Ozzy Sat stunned for a moment. He’d felt his experience had been harrowing. Eating rat meat was probably the most disgusting thing he’d done his entire time here. The fight with the last rat, the most dangerous. He’d also met someone after only a few days of being alone. He couldn’t imagine having been alone in the dark for weeks, followed by alone under the tiny bit of light that was given off by a starry night sky for several months. Possibly years, as Cederick was hazy on exactly how long he’d been here. Which also meant he was about a year younger when he arrived. He hesitated to ask the two questions. How old were you when you got here? How long have you been here? Especially since Cederick was looking at him with obvious anticipation for his own story. In the end he decided on the latter as it was most likely the less triggering of the two.
Cederick's response told him more than he wanted. His upbeat attitude slipped for a moment and it almost looked like he would break down, but he quickly recovered. “I don’t really like to think about it” he responded mildly, “Besides, Times have been so great after meeting so many interesting people! Especially hearing their stories! So, what’s yours?”. Ozzy felt a little guilty when he started his point of view tale from his arrival till now. He hadn’t gone through anywhere near the same things. To compensate he tried to lighten the mood. Telling the portions where he flopped about on his recliner, the square, and meeting the first rat in the most embarrassing way possible. Painting himself as a coward scared by his own shadow. Which especially on the first day was not a great stretch of the truth.
The theatrics saw Cederick's attitude restore itself completely as he spoke. In real time Ozzy could watch the reversing of the souring of his mood. His laughs started out a bit mild but grew raucous as Ozzy continued. After a bit it was like he was the kid who he appeared to be when he walked up behind him an hour ago. His heart sank for a moment as he thought of this kid essentially growing up in this place of kill or be killed. Even if it was only a few months ago he was still a child even now. By some estimates he was a child himself, having just started college recently. Taking a page out of the kid’s book he put that past him. The past could only destroy the present or future if you were stuck there instead of moving forward.
Ozzy felt himself smiling and laughing along with Cederick as he continued. He decided to leave out the details on killing the rats, although he absolutely told about eating the rat and his ravenous response to tasting a bit of it. Playing up every part of the story he thought might bring a little joy to the kid’s life. To that end he left out the pain of improving his domain, learning how to use it slowly and any mention of tendrils, tentacles, or the like. Instead he claimed he went to embrace the last rat without a weapon at all, due to his loneliness. Which again wasn’t a stretch so much as he’d like to pretend. As he brought the story to a close with hearing someone walk up behind him, and whirling about with some judo chops, Cederick was almost crying laughing.
With the story completed Ozzy was dying to start asking more questions. Waiting until Cederick composed himself he reevaluated the boy. The way he controlled the situation was a testament to the hell he’d been through. Telling a story to disarm and watch the reactions. Then asking for a story in return to gauge Ozzy’s character. It was downright genius if that’s really why he did it. The reasoning could easily be exactly as he said, but Ozzy suspected there was more to the kid than he let on. He likely had to play people like a fiddle to help sort the random people he’d met into categories to more safely interact with them.
Seeing that Cederick was now looking at him expectantly Ozzy proceeded to pelt him with questions. First and foremost was something he’d realized while telling his own story. He’d stayed at the first rat haven for quite some time. Not quite as long as Cederick had stayed in his starry scape, but Long enough that the rat should have spawned and kicked him back, like Cederick's had.
The answer was more conjecture than hard fact but it wasn’t like Ozzy had anything better. “Well, The Chain of Haven’s everybody seems to have access to here are not the same as the havens we show up in,'' He Explained matter of factly. “They are weaker versions that can’t attract and host the type of guests like us. I’m pretty sure that’s why they’re chained the way they are. Since I think their similar target audience allows them to more effectively attract a viable one. I say that to say the guests they do attract are so weak you just standing there gives them more energy than any occupant they could hope to entice to reside there. There’s no reason for them to reach out to even try if you’re standing in them. Which of course means a limitation on just how fast any of them can be harvested. At least with the first few, I haven't tried that with one's further down the line. I don't really like it there”
The ramifications of that second to last statement gave Ozzy pause. If everybody else was stuck jumping too and from their chain of havens in order to kill the occupants, and could only effectively farm one at a time, then they were very limited in growth. While he didn’t have the same trouble, even discounting connecting those havens to his, that might be a major benefit. Though at the same time he had no idea what kinds of things the others had discovered. Cederick's ability to detect a fight occurring in the more powerful haven’s and even determine the disposition of those present clearly had its benefits as well. As much as Ozzy liked the kid he was still hesitant to just blab about everything he’d discovered so far. Seeing how he’d adapted to the environment and met others and carved out a niche of his own It behooved Ozzy to take it slowly and reveal things only after he’d gotten the lay of the land. There was no sure thing, better to play it safe to start with, he couldn’t take back revealing information after all.
