CHAPTER 340 – ALIEN DIPLOMACY

Tom left the system room with those last couple of sentences bouncing around in his head. You could solve the zone however you wanted. Overwhelming violence could win, but so could diplomacy. He was trying to understand what those lines implied. Was this trial going to play out equivalent to what happened in real-life situations. It was a stretch. A facade of sapience in trials was not unknown, but rarely on the scale the quest text seemed to be implying. Usually, it would just be an anointed guide that acted more like a linear script from earth games than a real person.

This was different. This was a challenge, crafted by the GODs.

In this place, Tom suspected the natives would be indistinguishable from real people.

Michael rounded on Keikain. He, like most gathered here, knew exactly what was being referred too. “Do you think you use them? If so, it’ll solve a lot of issues.”

The earth mage frowned at the healer. “I don’t want to discuss it.”

“To bad. I’m not giving you a choice. If you can’t even handle a conversation, you shouldn’t have purchased the blood line. If it works, you have to do it. Sacrifice all of them until you’re so bloated you can’t take any more in.”

“You’re being mean. You don’t need to raise it like this! Especially so openly.” Clare hissed, with a concerned look toward Vidja’s team. “It won’t work, anyway. The façade line was directed at us.”

Michael ignored the undertones and stared briefly up at the ceiling like he did when he was pondering a subject. “You’re probably right. I doubt they’ll give you guys such an easy loophole to exploit, but you’re still going to check.”

“I get that, but why couldn’t you have said this privately.”

The healer glanced at Vidja’s group. “They know about your situation. I deemed the information to be relevant to them.” She flinched slightly her angry bravado fading. “Clare, you freely chose a hard path when you accepted the bloodline. You were naïve if you thought your condition would remain anonymous and nor is it exclusively your problem anymore. I’ve been pondering the issue for a few weeks now. You might not believe it, but we’re all soldiers in a war. We’re adults and we need to be able to discuss uncomfortable things. There’s no point hiding your ailment. It’s something for us to collectively manage.”

Clare looked hopeful and confused. “So, you’re okay with us now?”

“No, absolutely not.” She deflated. “On a personal level, it…” Michael seemed to register the emotions flickering over her features. He snorted obviously catching what he was about to say and adapted it. His face softened. “It’s a bad situation and some things are better left off unsaid. What I think personally doesn’t matter. On a strategic level, there is no point hiding away from what we’re doing. The middle bought you time, but the problem hasn’t vanished and if the trial offers a resource to buy you a year or two, then we have to take it.”

“Do you grasp how many lives two years represents.”

Michael nodded. “Conceptually yes. I understand the diminishing returns that occur the fuller you become. But if a trial gives a convenient smorgasbord, you need to gorge yourself.”

“We got it. Can you stop talking about it.”

“I haven’t heard you agree.”

“I’ll do it.” Keikain said quietly. “Alone. It’s not as effective as together, but it’ll let us know if the life force can be tapped.” He glanced at Clare a sad look on his face. “The ritual itself is time consuming. It’ll be faster… if I just… and of course less evidence, which is important if they investigate us.” He smiled brightly. “Yep, it’ll definitely be better if it’s just me.”

Michael held his eyes and then nodded. “Thank you. Now that unpleasantness has been dealt with what’s our wider plan.”

“Do what it takes to win, as always.” Everlyn answered. “And probably chat to the border guards.” She gestured at the two tunnels.

“The what?” Vidja blurted out.

“Both these tunnels end at manned check points. I believe it is a mechanism for the trial to introduce us to the intelligent cultures we need to navigate in a way that is not pages of text.”

“How strong are they?” Vidja asked immediately. “Can we take them?”

Everlyn waved the questions away. “The checkpoints are weak. Two guards, both around rank thirty two. We could smash them without trouble.”

“Gear? demeanour? Are they elites?”

“Vidja are you serious.” She sounded exasperated. “They’re aliens. How am I supposed to be able to read their emotions or tell how trained they are? One dweller looks like a slime and the other a crystal worm. The surface kingdoms species are slightly more relatable. A bird with three sets of wings down its back and a gorilla that I’m guessing bounces from spot to spot or maybe just swings tarzan style amongst the branches. Are you any good at reading avian micro expressions?”

“They’re not humanoid?” the other leader reconsidered what she had just said. “Of course they’re not.” She answered her own question and then continued to reason through the answer. “The trial’s made to reflect Existentia and humanoids are rare there. Of course, they wouldn’t have designed a zone to make us more comfortable.”

“And even if it was humanoids,” Keikain interrupted. “They probably wouldn’t have the same facial cues we have. A smile is either aggression or submission in most primate cultures, for example, and not friendly like humans use it for.”

Vidja sighed. “We need to take a side, but there might be a trick to it. We should talk to each of them, play them off against each other, and see who can give the most.”

