It had been three days since the crew had gotten the Wolfgang back into sailing shape after their battle with the Imps, and those three days had been spent sailing the great Atherium expanse along the steam's length. Occasionally, the odd lifeform, flying whale-like creatures or gliding manta ray-like ones would disturb the monotony. But none were able to keep up with the pace of the ship in the stream long enough for Rep to give them a thorough inspection.
Thankfully she'd managed to derive some entertainment from conversing with her new replicants and teaching them what little she knew that they didn't. The pool of memories she'd shared with them contained almost everything she'd watched or heard that wasn't a deep or personal memory. Despite this, she'd managed to squeeze out a level from both [Teacher] and [Gourmand] by teaching and feeding them, respectively. But neither level had given her new skills cards.
The disadvantage of calm, unexciting times seemed to be a lack of levels. The first two days of traveling in the forest and first meeting Doran and the rest of the crew of the Wolfgang had netted her almost three times as many levels as the last handful of days.
But there’d been something to enjoy in the quietness of the last few days, time to recover from the mental toll that fight with the Imps had been. But Now, Rep found herself bored. And in her boredom, her mind was beginning to stray back to the fight, imaging the imps leaping on her, and her unleashing her microunits from her frame to swarm over them like locusts.
She shook her head rapidly to lose the foul thoughts, like a dog shaking off water.
She'd been careful to ensure her new crew got to enjoy the calm of the last few days, and so she'd resisted the urge to pepper them with questions. She desperately didn't want to annoy them, to strain these new relationships unduly. Whenever she'd attempted to ask questions of the workers in the factory, they'd quickly grown annoyed with her. The crew of the Wolfgang seemed far more willing to hear her out, but that didn't mean they were infinitely tolerant.
Instead, she'd buried the last three days getting to know her new Replicant... children; it had been easy to slow down and discuss old memories with the new Replicants. Mizzen, Keel, and Timber were… accented versions of her own voice, a slightly different perspective on the shared memories she had given them.
But you could only barely your own curiosity with an inane conversation about old movies and TV shows so long before it began to boil over like soup left forgotten on the stove.
Not that she'd ever forgotten any pots of soup on the stove, and you couldn't prove it if she had; there was no evidence of such an event left to be discovered.
She strode up to Doran with questions on her mind. He rested his elbows on the wheel and looked out over the Atherium expanse. She took a place beside him and took in the same view.
Sailing inside the Atherium was visually similar to traveling through the void of space. At least, from what little she knew of what space looked like according to half-century-old blockbusters that ran on the TV.
But it was only visually similar because, of course. Where Space was a great expanse of void, the Atherium wasn’t. It was not a vacuum, filled instead with air. Curling curtains of orange expanse met dark black, forming a middling sea of blue where the two met.
“How does that happen, Doran?”
He hummed momentarily and squinted into the distance, finally asking her back. “How does what happen, Rep?”
“That,” She said, pointing. “Where the black and orange meet to make blue.”
He shrugged. “It's what happens when the Stardrift Expanse- that's the ‘black’ one, and the Meridian Expanse meet. They only look black, blue, and orange from here. When you are inside them, they look clear. We’re in the Solstice Expanse now; if you look at it from over there, it would seem pink.”
She hummed in awe. And Mizzen spoke while she took in what Doran had said. “How do the stars work?”
Rep grimaced slightly. Mizzen used an accent inspired by ‘The Shamrock,’ a fictional supervillain from a 30-year-old movie. She didn’t hate the sing-song accent he mimicked; it was just… a little embarrassing, somehow.
“I’ve heard of stars.” Doran nodded. “Most stories about other worlds talk about them. Those aren’t stars- they're the corpses of gods.”
“What?” Rep started in surprise. And Doran laughed.
“Invading gods- supposedly, they come every thousand years or so. They stop glowing once you get closer; some don’t glow anymore. The Weeping King kills them and then spreads them out across the sky. Personally, I think he lures them here. Why would they keep coming if they knew this awaited them?”
Rep looked across the stars- no, corpses, again and swallowed. “He’s really bad, isn’t he?”
