Lilly was finishing her grand speech about how society used to work, and how it should've worked in her opinion. I had many opinions based on what i heard, but since i really didn't have any first hand experiences of the topic I refused to form a conclusion or plan for what should or shouldn't be done. Even the so called 'golden rule' was either ignored or deemed non important in cases, for example, if a masochist's golden rule was followed everyone would probably be subjected to pain. Subjectivity was the downfall of such a golden rule, anyone could want something that contradicted someone else's wants.
The origin and goal of such a rule was admirable but such a rule was flawed. Fighting for the good of all instead of single people sounded great until you were the one that had to be suppressed for the good of all. Going with a case by case basis seemed like a great way to favor the people in power just to gain a favor from them in return.
All in all, society sounded like a mess. No wonder there were wars and such a plenty.
"Sounds like a mess" I told her. Being reminded of the whole pronoun thing. If it's such a mess and going as far as saying that using the wrong one is hurtful to the other person why not just cast away the whole concept, just pick one and use it for everyone. Then again trying to affect such a large conceptual part of society seemed like a mess. And a mess it was, at least based on the stories.
"Honestly it was, or is? Do you have a clue if there's anything else out there?" Lilly asked, seeming slightly miserable.
"Not really, all I've seen is this 'eldritch' landscape, or at least that's how the System calls it," i replied.
"Oh, right, the system, you keep saying that but what do you mean by it, what is it?" Lilly asked.
I explained to her how i was greeted with a message and how to access it.
"Ok, so either I'm having a psychotic break down, or there's magic and shit now. I'm not sure which is the better scenario either. Magic seems great and all but giving individual people a lot of power historically hasn't gone all that great." Lilly pondered out loud, or perhaps was trying to start a conversation.
"I wouldn't know. The System does seem like an artificial concept at least so perhaps there's already someone with godlike power out there, And perhaps that's why everything is as apocalyptic as it seems. Maybe they got enough of society and decided a 'cleansing via nuclear fire' was necessary, or whatever the magic equivalent is," i pondered out loud as well, not really talking with her, more throwing shit at the wall seeing what sticks.
"Could be, a little early to speculate when all your evidence is twisty rocks and a fancy blue box," Lilly replied.
You've been given a Quest!
Figure out what happened to the world 0/? steps complete.
Reward: IOU from a god :)
"Well i just got another point of evidence," I paused and asked "Uh, god is it possible to share a System message?"
Lilly looked slightly worried and asked "The fuck are you on abo-" and apparently got the System message before finishing the sentence.
"Right, well here's hoping for omnibenevolence and no magical nuclear cleansing." she decided.
"I guess things could be worse, although this quest doesn't really help us during it. Besides, i was kind of doing that whole thing before the quest so it's existence is entirely neutral except for proving a god exists, and is apparently listening," I replied.
"Yeah i mean all in all a 3/10 introduction into a quest system," Lilly replied, in mirth.
"You've had better?" I asked.
"Ah well if you put it like that it's 10/10, or 0/10 depending on if you're an optimist or pessimist. 10/10 being the pessimist rating since the only direction the rest of the introductions to a quest system would be worse than the first. unless re-scoring is allowed?" Lilly replied.
Lilly has been given a Quest!
Reconsider the score
Reward: a god feels better about himself
"Look what you did, your witty remarks make the gods weep," I said, smiling slightly.
"And yours probably make them cringe. I've reconsidered. 0/10. the second one was way better, and shows you were not limited by rules." Lilly replied, reveling in her new access to a god. And then it started raining.
"See? Crying. Such a cynical person you are." I Replied laughing slightly.
Your party been given a Quest!
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Survive the day!
Reward: you get to live!
"Oh, no no no, Forgive me you magnificence, I was merely joking. A 10 out of 10 first Quest! Yes!" Lilly pleaded, still looking only marginally worried, even with the apparent wrath of a god upon her shoulders.
"All jokes aside, you should probably focus on surviving instead of bickering, wouldn't want the only people alive to die from stupidity" A voice said in my head, and tickled some sort of nostalgia. Then a presence vanished. Only the sudden lack of it left, to indicate it was there at all.
"Right, the whole apocalypse thing. Thanks mysterious voice, though i think we would've started with the whole surviving thing once hungry, probably," Lilly replied.
"I mean i can conjure food so we would probably just fine," I agreed.
"Well, no. There's a bit more to surviving than just eating. Like shelter, water and such, speaking of water do you have any way to collect the rain?" Lilly explained and asked.
"I could form a divot in the ground for it to collect in?" i asked.
"Better make it above ground level so things don't crawl into it. the 'god' said 'only people alive' but that doesn't say anything about non-people creatures, so better safe than sorry," Lilly somewhat rambled.
