> =====
>
> Quest Failed!!
>
> "Lie Through Your Teeth"
>
> You followed the actual quest objectives... but you didn't lie through your teeth. Very disappointing! Next time, remember that honesty is the best policy, unless the quest's title tells you otherwise!
>
> Penalties: Disappointment.
>
> (Begrudging) Rewards: No torture! Yet.
>
> =====
I might be losing my mind, Maso thought, but at least the weather is nice.
He was following the woman - he still hadn't learned her name - down the damp staircase at the back of the building. It wasn't raining, thankfully, but there was still a humidity in the air that he hadn't bothered to notice, before. It clung to his body and made his shirt feel heavy against his chest, sticky like he'd worked out for too long.
This would be a nicer place to exercise, at least. The air seemed to flow better in his lungs, cleaner, and the view of the forest was beautiful, too. Even halfway eclipsed by the buildings splayed out awkwardly between it and Maso, the forest was an impressive sight. It loomed in the near distance like a drawn-out shadow, and stretched out in two directions farther than he could see. The rich greens were punctuated only by small rocky hills, little details that grabbed his attention.
"In here," the woman said.
The text hovering in front of Maso finally disappeared as he followed her into the building's second floor. He still couldn't think of an explanation: the woman obviously hadn't seen it, so either he was hallucinating, his neural augment was malfunctioning, or - well, that was where he drew a blank.
Maybe it was a known effect, on this planet. He'd have to ask, or risk going on without key information. Ideally, he'd be able to elicit an explanation without directly mentioning it, in the case where he was just going mad.
> =====
>
> New Quest: "Understand the System"
>
> Rewards: You may (with time and concerted effort) be able to understand (as much as your feeble human brain can) and use (a constrained portion of) (the functionality enabled by) the System.
>
> Penalties for Failure: A long, miserable period of self-reflection wherein you may find yourself bemoaning your lack of intuition. "Surely, if I had but the intellect of a mere child, I would have comprehended the majesty of the System by now", you'll say, cradling your deficient head in your hands. "What a shame that I lack even that."
>
> Actual Penalties for Failure: Continued confusion, probably.
>
> =====
Maso blinked. Maybe it would be better if he was hallucinating. Fortunately, this "quest" took up less of his field of view, so he promptly ignored it.
While he waited for it to fade - hopefully it would fade, it would be a blow to his situational awareness - he let his eyes dart back and forth around the room, taking it all in. It was clean and quite plain, a table and chairs set up in the middle and some small furniture gathered towards one of the two walls. The side of the room that faced towards the larger street was completely open, a thin curtain pushed to one side, and the side that Maso had come in through had been mostly covered by another curtain, but was otherwise open too.
A thin mattress lay on its side against one wall, and Maso walked past it, taking a seat across from the woman. She grabbed something that looked like a fruit from a hanging container, and placed it on the table across from him, sitting down.
"I'm Lanoch," she said.
"Maso." He eyed the fruit-like thing. Maybe it was his empty stomach talking, but it looked delicious.
"I know. You said that already. Eat this," Lanoch said, rolling the fruit towards him.
Maso reached for it, then paused. Could it be poisoned? Inedible? Drugged?
On the Origin, fruit came from densely packed trees that grew in sterile underground greenhouses. They were bred and genetically modified to an absurd degree, resource rich and bountiful. More importantly, despite their coarse and gritty texture (and general flavourlessness), they were packed with nutrients, making them worth eating, if only barely.
This fruit, on the other hand, seemed almost too inviting. Twice the size of Maso's fist, perhaps, and a deep yellow, with light greens sweeping across its smooth skin, it was like a piece of art, like it'd been designed to look good.
Maso's stomach growled.
He shrugged and took a bite.
It was the best thing he'd ever tasted in his life. The juice exploded into his mouth with a sugary, rich flavour; the flesh was perfectly textured, easy to chew and thick.
As he ate the fruit like a starving man, Lanoch leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling.