Doran nodded. “Him and his Spellborn. Never trust them, never forget what they do." He looked haunted, then turned his gaze to Rep. "You’ll see them fight demons often, and you’ll be tempted to think of them as heroes then- it's easy to when you see a man fighting a monster with nothing but a musket. But don’t forget; they fight the demons because they have to, not because they want to. Everyone here, if the storm didn't bring us, it's because they killed our gods. And now were forced to wait for the demigods he allows in his domain to rise to power.”
She nodded, Her face grim. And here was the other reason she didn’t always ask questions; sometimes, the answers weren’t what she wanted to hear.
She turned her gaze back to the Atherium, looking at the ‘stars’ and shivering. She turned her gaze to the stream itself. Where the Atherium looked primarily like a starry night sky, the Stream was like a scar of daylight running across it. The large cylinder wasn't consistent in its shape or width. But was rounded along the edges and didn't seem to get much smaller than several hundred ship spans in length.
Rep wondered at the physics of it. You moved in the stream as if something was pushing you along. That's why ships used it, but that pushing affected you in support of your movement, not consistently in the same direction. If you threw a ladle’s worth of burnt soup outside Wolfgang’s port window, it would travel equally fast regardless of which direction you threw it. She’d tested that. And things seemed to pick up speed the longer they traveled. Right now the Wolfgang's engines were silent, occasionally going active only to slow them down so they weren't traveling too fast and risk slamming into something in the stream at a speed so fast that it would damage the ship.
Odder still to Rep was the air- if it had been a void-like space, then she might be able to make sense of it. But the Stream was filled with breathable air, allowing open-air vessels like the Wolfgang to exist. Surely that air should have provided enough resistance to slow the things flying in it down, and yet it didn't.
She’d come with different questions but decided to humor her most recent thoughts. “The Stream, did something make it? How does it have air? How is there air outside it?"
Doran furrowed his brow. "Why wouldn't there be air?"
Rep waved her hands around. As if to gesture to everything. "It's like... space! right guys?" She turned toward Keel, Mizzan, and Timber.
The three nodded. They had almost all of Rep's memories of media. She'd been careful to cut away memories of her life to not risk cloning herself, but that left them with largely the same pool of knowledge she had. Which helped explain the lack of teacher levels. She didn't truly have much to teach them. The memory transfer hadn't been counted as 'teaching' by whatever governed levels in the Atherium. She wasn't sure if giving them those members had been wise or not in hindsight.
Doran nodded. "Yes, there is a lot of open space in the Atherium. But that doesn't answer my question."
"No, I mean. Space doesn't have air!" She grumbled in frustration. Even with the translation spells now kept up 24/7 by Doran, sometimes concepts didn't quite translate.
Doran hummed thoughtfully. "Is that how it works on your homeworld?" He looked like he was struggling with this concept. "If you have a big open space... does the air become poisonous?"
Rep shook her head. "No, okay. So my people, or rather, Humans, live on the planet Terra, where I'm from." It was tough to remember that she wasn't human; so much of the media she'd watched had been from their perspective. She shook those thoughts aside for now. "The planet has air. But outside it, there's none."
He squinted, looking disbelieving. "I see."
She frowned at him. "You don't believe me!"
He held up his hands placatingly. "Perhaps I'm just not... imagining it correctly. It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Why would the rest have no air? Why would the air stay on the planet? Maybe you misunderstood? We do have floating expanses of poisonous air; we have to be careful to chart around them if we aren't in the Stream- but the Stream always has breathable air. Perhaps your planet was like that? a canopy of breathable air surrounded by poisonous air? I hear Hallow is like that some parts of the year."
She frowned. Did she know space wasn't that? The only thing she had to go on was word of mouth and the occasional movie. She didn't know much, but she knew movies weren't always the most accurate. Maybe Doran was right? she hadn't seen him be wrong yet. "...Maybe." She hedged.
He gave her what was slowly becoming his trademark 'understanding' look. “Is that what you came to ask me?”
"Right! No, I... where exactly are we going?" Rep asked Doran.
Doran tilted his head to the side. "Crossfar, Haven't I mentioned that?"
"Yes- you've said the name. But you haven't told me where or what it is."
