At the moment Kairen was incredibly happy that no one could see him because he must look absolutely ridiculous. Dancing was not something he had a lot of practice with, and without any music to coordinate his actions it probably looked like little more than uncoordinated flailing. The movements still helped to convey the absolute glee that he was feeling. A person! Explorers were rare in the sands, but water was a resource worth looking for. Even then, Kairen had figured it would take weeks or months before anyone stumbled over his location. Instead it was only a couple of days and a Pathfinder had found him, refilled his canteen, and went on his way!
Kairen was a little disappointed that the pathfinder hadn’t stuck around, but it was a small complaint all things considered. Him leaving safely was a good thing from a larger point of view. A dark part of Kairen’s mind pointed out that the jackals or some other animals could have potentially taken down the Pathfinder if they got lucky. Such a situation might have given Kairen another companion he could talk to, but it also meant no one else would be showing up until they too stumbled over this Oasis on their own. Instead, the pathfinder had left safely, and soon other people would know he existed and could make their way here. This way, Kairen just had to wait and all sorts of people would start making their way here.
Of course, having something to anticipate made waiting much harder than it had been. While part of Kairen was happy doing nothing except watching the animals and their antics to pass the time, another part of him wanted something more to do. It was the part of his personality that wanted to go on an adventure, the part that hadn’t been satisfied with simply learning from his father and eventually joining him working as a miner. He wanted more out of life than that.
Even if Kairen was now trapped in this one spot, unable to travel the world, he did have something mysterious and new to explore. From its ability to change forms to ensure he could understand it to its ability to change the world around him, there was something special about the windows that kept appearing in front of him. Sure, they were likely related to the Judgements that people could purchase for themselves, but those were far more passive experiences. Step on a prepared platform and get a summary of your capabilities expressed in a standardized form. The form that Kairen kept interacting with was anything but standardized and he wondered just how different it actually was. For one, he never felt the feeling of judgement that was so closely tied with the devices, the feeling of them weighing one’s soul. Instead, the screens just appeared, and if they didn’t block his vision Kairen was sure he would be able to easily ignore them and go about his life. For another, it didn’t seem like there was any requirement to activate it. No need to cast a spell or consume reagents, just a simple phrase.
Since he hadn’t been hurt by the screens yet, Kairen decided to move forward with testing them.
“Screen, appear!” he yelled, and it was so.
All three options were greyed out and the animation of the monster option had changed, now showing that the next upgrade would repel monsters it hadn’t been able to previously. Kairen made a note of it but moved on. He wanted to test the limits of the window, not just learn things step by step as they were given to him. While he was currently limited to pressing and talking to the screen, he still had some ideas as to how he could learn more.
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“Can you show me what other things you can do?” He asked. The window had been remarkably responsive to his needs, changing what was written and appearing and vanishing on command. It would be nice if it could simply respond to any request he had for it. Unfortunately, it seemed like his question was either invalid or too broad to get a response. Hoping it was the latter, Kairen narrowed down his next question.
“Can you show me what it costs me to get any of these things?” As vague as his wording was, it was descriptive enough, and after a moment the window shimmered and changed. It still showed the three boxes with moving pictures, but underneath each one was a long thin horizontal box that was partially filled going from left to right. At the very bottom of the window a much larger copy of the bar appeared, surrounded by text and a few numbers. Despite glaring at the text, it refused to change into something that Kairen could make sense of.
“I don’t understand these words.” Kairen tried to force the screen to provide an explanation, but instead the words simply vanished leaving him with only the boxes and numbers to try and figure out. The numbers were 6 and 200 and without additional context Kairen moved his attention elsewhere. Right away the box made a bit more sense. It was almost empty, with almost nothing filled except for a small sliver on the left edge. As Kairen watched, that sliver of color slowly grew and at the same time the 6 was replaced with a 7. Combined with his recent history, Kairen felt he had a good idea of what was happening. The sliver growing over time was likely a way of marking how much of the mysterious something he had to spend, with the numbers providing a more mathematical representation. The larger filled boxes were the costs needed for the next upgrade and looked to be several times more than the first level of abilities had cost.
That worried Kairen a bit. Getting daily upgrades was nice, as the constant changes helped keep things from being too boring. Now he would need to wait several days to purchase an upgrade, with little else to do with his time but wait and watch. Of course, once he purchased the second level for all three categories, he would have another problem on his hands. If the costs for a theoretical third purchase grew even more, he wouldn’t be able to afford it. There was some hope of growing his storage amount since the screen did show that second number, but even if some fortune did play out in his favor, he would still be confined in the same cycle of waiting between each purchase in longer and longer intervals.
Kairen thought he had seen something else shown on the screens at one point, even if it had been so faint as to seem an illusion. He looked at the screen as it was. He’d learned what he could about the cost of upgrades, so he might as well spend his time exploring some other avenues of questioning the screen in front of him.
“Can you show me any other upgrades or purchases I can eventually get?” Trying to add in enough conditionals or qualifiers was irritating, but Kairen wasn’t able to have a conversation with whoever was running this thing, and it had already shown itself to be somewhat picky when it came to how it interpreted his questions. This was actually his third attempt at pursuing this line of questioning, each time trying a different phrasing hoping to get some sort of response. He felt there was more he should be able to do. He had heard of two cities built around Oases that had developed a magic that let them sleep better and a mirage-based defense, so he felt that he should have that same potential for growth instead of only being able to upgrade three basic qualities.
Fortunately, it seemed like the third time was the charm, and after a moment to process his request the window expanded upwards as additional rows of windows came into view.