Kairen blinked.
The rat blinked, still cautiously watching the ghost.
Slowly, carefully, Kairen knelt and reached out his hand. Just because he couldn’t see his hand didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Barely daring to hope, he relied on his remaining proprioception to position it over the rodent before cautiously moving it downwards. The desert rat flicked its gaze upwards for a moment to where the ghostly hand was before returning its gaze to Kairen himself. It remained calmly passive, not fleeing or attacking or any other course of action that would have torn at the boy’s strained psyche.
Soft. Being able to see, hear, and taste had helped Kairen ignore just how much he missed having a sense of touch. Now he had a fraction of it back, and all he could do was marvel at the sensation. Over and over he stroked the soft fur, doing his best to avoid rubbing it the wrong way. The desert rat noticed his actions and seemed receptive of the contact, arching its back to press more of its fur against Kairen’s hand. Grinning at the implicit approval, Kairen pressed a little harder, marvelling at the way he could see the fur dimpling as he moved, even if his actual hand remained transparent.
“What makes you different?” He murmured. The rat heard him and snapped out of its blissful enjoyment of the petting, focusing in on Kairen’s face.
“You can hear me and see me, I’m sure of it now. But why you and not any of the other animals or the people here? Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy that you can see me. I just wish you were a bit more human.” Kairen finished somewhat awkwardly. The rat didn’t seem to mind his awkward explanation and merely squeaked in response. Kairen waited a second, but it didn’t seem like the rat was about to communicate any more than that simple sound of acknowledgement.
“Not much of a conversationalist, huh? I always wanted a pet, but it would be nice if you could answer my questions or help me out in some way. There is just so much I don’t know. How can you see me? What do I look like? Can anyone else learn to see me? Do all Oases have these weird windows, and if not, then why me?” Kairen picked up energy as he talked, happy to have someone who could hear him, even if they couldn’t respond. He looked down at the rat, only to see it staring at him impassively. He realized he had started using his hands to gesture towards the end of his rant and quickly moved to resume petting the rodent.
“Sorry. You don’t need to answer any of those questions, especially the last ones. Someone probably has the answers for me though. It makes too much sense to be perfectly natural, so someone probably put it in place, but why and how?”
Kairen finished speaking and took a moment to shift positions, sitting down on the grass to make himself more comfortable. He then just enjoyed the feeling of petting soft fur for a minute, before a thought entered his mind.
“I’d better let you get going. It’s not safe for you out in the open, and I’m guessing you need to get that food back to your nest. In the future you should try and grab some of the shadeleaf from there, instead of the five-day bean. Definitely tastes better, and probably is healthier for you as well.” Any further thoughts Kairen might have had on the matter were cut short when the desert rat began to move. Instead of picking up the root it had been carrying it returned to the farm patch, where it grubbed around in the dirt for a bit before finding a relatively intact shadeleaf plant.
“Huh.” Kairen watched as the rodent quickly scurried away. The ghost’s greater size made it easy to keep up with the smaller mammal and it didn’t take long for the pair to arrive at a slightly raised burrow in the ground. With one last look at the boy, the rat vanished underground. Everything had changed so much since Kairen had formed the Oasis, but he was fairly sure this was the area that his original body had been located. More than any actual sense of direction telling him so, it simply made sense. Something needed to differentiate this rat from all the other animals that hadn’t given Kairen a second thought, and eating his body certainly was strange enough.
“Hehehe. I wonder, does the rat think I’m some sort of god? I fed him with my body, reshaped the world around him into a paradise, gave him my blessings, and now I’ve appeared in front of him to give him advice, letting him see my mysterious form.” Kairen spent a while rolling the comparison around in his mind. He didn’t really know a whole lot about the spiritual side of things, only what he picked up from his father’s swearing and his mother’s occasional prayers for patience.
“On one hand, I’ve done more for him than most gods have ever done for anyone. On the other hand, I have a really small domain for a god, and not a lot that I can do with it. For now, anyways.” The screen promised that Kairen’s size and power would increase over time. It might be a slow process, but nothing he had seen so far promised a limit to his ability, and there were still the next tiers of upgrades that were still hidden. Now Kairen had another path to move forwards on. His ability to shape the Oasis was powerful, but it was also passive. An upgrade every few days or every week that most people didn't even notice might add up over time, but it wasn’t something Kairen could use whenever he pleased. He was forced to wait until he had enough upgrade points and forced to choose when he reached his maximum. Between those two restrictions his growth was forced, even if he could guide it to a degree.