Doran gave a sound of realization. "I forget how much you have to learn. Alright, lesson time. Timber, can you bring up something to serve as chairs from the below deck? Mizzen, go with him and retrieve Virid. She knows a fair bit about Crossfar."
"Yes, Bossman." Timber intoned in a faux accent from a dead country back home and began to head off in an odd strut. Rep tried not to be embarrassed but failed. Timber was mimicking yet another character from TV she’d seen, a crime drama set in a country that didn’t exist anymore. With the accent, his voice was twang and gruffness, and Rep once thought it was the height of coolness, doubtlessly why Timber was mimicking it. Now it was mostly embarrassing. Maybe still a little cool. She should get him a hat to go with it.
The distinction between the three and Stick hadn't been obvious initially; they'd been just as quiet as he had when they were only a day old. But now that they were beginning to become their own, she realized how much more energetic they were than her first Replicant. She wondered if it was just chance or a quirk from their change in design or stature. Or the memories, of course, which Stick lacked.
She looked across the deck to where Stick was practicing combat with Typist. Stick moved like a dancer now, with graceful, efficient movements. He still lost to Typist more often than not, and she could see that clumsiness return when Typist pushed him into unfamiliar situations, but he danced across the deck more often than not. She suspected it was a Skill card- but it was possible that he soaked up the knowledge like a sponge due to his lack of any other knowledge. When she'd first made Stick, she'd fumbled and hadn't gifted him the knowledge she had, she'd only now recovered from gifting him a core micro unit to grant him language, and even that hadn't seemed to have entirely stuck if how rarely he spoke was anything to go by.
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Whereas Mizzen, Keel, and Timber recalled her memories of Toskana as if they'd seen a movie about it, Stick was entirely clueless about the nation.
Perhaps she shouldn't have given the knowledge she had to these new three. Of them, Keel took to fighting the best. But when he beat Stick, it was purely because he was bigger and perpetually armored by the barky exoskeleton she'd given the three. An advantage that would, according to Typist, become less of note once Stick got a 'real polearm,' which Typist had elaborated on as being a weapon made by a high-level [Weapon Smith]
Keel seemed to admire Stick, as he was also the closest to Stick's near-constant silence. Rep suspected that had more to do with Keel trying to mimic Stick rather than his true nature as he grew chattier when the group got on a topic he enjoyed.
Timber returned with the 'seats,' a stack of crates he and Keel began to set out for people to sit on.
Mizzen returned in lockstep with Virid only after Timber was nearly done, and Rep mentally noted that to address later in case Mizzen was putting work off onto his brothers- The Supervillian he was mimicking hadn't exactly been a perfect role model for her boys, and she wished she'd edited out that particular memory in hindsight. "Got her, captain."
"yes, good job Mizzen. Now, everyone, take a seat. This might go long." Doran immediately stepped into his role of educator.
"Soon, we'll be at Crossfar." He began. "There are three factions of note: the Vampires, the Thralls, and the Adzetos. And I suppose the Adze, too. Rep, you and yours won't be in any danger of them so long as you don't announce favoring one side or another or stray too far into it where the inner city is. There tends to be some crime caused by Thralls who've been cast aside or the rare rogue vampire. Tork and I will pay the crew's blood toll to get us into the city; we're the only ones with blood, after all." He smirked. "We'll be staying around long enough to sell some of our cargo in demand there- Virid's plants. We can pick up the meat they sell in excess at a fraction of the price we'd see elsewhere. Normally we'd run this to buy the meat and then sell it elsewhere, but I think we'll use it to expand our ranks through you, Rep. You seem to get a better clink for your copper with meat."
Rep perked up, confused and slightly distressed by what he'd said. "I've heard of vampires." Rep began. "But they were just stories, monsters that drank blood. Undead. What are the Adzetos?"
"Hemomancers. Blood mages. They acquire their power from a pact with the Adze, a species of odd, blood-sucking fireflies." He frowned. "Admittedly, I'm not an expert on them, Virid?"
The plant woman stirred, and spoke slowly. "Adze... servants of the red... tolerable. No good to fight. If you have the [Mage] or similar classes, they will come when you sleep to form a pact, and turn you into a [Bloodmage]."