I spent the rest of the day slowly forming a structure for keeping the rain off us and in a bowl. Lilly had an idea of what a shelter should have but didn't seem completely sure about anything but having a roof over our heads and walls around us. She said it looked a bit like a hobbit hole, whatever that meant. We managed to collect a good a small pond of rain water. And when standing in the rain understood what she mean about shelter being important, i felt cold, and the rain kept leeching my heat away. And so asked Lilly if she had any advice for fixing it.
"Oh right, heat, well yeah making a fire would work? Worst case scenario would be to huddle together and share each other's body heat. Though i'm definitely not keen the idea," She explained.
"Right, so a fire?" I asked.
"You'd need something burnable for fuel like a wood or coal, anything with carbon and not a lot of moisture should work fine, and then heat it up until it starts burning, the fire will then keep the reaction going with the heat it produces," she explained.
"Hmm. I'm pretty sure i can't just manipulate something to be burnable, at least it would be expensive, and it would be cheaper to just manipulate us to be hotter. I also want to see what else is around us. we can look around for burnable things at the same time," i said, wondering if i had missed any manipulation options.
"Well you should heat us up to comfortable temperatures for now, getting sick is probably the last thing i'd want to do, even if that was fixable it's just a waste of resources," Lilly said. Then added "You should probably also make us some clothes that are waterproof and warm, so that we can do other things than just bicker during rain."
"I could either make them out of a flexible material or just manipulate a material to be flexible" I said.
"Is there a difference to how they'd work?" she asked.
"Well making something flexible would keep the other properties of said material, like hardness, et cetera, and it's more expensive mana wise. While turning a material into a flexible one instead would get all of the properties of said material." I explained.
"So if we ever find diamonds you could make super armor due to taking away one of it's key weaknesses, but for now you should just turn something into a flexible material, and then you if needed you can add other properties," she proposed.
"Sounds reasonable but i need a material to clone," i agreed.
"Hair is probably a good enough material to make clothes out of. It's basically long strands of keratin which is pretty tough and flexible, at least if you believe the bug world since those things use it for most of their defenses," Lilly said.
"Hmm. And what about waterproofing it? and the heat retention?" I asked, I could probably figure that out with just experimentation but Lilly seemed to know a lot of things so why not just use the free knowledge. I think she mentioned something about re inventing the wheel in her society speech, which was also a rant.
"Well for waterproofing you'd have to make sure there's no holes in the outer surface, or any of the layers if you add some. And keeping heat is usually done with having lots of air as an insulating layer. Actually that sounds like a fun design challenge, Could you give me a few small sheets of keratin, and some fluffy stuff with lots of air bubbles in it or just a mesh of air and keratin, in fact give me both," Lilly said seemingly excited.
"Sure but i'll keep the sheets to a minimum thickness to conserve mana. I can just thicken them later on if needed anyways." I said and started producing materials for Lilly to create us some weather proof clothes from. I ran out of mana, but i had made a few square meters of a thin keratin film, and some "fluffy stuff" which Lilly started hair foam since it was apparently not quite like wool. Having no way of comparing the two I just accepted my apparent failure in creating a material I've never seen before.
The world outside seemed to dim, night was nigh, and Lilly's focus shifted.
"We need beds and you need to heat this room, also make an air gap inside the walls, the floor and the roof to keep the heat from escaping as quickly," Lilly stated matter of factly.
"I don't think i have enough mana for all of that" I replied.
"Right. Priorities it is. I think we could make a jank sleeping bag out of the materials you made. Just make a cylinder of the hair foam seal one end and coat it with woven hair. And make 2 soft pillows," She decided.
"Just one cylinder?" i asked and she blushed slightly.
"We need the warmth more than I need dignity, so we're sleeping in one sleeping bag," Lilly explained.
"Sleeping? Odd, I know what the word means but didn't really consider I'd sleep?" I pondered.
Lilly looked a bit worried and said "You know it's a miracle you can speak at all when you have zero memories of your past, I wonder how any of that even works? You said you know the concept but what's the cutoff point for your memories? And even concepts can be very personal. To the point of being the basis for forming opinions. You haven't had to ask for me to clarify a word, but you have no clue how the world worked," she pondered out loud and said as an afterthought: "And yea most living things sleep. No clue why though."
I just replied "I guess i'll have to get used to it then."
"See even that is weird. no one has to 'get used to' sleeping. you just do it from the day you're born and can't remember a phase when you had to 'get used to' it, did you have to get used to breathing?" Lilly asked, now curious.
"I was already breathing and thinking when i woke, it was automatic, not something I had to do really, I didn't even have time to focus on it since I was confused all the other litany of things existence brings with it, though I suppose I did have to get used to thinking?" I replied. Also curious.
Existence is a curious thing.