Adam knocked on the door upon hearing Matilda crying, sobbing in the room. He knew both her and Brian had gone into the room about an hour ago. He had to at least check.
“Go away, it doesn’t concern you.” He received in the form of an outburst, the sound of wailing cutting out as she spoke.
Brian added through the door “We just need a few minutes Adam.”
Adam paused for a moment wondering what was going on, why would they hide this from him, whatever it was?
“What’s wrong? We are safe here with Hammy, we are learning more and more, I want to know why one of my friends is upset.”
The door swung open, a teary Matilda holding the door with one hand in the doorway.
“Do you feel alien using that word, friend? I think we are more just tools for you to keep levelling up and to fulfill this journey of yours.”
Adam almost spoke back instantly in anger, before catching his own breath and stopping.
“It’s a journey for all of us, of course you are my friends. What’s this about exactly?” He was proud of himself for not shouting and crying back in anger before understanding the situation.
“Do you even remember home? Earth? You haven’t spoken about it to either myself or Brian even once since we got here. What do you think Brian and I have been talking about all day while you were talking about quests with Hammy? We were reminiscing Adam.”
Brian looked off to the side awkwardly, scratching his head.
Adam sighed. Partly from relief that it wasn’t something worse and partly in frustration that this is what it was all about.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh. Did you even have friends or family back on Earth? We wouldn’t know, it’s just all objectives and growth for you.” He had no idea things had got this bad.
“Of course I did. Do.” He said back, emotion rising up within himself.
“So what, you don’t miss it, this world is so much better, where we almost die every day?”
“We have a mission, the test.”
She cut him off quickly.
“I miss my mother Adam, I miss my big sister. I was crying for that reason if you have to know. The fact that we have to explain this to you is so disappointing, I respect you for how you have been leading the team so far and everything but I don’t know, where’s your human spirit? Sorry if this is harsh but I’m baffled.” She was starting to stumble over her words, that hesitance before being brutally honest to someone and the voice crack that comes as you spit it out. It was all there.
“I’m not sure what to say. I.. I’ve just been focused, it’s how I cope and deal with things I think.”
“Maybe, feel like that isn’t explaining everything, you’ve been so fixated since before we even left on the ship.”
Brian spoke up as well, standing by Matilda’s side now.
“Did you even notice once how out of place we felt in the city of Oak? I didn’t blame you for not noticing with myself because there was a lot going on and I was either sleeping or kidnapped for a lot of it. But when Matilda told me you didn’t notice it with her, I got pissed if I’m being honest with you.”
Adam was feeling attacked now, didn’t notice what?
“Dude, our skin colours. What we are saying is, no one in this entire city, maybe on this entire planet looks like us at all. I didn’t like to talk about this stuff back home but I think it’s fair to bring up with the way everyone has been staring at us.” Adam noticed his righteousness fading as he seemed to become awkward explaining the situation so plainly to him.
Adam flashed back to all the commentary Vincent and others made about their appearance. How she would stick out as a complete outsider, an obvious Hiker to those who knew anything about Hikers. How Brian only vaguely resembled some distant people but still was very out of place. He slapped his hand to his forehead, how could he have missed and ignored that?
Matilda was crying again. Adam extended his arm to go on her shoulder, she backed away.
“Leave me alone!” she pushed out through streams of tears.
“I’m so sorry, both of you.” Adam leaned on the door frame with one hand.
“My little sister is named Caroline. She is 8 years old and… she’s not like other kids. She was diagnosed with autism when she was like three years old.” Adam had not spoke about this with anyone in a number of years. It usually led to bad feelings and bad moods.
Matilda looked up at him.
“She is who I fight for, she is who I thought of when I’ve had to push through all of these impossible challenges so far, she is who I cried for before we left. Yes I’m excited about all of this, our hiker menu system, our adventures, our mission and test, but I have loved ones and history too, we have the same home don’t worry.” He smiled, it felt good to get off of his chest.