Keel leaned forward. "What's the difference between a [Mage] and a [Bloodmage]?"
Virid shrugged. "Little, at first. The [Bloodmage]s can simply use blood to power they're spells. But the Skill cards they get after they turn to direct them towards controlling blood."
Doran nodded as if this was expected and continued. "The vampires are not undead. I've heard of such creatures, but these are alive. They feed on 'Damu'- err, Blood mana." he corrected himself as if either name gave Rep an understanding of what he was referring to. "The Adzetos produce it for them in exchange for the wolves, bats, and rats the vampires summon from the bestial planes."
The Replicants looked around at each other in confusion, and Rep held up a stalling hand. "Um, slow down, please? This is a lot of new things at once. Living vampires? How are they different from the undead ones? What is Damu or blood mana? What are the bestial planes? And this is starting to sound like it could be dangerous for you and Tork?"
Doran shook his head. "Tork and I will be safe. They can't endanger us under the Weeping King's pact, which would bring consequences that we aren't worth." He paused, thinking back over her questions. "The bestial planes are admittable, vague even to me. But they are... places where life exists, but no gods exist to control or safeguard it. The vampires can summon wolves, rats, and bats from those planes- or creatures close enough to those three, anyway, there's some variance. Blood mana is what vampires feed on, found in any living creature with blood but denser in sentient ones. It's a mix of life and motion mana."
He paused thoughtfully and turned to Virid. "Care to elaborate, Virid?"
The plant woman nodded slowly. "Adzetos... condense the blood of the beasts... beast blood is... too thin.. to feed on, but with the Adzetos' help, the vampires can sustain themselves on their own summons... The Adezetos get the meat and pelts in exchange, and the vampires grow strong and rich off their own conjurations."
Doran nodded in agreement. "Thank you, Virid." The plant-like woman's expression grew less focused and drifting once she finished speaking, and Rep frowned. She liked Virid, and while she didn't wish their group fought more, she did wish she got to meet the excited and focused version of Virid that appeared whenever there was a fight more often. She wondered if there was a way to get one without the other.
Rep turned her attention back to Doran. "Is this where we'll sell the jumpsuits and my spare tools?"
He frowned. "We can, but Crossfar has a pact with the Weeping King. I'm a little worried about leaving proof of our passage. Then again, if we sold it all here, there wouldn't be much of a trail to be followed later. And we could likely pull off a two-to-one exchange for your jumpsuits one exchange for leather equipment, and still be able to get some meat for them too. Outsider equipment tends to be valued. And we have just enough jumpsuits to start a trend."
She looked down at herself. "Should I sell this one, too, then?"
"It wouldn't be a bad idea. You and Stick stand out as outsiders, but the orange draws the eye. We can sell your armor, too- they don't have much metal. Their leather craftsmanship should outperform the ramshackle equipment you have stashed away."
She turned her gaze back up to him. "Should I look different?"
He paused, looking a little confused. Then widened a little as he focused on the most recent addition to her face. Her nose. "You can do more than make new things, can't you?"
She nodded. "I could look like anything- it would help if I've eaten it, though."
For some reason, that got a chuckle out of Virid, whose attention focused on Rep. She patted Rep on the head, much to her confusion. Virid didn't elaborate on whatever she was thinking about.
Doran shook his head. "No changes for now- if anything, we should keep the Replicants- I mean, Mizzen, Timber, and Keel on the ship. Better not to tie how they look to the sale of these 'jumpsuits.' No, better we embrace the sale of the jumpsuits from you and Stick, then we can have you change and find a more mundane disguise for him."
Rep nodded thoughtfully. And Mizzen spoke up. "So we're just supposed to stay locked up on the ship?" His voice had a gruff disrespect, but Rep doubted he meant it more than just as a way of playacting. That didn't stop her from turning a withering glare in his direction and allowed herself some small satisfaction when he winced as she did.
Doran grinned. "A mother's gaze. Terrifying; every species has one. Yes, Mizzen, I'm afraid to say so. We'll try to be quick. We'll eventually reach Greyhead, and you should be able to walk freely there. We have an agreement with the Spellborn not to touch Greyhead. They'd defeat my people in a fight, but I don't think they'd willingly take it."