"It's unfortunate that you lost your memories," she said, finally. "That's quite a situation to be in. But, you're in luck. You've managed to find exactly the person who knows what you need. You've been blessed."
"I understand," Maso tried to say, but it came out more like: "Ah-unasha." He didn't really understand, anyways.
"How much do you know about the Thadh?" she asked.
Maso finished chewing, swallowed, and tried to wipe some of the juice from his chin. "What's that?"
Lanoch sighed, glancing down at the table. Then she chanted something, again in that bizarre otherworldly language, and the small pit he'd set down vanished.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
"That's the Thadh," she said, with a flourish of her hands.
"The pit?"
She barked out a laugh. "No. Although that's actually a controversial subject. Technicalities. No, the Thadh is what lets me do that."
"It's a language?" Maso guessed. In the void, he'd read about priests with the power to cause 'acts of god' through some kind of esoteric language, but the texts had been chock-full of obscure theological references to the point where he'd given up trying to understand how it actually worked. That said, he didn't remember anything called a Thadh.
"No, it's a tree. Well. That might be understating it, but you'll see. Anyways." Lanoch straightened her back and looked him in the eye. "You, like me, are an Aspen. This gives you the insurmountable privilege of being connected to the Thadh, no matter where you go on the continent. Essentially, you're eligible to commune with it, and to receive its blessings."
The information seemed important, but the way she presented it was rote, like she was reading off a script.
"Right," Maso said, finally. The worst question sprung to mind first: "Aspen. Is that a kind of elf?"
Lanoch's smile vanished. "No. Well. Okay. Look," she said, leaning forward slightly. "'Elves' don't exist. Don't use that word. Or, rather, don't say that to anyone who looks like me. Us, that is. Just remember that, and you'll be fine."
Maso blinked. "I shouldn't say 'elf'?"
"No. No self-respecting Aspen would call themselves an elf. And if you were to call someone that, well-" Lanoch frowned. "Anyways. Let's move on. I want to get this going sooner rather than later."
Maso still had a dozen questions to ask. 'Elves' were called 'Aspen': that was simple enough to intuit. Why the texts he'd read in the void had exclusively referred to them as elves, he didn't know, but he assumed that was mostly irrelevant.
He hoped so, anyways. It was hard enough trying to piece together the most urgent bits of information; if random nomenclature was going to be important, too, he'd lose his mind. Noticing yet another popup text floating in his peripheral vision - this time calling for him to 'commune with the Thadh' lest he be 'cast adrift in a sea of impotence' - he amended that thought: he'd lose his mind harder.
"There are two ways that you can commune with the Thadh," Lanoch was saying. "The first is rather simple. You can travel to the tree itself, and connect directly with it. This works for any Aspen, even the children."
"Is it far away?"
"Yes, very. Don't worry about that. Only idiots do that anyways. No, fortunately, with a little bit of training you should be able to communicate with the Thadh from here."
Long-distance communication? He hadn't seen any indication of such technology so far, but in fairness, he'd hadn't left this building, yet.
Wait, Maso thought, as he ignored another popup that appeared in the center of his vision. "How does that manifest? Is it text that you just - see?"
"Yes! You're already seeing it? That's excellent." Lanoch's smile widened to the point where Maso could see most of her teeth. "That means the Thadh has an interest in you. Now, all you need to do is say Thadh."
"Thadh?"
"No. It can be hard to get it right, if this is your first time communing with it. Listen to the way I'm saying it." She repeated herself, more forcefully, with a strange intent behind the word: "Thadh."
Now, this seemed like a complete waste of time. Learning other languages was a fool's errand on the Origin; here, without his data stores, it was an insurmountable challenge. Fortunately, this was something he had tools to handle.
Mimic tone, repeat, Maso thought at his neural augment, packaging meaning and intent into the way he formed the thoughts. Now that he'd eaten, and was in a more calm environment, it was even easier to interface with the augment.
His mouth moved of its own accord, briefly controlled by the augment: "Thadh."