Matilda smiled back weakly. “I’m sorry, thanks for sharing.”
Adam replied, waving his hands apologetically. “No, don’t be sorry please, you were well within your right, I’ve been a jerk, I see that now. Well at least, I haven’t been a friend.”
She whispered back “Thank you.”
Brian sighed in relief “Well, I feel a bit of tension eased which is nice, not what I really signed up for.”
Matilda laughed “What, more uncomfortable than being questioned by Fargo inside a church prison cell?”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Brian smiled, sitting down on one of the armchairs in the room, a soft green fabric. “Pretty close. Sorry about your sister man.” He said turning to face Adam.
Adam had dealt with this one before and pushed down some painful feelings and memories he had. “Don’t be sorry, she’s a champ, strong and unique, just definitely has some pretty funny quirks.”
They spent the next half an hour or so talking about home before falling asleep. Adam was glad to have some link back there, he was definitely capable of losing himself in new things, but he didn’t and couldn’t ever fully lose himself.
They awoke nice and early for more mediocre breakfast that got the job done well enough and planned out the rest of their day.
“Do we really have time to spare farming more experience and levels?” Matilda was unsure, she thought Oak might not have much time left.
Adam had calculated it every way he could in his head.
“We have to take the gamble, while we still won’t be able to fight someone like Abbey, we can at least give the church more of a fight if we get a level or two in. We just have to hope Oak can hang on.”
Hammy sat there with his large stomach hanging out of his shirt. “I’ve been here for, what is it, fifteen years now? I can’t imagine Oak going down, I didn’t see what you did but have some faith in her I say, I can’t imagine she would go down that easily.”
“Let’s get going then. I hate waiting around, I’d rather just take action. Let’s try and hit level four and go from there.”
Adam and Matilda nodded.
“So, where do we go and what do we do?” Brian was full of gusto but he hadn’t the faintest clue on what was next.
“Go explore, things pop up, bonus objectives that you have had a few of already. You might even find some loot. I’d start off with a nearby cave. It’s about half an hour from here by foot. To the north. The last time a nearby neighbour bothered to speak with me a few years ago they mentioned there was foul play going on within that cave.”
“A few years? Who knows what it’s like now.” Adam complained.
“Better than nothing, these things usually fester anyway, not magically get better.”
“You won’t come with us?”
He shook his head “Those days are past me, I’ve been so inactive I even lost my ascendancy. Just a plain old barbarian now, like you Brian. Show me your skill tree before you go I’ll give you some ideas. Plus the system sometimes freaks out and doesn’t know to assign the experience when people of differing hiker groups get together like that.”
“It didn’t when we fought some creatures off with Vincent.” Brian retorted.
Adam explained it before Hammy could. “He never touched those chaos creatures, he was passive in that fight I guess.”
Hammy nodded. “Off you go.”
Hammy walked Brian through some of the barbarian skill tree while the other two got ready. Adam felt some jealousy in actually receiving guidance as Matilda explained that Vincent did the same for her Cleric tree.
Since you weren’t able to actually view what was coming further down the tree it felt like wild stabs in the dark at choosing what path you went down on the skill tree. Adam felt frustrated that he would have no control over his Psion path since he just had to take what seemed situationally best, he hoped he could find another Psion somewhere if he was lucky enough to help him choose the right path down the skill tree for future potential. He didn’t see any method of resetting his skill points directly in the menu anyway.
He had tried probing Hammy for more information about fine details of the menu but Hammy said he “didn’t want to spoil the fun” whenever it wasn’t something that Hammy decided to share of his own accord. When Adam complained he went on a rant about how he didn’t encounter another Hiker until his fourth planet and had no one to babysit him through his journey. Where was the logic? Adam thought.
The three of them set out north from Hammy’s farm, deeper into the forest in hopes of returning stronger and better equipped to tackle the bigger issues.
“Well, the nice thing is that we can always keep an eye on Oak.” Matilda looked out at the distant, gargantuan tree, it’s shade of purple still held and it looked the same as when they had arrived on the planet for now, but Adam was still quite worried about it all.