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It took him only a second to pull up the status window. His pool of upgrade points was low at the moment due to his upgrade to the pool size, and the nomads turned villagers hadn’t done anything particularly significant to reward him with points beyond his regular income. He supposed that their creation of the farm would have had some impact, except for the fact that it was situated outside his boundaries. Beyond confirming that he hadn’t gained points unexpectedly, Kairen’s objective was to double check the information present. Upon not seeing anything new, Kairen flashed a brief smirk.
He had feared for a moment that his connection with the rat was something the windows would monitor. If that had been the case, it would have meant that some of the same restrictions present for his other abilities might have applied to whatever let the rat see him, or it might have cost him his precious upgrade points to try and improve the connection. While having a guaranteed method of improvement could have been useful, Kairen didn’t think it was worth the loss of control. This rat was all his, and he wasn’t beholden to anyone with how he interacted with it. Simply keeping it as a companion had its appeal, but Kairen had more ambitions than just that.
The rat had been able to understand him when he had pointed out the better roots to gather. Maybe it had understood his words, or perhaps the concept had been conveyed in some other manner, but it was a sign that the rat might be willing or could be trained to follow Kairen’s commands. He might not be able to interact with the world directly, but with the rat as his emissary he might be able to convey some crude messages to the nomads about his situation and his intentions.
The only problem with his plan was the nature of his new pet. Rats were not well liked by most humans. They were intelligent, but their small size and omnivorous burrowing nature put them in a position where that intelligence was pitted against humanity. From sneaking into storehouses to figuring out how to unlatch locked rooms, rats were far more of a nuisance than they were a benefit to any community. Some were kept as pets, but even then they weren’t tame like dogs, cats, or beasts of burden were. They simply recognized the luxuries of their situation and had no desire to head elsewhere.
If Kairen had his rat start running around the Oasis doing errands for him it wouldn’t take long for the nomads to notice. Unless Kairen got extremely lucky with his ability to purchase upgrades at the right moment, it was likely the tribe would simply see the rat as another pest to be killed. As much as he desired human interaction, he wasn’t about to risk his new friend without putting a lot of thought into planning things out.
He noticed that the rat was carefully making its way out of the burrow, only this time it wasn’t alone. Carried gently in its front paws was a baby rat, still completely hairless and with its eyes tightly closed. From what Kairen knew this little baby should have still been inside, presumably where its mother and siblings were. But for some reason the father had brought its offspring out into the open for Kairen to see.
“Do you want me to do something?” Kairen hesitantly asked. Whatever intelligence the rat had didn’t let it answer the question; it simply remained still. Carefully Kairen reached out with just a finger, delicately making contact with the bare skin and hoping that he didn’t accidentally harm the thing. A part of him knew that a family of rats would soon turn into an entire colony, something which might cause problems for the nomads. Looking at the innocent creature in front of him he couldn’t bring himself to care. None of these rats had done anything wrong, and in some ways they had a better claim to the Oasis than the humans did.
“I don’t really have any blessings or power I can give him, but I can give him a name. Not that I’m any good at names, so I’m just gonna use the alphabet. That would make you and Missus Rat Alpha and Beta, and this little one will be called Gamma.” Kairen babbled a bit to fill the air. He wasn’t sure how much of that the newly christened Alpha had understood, but the rat seemed satisfied. With a maneuver that looked almost like a bow the rat hunched over, returning to a position that it could move around in and vanished back into his home.
Alpha quickly returned, and over the next few minutes Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, and Theta were all given names and a brief moment of contact. Beta never made an appearance, and Kairen figured she was still recovering from giving birth. Dusk had fallen over the desert by the time the impromptu ceremony had finished, and Kairen noticed Alpha had begun twitching nervously, as if he had excess energy he wanted to get rid of.
“Oh! I’m guessing you still have to go get more food to feed your family. Don’t stop on my account, I’ll be back later to check in on you. Stay safe until then.” Kairen bid the rodents farewell. The nomads had scared away most of the foxes and other predators, but night time was a chance for all sorts of species to approach the pool while the humans slept. Kairen wished there was more he could do to protect Alpha, but until he could interact with more things than just the rat family his options on that front were limited. Still, the rat had survived this long, so Kairen had faith that his unusual intelligence would keep him alive.
With the burden of isolation partially lifted, Kairen made his way into the pool. The stars overhead were especially clear tonight and reminded of his first night in the desert Kairen took some time to simply stargaze. Seeing a shooting star, he made a single tiny wish before he closed his eyes and let sleep take him.