Information flooded his view. A few more "new quest" popups had appeared while he'd been talking with Lanoch, but he'd paid them no mind; now, the ones that hadn't faded were annihilated, lost behind a thousand menus and images and egregiously long paragraphs filled with what appeared to be help information.
Maso scanned it in a fraction of a second, skimming for the most important details.
"I see," he said, blinking a few times to try and focus on Lanoch's face through the mess. Her expression had changed, and she was staring straight at him with a furrowed brow. "That's a lot of information."
"That was quick," she said. "Are you sure you-"
"It's mostly useless."
"Excuse me?"
"The 'inventory' lists the clothes I'm wearing, which I obviously already knew. The 'spells' listing, whatever that is, is empty... my skills are also empty - is that a jab? And the rest are just arbitrary numbers and nested menus."
Deeply nested menus. Maso's eyes darted back and forth as he tried to figure out how to access them. Most of the top-level information was superficial or unhelpful, stating things like Your skills section represents the skills that you have acquired! or The experience required for the next level is calculated from a pseudo-logarithmic formula that will take into account your necessary growth rate.
The options he had seemed to suggest that he would be able to access extra information like he'd had in the void, if he could just navigate through the ridiculous menu that-
"I see," Lanoch said, clasping her hands in front of her on the table. "Well. If you parsed that so quickly, you were certainly skilled in your past life, at least."
Maso was used to reading the data off his visual overlays, so this wasn't difficult. He didn't say anything, still giving pointed looks to the menu buttons.
Lanoch continued: "The Thadh gives many gifts. Abstract things, like skills or information. More direct things, like boons to your body and mind. And, most importantly, magic."
"Magic?" Like some of the other words she'd used, this one gave Maso pause. It didn't sound like a proper noun, like Thadh or Rùndiam, but whatever effect - or linguistic overlap - that was allowing him to understand the things she said evidently couldn't handle it.
"Yes," Lanoch said, apparently not following the question, "a great magic, and a more natural one than that of the humans or dwarves. Although, at the end of the day, the effects aren't that different - don't tell anyone I said that, though."
Maso shrugged. He considered asking for more detail on what 'magic' actually was, but Lanoch kept talking, gaining momentum as if she was getting to the core of her explanation.
"Look, Maso. In life, we all want something. My parents, they wanted power - not the personal kind, but power over others. Political power, if you will. My brother, well, he wants fame, although he'd never admit it to himself. And I already have what I want, which is to relax in this beach house for half the year. The Thadh can grant you all of that, and more, if you simply listen to it, and do as it says."
Lanoch continued: "There's something you want, right? Power, money - or your memories, the ones you lost? If you gain favour with the Thadh, you can have that. You just need to become, ah, aligned with its will."
Maso hadn't had an opportunity to really consider this, yet, and he took a moment to do so. When he'd crashed onto the planet, his immediate plan had been to construct a signalling beacon and call for help; by creating a rudimentary pseudo-stasis pod, he'd have been able to avoid any undue effects on the planet's trajectory until a rescue ship could be sent.
That was impossible, now. Sure, Maso was well-trained and relatively knowledgeable compared to his peers. He'd studied a healthy mix of the sciences, including astrophysics, quantum field theory, and engineering, but he'd focused on military pursuits first and foremost. At the end of the day, without his data stores he simply wouldn't be able to create the beacon or stasis pod. Maybe if had a few years, he could get close, but there was no way to know if he'd encounter some unexpected block caused by a gap in his knowledge.
Especially considering he actually had gaps in his knowledge, now. Being able to forget things, in and of itself, was a strange and unpredictable phenomenon. He'd tried to 'play' amnesiac for Lanoch, but in reality, he almost felt that way already.
It was impossible to know if any of the information Lanoch had given him was accurate. He could be hallucinating, or in some kind of foreign simulation, or just dreaming in the void. But deliberating over that kind of question was pointless. He could only progress forward in the reality that he perceived; there was no other choice.
If this world had a supernatural tree at its core, perhaps it could send him home.
Finally, Maso responded: "So you're telling me I should have been paying attention to the 'quest' information?"