“No, definitely not.” Keikain interrupted. “Did none of you read the quest. We want stuff from both underground and above, and there’s over twenty of us. That’s enough to easily split us into two groups. Each team will then fully align themselves with either the surface or the underground. After all, long-time allies often get given more than mercenaries, not to mention the advantage of getting trusted enough to get into the inner circle.”

“We’re not here for the long term,” Vidja argued.

“Two weeks is a lot in a trial. Remember this place is set up for things to happen quickly. By the sounds of the arrangement, if we try to negotiate it doesn’t matter which side wins because the victors won’t trust us because we were willing to work with the other. If they think we’re fully aligned, we’ll get more leeway. We split, communicate constantly via the auction house and gather the required resources and then recombine after we have them all to create the barrier breaking gem.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “And the second part of the global requirements where we need to take a side?”

“We’ll fight then of course. A battle which will go a lot better if one group is fully embedded and trusted and can back stab when they least expect it.”

Michael smiled at that suggestion. “Makes sense. We’ll go with that plan and the members of the underground team are pretty clear too. Keikain, Tom, Puma, Clare…” he smiled sheepishly at that and sent her an apologetic look.

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“You know I hate the underground.”

“I know, but you have a lot of experience and you need to stick with Keikain in case the sacrificing works and he is better underground than on the surface.”

“We can split up. Sacrificing sapients here won’t work! It specifically states it is only a facade of sapience. In the extremely unlikely event that it does, we’ll find a way to meet up again. I don’t want to go underground if I have a choice.”

“That’s fair enough.” Everlyn interrupted. Much to everyone’s surprise she was supporting Clare. “From the sounds of the quest, there must be heaps of movement between the two layers. If this can power up the two of them, we’ll work it out. In the meantime, I’m reading it the same way Clare is. The locals are very unlikely to be suitable sacrifices. Plus, we have Tom as a primary tank and Usko and Clare as secondary. The surface team needs someone to taunt the monsters. That means both of the alternatives should come with us.”

Michael frowned at that news. “Well then, we’ll add Gerald, myself and…” he looked around at everyone else. “Not Rahmat, Toni, or Everlyn, as their skills are more effective out in the open.” he mused. “I don’t want Thor because of his size, which rules out Bao as well. Soetanto is needed in the other team for healing as I’m going underground. So I guess the last two on my team have to be Harry and Vidja.”

“Vidja will be better on the surface.” Everlyn interrupted. “Maybe switch Vidja and Harry for Thor and Bao. From all of our experience in Existentia, Thor’s height will rarely, if ever, be an issue.”

The chosen were split, and teams as selected went down their respective tunnels toward the checkpoints.

It was time to discover how the weird scenario laid out for them was going to play out.

Michael stepped into place next to him. “Tom, you’re taking point on this.”

“Me, why would I…”

“Because they’re aliens and one of the things I’ve learnt is that I don’t have a clue how they think. You’re our resident alienologist so you’re the best to do this.”

“I might be the resident expert, but I’m not a very good one.”

“Yeah, I totally agree, but I have a theory that Social Silence will breach cultural barriers. With that and True Dreaming, you’re undoubtedly the most qualified for the position.”

Tom mock groaned. “You know I hate doing this.”

“I know and on a completely unrelated note I also despise babysitting, but I’m doing constantly. We all have to do shit we hate.” Michael chuckled and slapped him on the back.

They rounded the corner and the two people that Everlyn had described were waiting for them. Michael gave him a subtle nudge in the back and tentatively he stepped forward. At any moment, he half expected time to slow when they launched an unexpected attack. But it didn’t happen. Time kept flowing like normal.

“Greetings,” the worm said. Its voice was a cross between thunder and a distant avalanche, but Tom understood the words perfectly as the system translated them.

He wanted to respond, but his throat locked up. Instead, he stood there quietly. Michael coughed behind him and once more he tried to talk, but any conversation starter was warned off by his skill. His skill was telling him that silence here would give the best impression.

“If you have come from outside. You must be confused,” it rumbled.

“We are new here.” Tom confirmed after the silence had stretched for over half a minute, as his skill had suggested. The conversation, he could tell was going to be exhausting.

“You look like surface scum, but you are wise to choose the underground. Am I accurate in assuming this was a deliberate choice?”

“It was. Between journeying on the surface and here, there was no real decision to be made.”

“Very enlightened of you. May I ask why?”

‘We wanted to…’ The words wouldn’t form. ‘We love the underground…’ ‘It was the logical choice…’ ‘We hate the surface…’ While all of those responses felt like suitable ones his skill did not agree. It vehemently disputed all the suggestions to the point it became a struggle to breathe. “My…” he stuttered slightly having expected to be pushed over into a coughing fit rather than the skill allowing him to express himself. “My earth domain is not an accident.”