Rep asked, "You mentioned Greyhead before; that's where you from?"
Doran nodded. "That would be my homeland; it also produces a lot of meat. Technically Crossfar is our nearest competitor that matches us for quantity- but we don't share many customers to compete over, we're too far. Greyhead is in the Meridian Expanse, several hundreds of thousands of miles from here. Half a year's travel by Stream."
Rep frowned. "You'd risk your people being at war to keep us safe?"
He shook his head. "That's not my risk to give or take- no, we'd go the Greyhead to speak with old contacts of mine and get body doubles made of you and Stick. After that, perhaps we have the next few generations of Replicants appear more like my people now that I see how vastly you can change their appearance from your own." He paused. "I know I've said it before, but make sure you tell no one you can make more of yourselves in the way you do."
"That's the only way to make more of ourselves, but I understand your point." Rep nodded along, but not before Dorian corrected her.
"Don't be so certain. You've made Mizzum, Timber, and Keel so different from yourself and Stick that I would consider them a different species if they hadn't been their source. You may very well people able to make others who can produce more of your kind, copying the methods my own people do."
Rep's smile turned papery as she felt the attention of the Laws suddenly on her. It wasn't truly a sentient thing- or if it was, it was her own sentience. No, it was more the understanding of what Doran said as true.
Her duty- her code even, was to make more Replicants; if she made Replicants that could make more of themselves, she would upscale her production massively. It wasn't just acknowledging that it was possible. Now that she'd thought of it, she had to try or find herself contrary to the laws.
"Did I say something wrong?"
"Nope! Sorry." She shook her head as if trying to shake her obvious emotions off her face. "Just felt silly for not thinking of it myself, is all!"
"Well, you have only been here a handful of days; you'd have thought of it eventually."
She nodded. She likely would have, and so she buried the annoyance she felt towards Doran at this moment. She grimaced at the idea of millions or trillions of Replicants spanning the Atherium. How could she possibly hope to manage all that? Then again, with the large Atherium, even trillions might not make much of a dent. She wondered how many creatures there were here.
---
Another three days had come and passed, and neither of Rep's classes had budged, nor had she gotten new ones. By now, she'd tasted and tried everything edible on the ship, and a few things that weren't, and the laws were starting to poke at her to get back to making Replicants.
With that in mind, she was rather happy to see the city approaching in the distance, but it did cement now she never seemed to ask enough questions- or maybe never asked the right ones.
Like how she never realized that Crossfar wasn't some floating island expanse like the landmasses floating above Hallow. Instead, it appeared to be hundreds, maybe even thousands of damaged and defunct ships lashed together. As a great graveyard of vessels in all sorts of designs from ancient 1800s man'o'wars to vessels, she'd never seen the like, even in science fiction. The only unifying trait she could spot was how most appeared wooden.
The whole city cried out in the groans of straining wood and ropes, and it was only once she was closer that she could see that the ropes were made of bound leather cords rather than hemp-like on the Wolfgang. An oddity, given how valuable real leather supposedly was back on her homeworld. It was like seeing people tie things together with silver.
A vampire flew down to investigate them before they got a chance to disembark the boat. Her wings, because Rep was fairly sure it was a she, were like those of a bat. Hairy and proportional massive compared to her frame. If the woman was five feet tall, her wings had to span four times as long as she was tall.
She landed gracefully on the deck of the Wolfgang, her bat-like wings folding neatly behind her. Her skin was as pale as milk, and her eyes glowed with a red intensity. She wore an odd ensemble of clothing, long trousers that dragged along the ground past her feet made of thin leather, a similar shirt covered by a bright yellow vest. Rep couldn't say she liked it. Then again, who was she to judge fashion? She was in a bright orange jumpsuit.
"Welcome to Crossfar," she said with a melodic voice. "I am Lysandra, a representative of the Crimson Court. State your business here."
Doran stepped forward, his demeanor confident and relaxed. "We're traders from Greyhead, looking to sell some goods and purchase supplies. Our cargo includes exotic plants, tools, and a few jumpsuits that might interest your city."