“Would we be any better off fighting a hound now than when we first got here?” Brian asked, he wasn’t acting scared but being in the forest must have reminded him of his near death experience shortly after they arrived on the planet Adam thought.
“No doubt about it.” Adam assured him.
They pushed through thick brush and went deeper into the forest, trying to stay as directly north as they could. It would be nice if their hiker menu had a compass Adam thought to himself.
“So, next level we are due for a new passive right? Same as level two?” Adam asked, hoping to hear some second hand information from either Hammy or Vincent from Brian or Matilda respectively.
“Yeah, alternates every level as far as they have ever seen at level eighteen apparently. But, they aren’t fixed passives for everyone. Hammy told me that I’d likely get different ones than he did. Though there are some that are more common than others, kind of like how the classes work, where some classes are more rare than others.” Brian kept looking out into the forest at every small sound they heard, Adam figured he was still worried about hounds.
“Apparently Barbarians and Clerics are two of the most common classes out there.” Matilda rolled her eyes. “We all can’t be a special super rare Psion like Adam” She giggled.
“Well, I have no one to help me or tell me anything so there is that. But I have taken quite a liking to my class. How are you finding yours?” He asked as they found hints of a track through the forest, following it intently.
“Well, since we were being open last night, I should share that I’m feeling crappy about my situation to be honest.”
Adam looked at him. “What’s wrong? Hammy is or was at least such a freaking beast of a berserker.”
“I haven’t been able to do anything since we got here, barely helped with the hound, almost died, had to be dragged around, I don’t know how you dragged me that far by the way and then got kidnapped.”
“Brian, without your last strike on that hound, I was as good as dead and wouldn’t have had time to push that boulder over, so, all of us as good as dead, including Cynthia. Also, you destroyed that padlock for us to escape the city, ALSO you prison escaped a secret church prison cell. Yeah, it was a rough start but we couldn’t have done any of it without you. Not to mention Grace, she took all three of our combined efforts to barely scrape by.” Adam tried to cheer Brian up, he truly believed Brian had no right to beat himself up over the events that had transpired.
Brian smirked a little as they continued up a hill through the trail they had found.
“But that kobold did kinda kick your butt.” Matilda laughed.
“Are you serious, it kicked all of our butts. It was literally kicking us all over the place.” All three of them laughed at the absurdity of the flying karate kobold.
As they reached the peak of the hill they were climbing, they found the cave, it had to be the one Hammy had mentioned, it was dark and damp. Much smaller than the glowing purple cave system they had found before Hammy’s farm.
Investigating the entrance of the cave, smooth orange rock made up the exterior, Matilda and Adam used their classic combo of floating a ball of light around to peek inside. They heard a hissing sound as an armoured man come running out of the cave towards them. Matilda screamed and ran back down the hill, tripping over and starting to roll as she gasped for air, seemingly winded.
Adam was confused at Matilda’s fear until he looked again at the mysterious man who had come running out, more like jogging out.
It was a roach, a cockroach-man hybrid thing. It ran on two legs and had just two arms. Its heavy-duty exoskeleton seemed like armour at first to Adam. It hissed as it exited the cave, staring at Adam and Brian.
“Burn it” Brian squeaked out
“You too?” Adam shook his head. He had no idea how much of a threat this thing was but at least it wasn’t a phobia that he was suffering from.
Bonus Objective - Fix the ban-ban situation. An insectoid creature, thought to be a creation of man and his disturbed experiments. Their true origin remains a mystery.
Adam really wished that the non-hiker enemies were assigned levels as well so he knew how scared to be of this hideous monster. It’s beady eyes were too large for its head and its antennae scaled up to this size was disturbingly thick, Adam could see it vibrating in real time. It zipped past Adam, picking up Brian with ease and throwing him down the hill they had just climbed, based on the fact that Brian went flying twenty strides in distance he figured this thing was at least a threat in raw strength if not anything else.