking it as a sign to press him for more information. The room he’d been put in was small in comparison to the giant room they exited out into. The ceiling wasn’t particularly high, and the ventilation wasn’t right for it to be a warehouse, but it was stocked full of materials of every kind. A lot of food, for one, a bunch of it which was rotting, but other stuff too. Lights, fake grass, chairs, notebooks, clothes, shoes, and boxes upon boxes.
He'd seen grocery stores. This wasn’t a grocery store in any sense of the term.
It had clearly been messed with, though. Shelves that should have been arranged in neat columns and rows were being stacked against the doors and windows, acting as a barricade, and the materials themselves were sorted into categories and piled up like Jenga towers.
Part of the floor was torn up to reveal loamy soil. Except it didn’t have the same consistency as the soil outside, so he assumed that this was actually an indoor flowerbed that Terry had artificially expanded to grow weak plants, dotted with fronds of fungus.
Still, he didn’t have time to stop and stare as Terry moved through the room with practiced ease over to where pens and notebooks had been carefully set out. In the middle of that wonderfully arranged space, blending right in, was the silvery piece of equipment that had ruled his life for the past few weeks.
The Console.
Immediately, he saw red, turning around to stare accusingly at Terry as claws bubbled up to the surface of his fingertips. He wanted to believe the best of Terry, this strange, reclusive boy who was so much like him in the most unexpected way. But this… this changed everything. And no matter how guilty and sad he looked, Asadullah refused to let him get away with this.
“Explain. Now.” He growled, “You said you never left, so how the fuck did you get your grubby little paws on this?”
He flinched, suddenly determined to look anywhere but at him.
“D-didn’t lie.” He managed out through quavering lips, “Never left. Zombie in the storage room, Derek, picked it up during yesterday’s test run.”
“You named a zombie?” He demanded, before backtracking, “Wait, what??? What are you talking about??? You’re testing them?”
If anything, Terry shrunk down even more, “It’s. Stupid.” He muttered, “Won’t go anywhere. Just me being ridiculous. Seeing patterns where there aren’t. Just wishful hypotheses.”
“Dude, just tell me what’s going on.” He replied, “This isn’t cute or whatever. Give me straight answers before I start losing my patience.”
“I’m working on a zombie cure!” The boy, frail and thin and might even have been younger than Jared, blurted out, his fingers making meaningless signs as he went. That shut Asadullah right up.
“Are you serious?” He asked, trying not to give away his excitement, “Is it going anywhere?”
“Derek is the only patient. But he’s doing well.” Terry agreed.
Oh, that was why it was so overpowered. Whatever ‘treatment’ Terry had worked out, it must be leveling up the creature like crazy.
“Maybe that isn’t very clever.” He suggested, “What if Derek becomes strong enough to overpower you, and then you can’t stop him from attacking you?”
Terry frowned, as if the thought had only just occurred to him, “You may have a point.” He allowed, “But I don’t think rebuilding his nervous systems using mycelium will do much in making him stronger.”
Right. Clearly this explanation was so bizarre that his translator wasn’t working correctly. That was the excuse he was going to go with, otherwise he would have to actually address what this boy had said.
“That sounds fascinating, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to find the rest of my team and tell them I found the Console.” He replied, “I’m assuming you won’t go anywhere?”
“The rest of your team?” Terry looked like a baby deer at the mere idea, “How many?”
“Oh, not a lot. Like… Five others.” That was a lot, actually. He didn’t have five friends back in Mira. Or was he the weird one in this situation.
“I don’t think I have the food.” Terry looked around, taking stock of the canned food stacked into a pyramid in one portion of the room. It was taking all of Asadullah’s self-control to not knock it down.
“Don’t worry about it, we won’t take anything from you.” Asadullah promised him. Nothing except that sweet, sweet world-saving knowledge locked away in his skull, “Just need a little time to regroup.”
“I’ll go make room.” He agreed, wandering over to the part of the room where the sleeping bags and pillows and other soft materials were kept. For a few moments, there was silence, and then, with quiet amazement, his voice broke out, “How will they come through the rain?”
Asadullah froze, turning to look at the exposed chunk of window that provided a look outside, and saw that it was almost completely clouded over with raindrops, which continued to beat down with cheery tenacity, no end in sight.
He’d forgotten the rain that had washed away the scent of the laptop until he had coincidentally found the end of the trail. Surely the others’ tracks were washed away, as well. He had no way of finding them through that.
He groaned and reached for the Console. Terry’s eyes were weighing on him with every move, but he found that it wasn’t an unpleasant experience as he booted it up. It was a fragile machine, and his hands felt much too forceful when he did it, but he was certain the motions were the same that Michael and Jared always made to boot it.
Immediately, a victorious chime filled the air, yet Terry remained completely oblivious to it and the panel that followed. At least this panel was that cheerful green he’d come to appreciate.
[Console Recovered!]
[Console is Once Again in Ownership of Party(Main)!]
He’d been hoping for a compass of some kind, like the ones being used to track down Sub-Levels but with his friends’ location instead.
No such luck.
After much frantic search bar typing, he managed to find something of use, though.
[Direct Messaging – 10 Points per Message]
[Choose Recipient: |]
[Message: ]
Luckily, he’d just gotten a jackpot of money from the drop left behind by that insanely leveled out zombie, so he had points to burn. Still, best to stick to one message. He immediately got to typing.
[Choose Recipient: Verity Monroe]
[Message: Found console. In Grocery store. Also may have found our cure maker. Haul ass and get over here. Reply if you receive. Good luck |]
He read it, then read it again.
“Do you think this’ll work?” He asked, hyperaware of Terry now hovering over his shoulder.
“The internet doesn’t work, so it won’t send.” Terry warned, “But, yes.”
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” Asadullah assured him and clicked send.
[Sending Direct Message…]
“That computer…” Terry noted, “I didn’t see much. But it’s not normal.”
“Nope.” He confirmed, “It’s out of this world.”
“Enigmatic?” Terry at least had the good humor to grin back, “Not what I look for in a guy.”
“Uh… well…” Asadullah spluttered, taken by surprise, “I’ll give you a better explanation when my team gets here?”
“If you promise.” Terry agreed, “When will that be?”
The Console’s tinny speakers let out a ding! and a message popped up on the screen in response to his own. [You got it. Meet you there. We’re backtracking through the rain to the place where we split off and following the trail there.]
“A day, maybe.” He answered Terry, “But first we need to make sure that your buddy Derek doesn’t mistake them for food.”
[End Player Log!]