Lysandra's eyes flickered with curiosity at the mention of jumpsuits. "Jumpsuits, you say? I've not heard of such a thing. Perhaps some will buy to sate their curiosity. It will have to wait, however. The city is on high alert. Our summoners have had a poor draw."
The crew of the Wolfgang exchanged concerned glances at Lysandra's words. Virid, however, seemed to understand, her posture becoming alert. "You've summoned something the vampire lords can't handle?"
The vampire pursed her lips and shot Virid a dirty look. "We are quite capable of handling our affairs, thank you. I must still request you, anchor, outside the city until the situation has been handled."
Virid turned her gaze to Doran, who met hers. The two stared each other down for a moment before Doran threw his hands in the air. "Oh, why are you even asking? You're going to do it anyway!"
Virid turned her gaze back to the vampire and spoke, now her voice clear and strong... and a bit manic. "Tell your masters that 'Virid the Gorge is here'."
The vampire frowned, then gave a quiet 'ah' in realization. "I didn't recognize you..." She shook her head. "No, not even you, I'm afraid. The wolf can't be slain with mundane steel, silver, wood, or magic."
Tork laughed in disbelief, having come up above deck as the ship docked. "What, you got a doggie made of Mizzitite?"
The vampire frowned. "You have been warned. If you do not leave an anchor, and the wolf gets aboard your vessel, we will send you to the void below." She turned and began to leave. Just before stepping off the boat, she called to Virid. "I will tell my masters your message, but it is your funeral, Gorge." She fell off the boat and, moments later, after vanishing from Rep's vision, soared back upward.
The crew of the Wolfgang was left in a state of tense uncertainty as Lysandra disappeared into the city. Rep could sense the fear and unease among the crew members. She turned to Doran, seeking answers. "What did she mean by 'summoners' and 'poor draw'?"
Doran sighed, his expression serious. "I mentioned they summon creatures from the bestial planes? Sometimes they get something more than they bargained for, a 'poor draw'. It seems they are dealing with a situation that could significantly threaten the city."
"But why is Virid so important in this situation?" Rep asked, still trying to understand the dynamics at play.
Doran turned to Virid, but she was rushing below decks. He turned his gaze back to Rep. "I'll explain later. I need to go make sure the fool woman doesn't get herself killed."
The crew of the Wolfgang followed Doran as he went to check on Virid. Below decks, they found her in her room, rummaging through her belongings. Doran stood in the doorway, watching her silently before speaking.
"Virid, what are you doing?"
She looked up, her eyes filled with manic bloodlust. "You know what I'm doing, Doran. Do you know how long it's been since I last leveled? How about you or Typist? What is this little scheme of yours for if not that?"
Doran frowned angrily at her. "I supposed you have some secret weapon that is neither steel, silver, wood, nor magical that can kill this thing?"
"I'll choke it to death if I have to. All the better if I do. Maybe I'll get two levels." She drew up an axe from the turf. It was a rough, poorly made thing. But had a stone axehead. "besides, this might work!"
He threw up his hands in frustration. "You know damn well they'd have tried throwing rocks at it by now. You're being obstinate."
"I will figure it out!" She hissed back at him. "You should join me! If you commanded your crew in a battle to face it, you'd likely get a level too- and Typist? to say nothing of the new youth's. They are meant to be warriors, aren't they?"
Rep piped up. "Um... no? No, they aren't. I don't want them to go and fight some... invulnerable super wolf!"
Virid turned her gaze towards Rep, and she felt a shiver. The [Berzerker] [Druid] strode over to Rep and grabbed her hand, pressing the Replicator's hand up to her face. "Feel this, then look at your children, Rep. Know that you made them like you."
Rep's protest died on her lips as she felt Virid barky exterior and the [Druid] continued. "You are not like Doran- or even Typist. You are a devourer of the Red. Perhaps you are not the Green, but you are something like it." She dropped Rep's hand and strode past her, calling out behind her as she stepped off the boat. "We grow fat, or we die, Rep. Remember this."
Rep looked in bewilderment to Doran, who groaned into his hand as Virid vanished from their sight again, heading towards the city.