The slime gurgled, and the worm made clicking sounds he interpreted to be amusement, applause or something similar. It was along those lines, anyway. Unfortunately, it was hard to place human emotions on these particular people.

“Enough fun.” The worm continued. “Your reasons are your own, but I thank you for sharing. It warms my skin to hear the outside world is so enlightened. But our job is not to satisfy our own curiosity it is to inform you of the rules amongst the dweller population.”

Tom stood there silently, as the entirety of the convenient conflict was described to them. He suspected that they disclosed far more than they had to. His high status and politeness along with his earth domain got their active cooperation. The underground was not monolithic. The tribes were separate with a caste of special warriors drawn from all communities that were tasked with keeping order. It was they who had primary access to source the rare materials his team was looking to gain.

“So, to summarise,” Tom said after listening to the worm’s gravelly voice for around an hour. “We negotiate our own deals with tribes primarily for contribution points and occasionally for specific rewards and then in addition, if we kill invasive monsters and show proof of death the Judicial Caste will reward points based on what’s specified in this crystal.” He held it up. It was a small yellow gem that contained names and descriptions of the almost two hundred different monster types that threatened the dwellers.

Silence greeted the statement, which he understood meant agreement.

The slime gurgled abruptly. “We have also designated you as Judicial Champions.”

Tom said nothing. The slime was a significantly higher rank than the worm and its words were worth far more than its companions. Social silence would not let him talk for at least twenty seconds, so he counted the time out before even attempting to form a sentence.

“That title gives you twenty percent lower prices.” The worm said. “It is a great honour.”

Thank you for the title, we appreciate you for your time… the polite words remained unsaid. Being respectful was important, but so was strength, and Tom guessed this moment called for the latter. “We will make the underground safer.”

It was done. The two guards moved to the side, the conversation over. He passed them, with the others following. His hands were trembling a little at the stress of the exchange.

“You did great.” Michael told him when they were out of earshot. “That skill of yours…” he shook his head. “I can’t imagine how bad that would have gone if we didn’t have it.”

“The social dynamics were fucking shitty.” Tom agreed. “After the slime spoke, I wasn’t allowed to say anything unless he spoke mistruth…”

“Do you remember Mus?”

Tom glanced side eyed at Michael. “Of course I do.”

“He had numerous skills to let him engage with other cultures. We’re been talking about it and were planning on pulling the trigger before meeting the wador and inventor.”

“No. I’m not doing it. I refuse to become our group’s spokesman. I absolutely refuse.”

“No, I agree. You’ll be terrible in that role. Imagine if we had to speak to an alien race where silence is considered rude. You’ll be a complete liability.”

Tom shuddered at that thought. The dwellers, or at least the two types they had spoken to had appreciated silence. For them it was the sign of wisdom, which is why the higher ranked slime had communicated so little, but that cultural norm would not exist everywhere. There would be species where Social Silence might lead to misunderstanding and then to war. Though then again, it was tier seven and it might be smart enough to just cease functioning if the pauses in his speech were more detrimental than him saying the wrong thing. “We’ve already done the legwork and have a bundle of skills to address our short comings. Well, two bundles that we labelled diplomat and trader, respectively. The diplomat one costs a million more than the trader, which makes it too rich from me.”

Tom whistled.

“One and a half and two and a half,” the healer answered the unspoken question in his look. “Not cheap at all, but I think we’re going to bring the purchase forward.”

“That much experience will impact our combat strength. Especially if someone on the surface and here takes it.”

Michael shrugged. “Four ranks… maybe a little less. Not all battles are won by whacking your opponent over the head. Sometimes softer ways are needed.”

“I’m assuming you and Everlyn.”

The healer nodded.

“And you’re not telling me this to get permission.”

The other man smirked. “Nope, just informing you that you won’t always need to take point. For your information, I bought them before we reached those guards. They supplied a lot of inference to the conversation I would never have picked up. By the way, you did magnificently.”

Tom ignored the compliment, as they always made him feel weird. “If you had your trader skills, why did you put me in charge?”

“I didn’t know how they worked and I wanted to avoid that lack of familiarity screwing us over. Plus, technically, you’ve got more invested in social skills than I have.”

“No. I don’t have anything invested. Remember, it’s a curse.”

“A useful curse,” the healer countered. “And the reason I’m talking to you is that you’re better than me at making first contact. If something goes wrong, you can probably survive their retaliation and Social Silence will stop us from mortally offending them in the first few sentences.”

“So I take the risks and when you’re sure they’re not going to attack, you sweep in to seize the glory?”

Michael smirked. “Yep. Sounds pretty good to me. Unless you want to stay on point the whole time.”

Tom shook his head quickly.

“Then are you okay opening dialogue in the future?”

“I’m not a murderhobo but honestly, I would prefer to be killing things than doing that. But as you say I’m solider and I’ll do what’s needed.”