“So, what about the connections to other havens” Ozzy started a new line of questioning “Why is it so hard to see anything other than the next step in the chain of havens? Let alone anything else”. With this he had some guesses of his own but was interested in another take on the situation. Cederick scrunched up his face before answering.
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“That one is a little hard to say.'' He opened his mouth a couple times and lifted his hands to gesture a few times as well before dropping them back down. Eventually he decided on how to continue. “There seem to be an uncountable number of connections all right at the edge of the havens. Somewhat like they’re all residing in the same building, each one layered one floor on top of one another. Only it’s not like a building where each floor only touches the next. You can touch any and all of them at once and that’s the problem. Trying to differentiate between any of them is like trying to grab one specific droplet of water out of a bucket. In my case when I detect others fighting it’s like the droplets are bouncing on the surface and I can differentiate them that way.”
Ozzy nodded along as Cederick gave his description. While not exactly how he would have chosen to described it there was a synergy with the way Ozzy saw it working. He’d keep a closer eye the next time he had some time to test out the things Cederick described. Maybe he could find them as well, or maybe other eccentricities as well.
There were so many things that were completely out of the norm here that needed to be examined and experimented with. He couldn’t take anything for granted.
Despite the number of questions Ozzy had being endless, Cederick started to flag after only a few more. As much as he obviously enjoyed socializing he also clearly wasn’t interested in being pestered with nonstop queries on how things worked for the rest of the day. He might have tried harder to pry for more answers but most of what Cederick had to offer was conjecture. While it was nice to hear corroboration of his own ideas and thoughts on the matter it wasn’t worth it to annoy the guy. There was one more he thought was enough of a social question to not irk him though. “So, how many tiles do you have at your place eh?” He figured it would offer an opportunity to brag at the least.
“Well, I’ve actually lost count to be honest” Cederick said and almost seemed a bit embarrassed about it. “Though I haven’t killed as many imps as you might think.” He said trying to placate whatever offense he might be causing. “It’s kinda easy actually. Standing on a square coming from a chain you haven’t been to before allows you to see the connection to it. And as you’ve obviously found you can gain a tile when you first kill something from a haven. There’s lots of theories why. Like one guy thinks it’s like lizards dropping off their own tail if you grab it so they can escape. But, nobody really knows why for sure. What we do know is that it isn’t you gaining it. Technically it’s your haven. You could go back to a haven you’ve gotten a tile from before and get another one, if you did so by passing from a different haven than your own. It would just show up in the haven you came from, not your own.”
Ozzy was surprised at this. Not that they didn’t know how or why. He was wondering the same things himself, But the possibility of expanding his home so much. There could be so many options if that were the case. Before he could start pelting Cederick with the hundreds of follow-up questions that were running through his mind the boy jumped up and spoke up again. “Wanna see!?” He exclaimed with the excitement only a kid showing off their new toy can have.
“Of course!” Ozzy responded immediately, feeling excitement not just because of the kid's infectious attitude, but with the chance to expand. He was tired of having barely any space to muck about in, and it would be nice to eventually be able to build something. Cederick turned and stepped into nothing immediately. After about a minute Ozzy was starting to wonder if he’d just left, but remembered there was a delay when traveling to and from any haven. After another couple minutes Cederick stepped back into view and with him a new square appeared which he stepped onto. The fact that Cederick's foot appeared above the tile before it appeared and then it appeared just before he stepped onto it suggested something about how this all worked. What that meant wouldn’t be clear without more testing and examination to get a better picture of what was happening. It was also odd that the tile appeared without any warning from his new senses. Usually he’d see a flurry of movement in the energy all around, but this time he saw nothing. While thinking this Cederick raised his arm and tossed something his way.
“Here bro. It’s on the house!” Something pink flapped through the air awkwardly before landing in his lap. Looking down he saw what Cederick had described before. A little demon Cherub. If the mouth hadn’t been open and the wings weren’t a bare fleshy pink he would have assumed it was actually a cherub. It was kind of cute other than the pointy and far too long teeth that early spilled out of its mouth. Which once taken into account and multiplied by the gross wings made it just about the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen. Imp indeed. No wonder Cederick didn’t want to talk about eating one of these, it would have felt like eating a baby. Even the thought nearly made Ozzy vomit right there, but he held himself together.
“Thanks!” He said, more for the new tile than the disgusting demon child in his arms. He was about to ask a few things when Cederick helped him change the subject. There was no way he wanted to continue talking about what he held and was himself searching for a way to change the subject.
“You should really start rearranging things now that you’ve got different types of tiles here” Cederick said, and as he did looked at the layout of the tiles before him. The frown on his face told Ozzy something was off. “It’s weird they arranged themselves this way as normally they just surround the one you appeared on”. Which brought to mind the most recent rat tile and the fact that indeed its squares had formed a neat larger square. Though at the time he had no way of telling which was the initial tile. “But, “ Cederick cut off his thought process “That can wait, I’ve got a surprise for you. Follow me!”