I don’t know that I’d call our awakening apocalyptic. It certainly had enough elements that you could make the argument, at least from our perspective. We didn’t have enough information at that time to evaluate anything beyond that in a rational way. Now all of that had changed. The world that we were experiencing now had always been out there, but the feeling of isolation that we had experienced, admittedly in different ways and to different degrees had started to shift. At least it did for those that were part of the crew proper. Our context was shifting quickly after leaving the tutorial and what once seemed uniquely traumatic was being normalized. Maybe we didn’t make the choice to be there, but nonetheless most of us had begun to settle into our assigned roles.
Admittedly, I was settling into my assigned role in my own way. You could call me an independent researcher or an on call technician or anything else you wanted, but I was a space bum. It took me awhile to process things and I think that it is fair to say that I fell into a bit of a depression in the process. Geeq stopped by to talk a couple of times of day, but I barely left my room.
The living environment in the forward barracks was perfectly comfortable, if generally pointless. I claimed one of the double rooms for myself. It had its own attached bathroom, a built-in rack of two bunks, a sitting area and a small table. I had the equivalent of a tablet that I could use to access the library. Apparently my skill didn’t affect Geeq because he used his observations from the tutorial to build himself a shielded area to keep processes related to me, so he made sure that the maintenance units in my area brought me my meals when I wasn’t feeling up to going to the unmanned and fully automated mess hall maybe 100 yards from my room.
I spent most of my time watching what I called “in-ship entertainment,” but what anyone else would likely refer to as pirated CCTV footage. Geeq had hooked me up with this perk and, although it probably wasn’t healthy long term, it did give me a way to keep an eye on what was going on in the more populous areas of the ship.
I had an area in my room with a grow light. I think that the idea was to grow herbs and maybe some other plants with positive benefits. One of the maintenance units had dropped off some pots, soil, basic gardening tools, soil and some seeds. I am not sure exactly where they came from as Geeq feigned ignorance when I asked about them. They were a nice hobby though. I really found myself missing nature now that I was living in the relatively sterile environment of the Esperanto.
I had always enjoyed being outdoors and been fascinated with nature, but I didn’t realize how far I had progressed down that road during the tutorial until I was suddenly in a fully artificial environment. I wasn’t a wild elf, but I spent about half of my first six months in Region Eleven hunting through the woods with Deldes and Delirin. I slept under the stars every night during my adventures with the elves and I traded in my apartment for what was essentially a cave under a tree when I moved to Eastern Tear. I didn’t really have a house in the Aerodrome either. I could always duck into the hanager if need be, but I mostly slept outside, or at least in the open air of one of my workshops, while I was there.
My connection with the nature and the natural world was much deeper than it had ever been, following the tutorial, but I was essentially estranged from it living in the forward barracks of the Esperanto. I wasn’t sure what the plants were, but they were growing extremely quickly, like a couple feet a day. It felt like a pretty extraordinary pace for some seeds, but I appreciated the green space and fresh air that they were adding to my quarters. I would have to ask them about it the next time we chatted. I had often heard that talking plants helped them grow.At the time I wasn’t sure if it was the result of my relatively solitary confinement, but when I gave it a try with these plants they started talking back.
***
“Well that was certainly interesting. Elen is typically organized and everything that she touches typically turns to gold, but that was not gold. That was chaos,” said Wythander.
“Well I thought it was great fun. When that dog beat Elyon, I saw the start of an epic ballad in the making,” responded Ayre. “Unfortunately, Elen and Ruven are mad that I didn’t help more and I don’t think that Phraan is going to be able to calm them down. I may need to think about some new options when we reach Oberous.
“I wasn’t ever going to be able to make that moron into a bard, so I wasn’t going to be able to make the princess happy no matter what, but I fared the best of the team in the evaluations. Feels like I did something right and that those three are going to have some explaining to do when we get to Elamore. Unfortunately, they don’t see it that way.”
“I wish someone would explain it to me, " said Wythander. “I still have some blank spots, but how did everyone manage to get killed before the final test? How did they have negative faction with the fae. I didn’t even know that was possible for an elf. I mean we are the fae and you know that those three weren’t exactly on the level.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Probably best not to mention that here,” whispered Ayre. The two elves sat in a large communal dining facility at the aft of the Esperanto. It had a transparent wall that allowed diners to marvel at the vastness of space as they dined. These two were not part of the Elamore faction, but they had been recruited to accompany them to Oberous. They had spent over two years on board to this point and had become friends as the only outsiders in the group of elves Elen, Ruven and Phraan are leading.
Just then Ruven slid up to the table. His expression was a mix of rage, frustration and shame as he cleared their dishes and quickly left the two without even a greeting. Say what you might about Ruven, he was exacting in his work even if he felt it was beneath him. That mess hall was spotless. Communications operator Ayre and aquaculture specialist Wythander would have to be getting back to work shortly themselves.
Neither Ayre nor Wythander had lost enough rank in the recent tutorial evaluation to lose their positions, but they both had lost their shift preferences. They had fared the best of all of the tutorial trainers in the reranking that they had received, as they had both managed to accomplish some of their objectives and had avoided the stiff penalty for dying within the simulated environment of Region Eleven.
They were even further on the outside of their group as a result of their lack of support for some of the elven party's more questionable decisions. However, the remainder of the party’s abject failure and the devastating reduction in rank that flowed from it made it difficult for the group to complain too loudly about Wythander and Ayre at this point.
***
Ezenirth sat at the large conference table in the meeting hall that he had reserved. He was only meeting a single human, Larune, another strong performer from the recently concluded tutorial simulation. However, he liked to stretch out and saw no reason not to ensure that he had ample space and options to do so. He had been awarded an executive position in charge of the Esperanto’s defense as a result of his performance in the simulation and reserving such a room was well with his purview. It wasn’t often that the final challenge of the tutorial could be completed as quickly and effectively as his had been, but his faction rewards had been extremely modest.
He and Larune weren’t previously acquainted, but he had done the research that he could on the recent tutorial and it was easy enough to put together that she too had participated in the tutorial and performed admirably. All of the other strong performers in the tutorial had declined his invitation, but he was hoping that his discussion with Larune would bear fruit as he continued to try to piece together the mystery of exactly what had transpired in what was most certainly the most lopsided ranking exercise aboard the Esperanto during this five year recruitment drive.
Larune arrived on time and greeted the Ezenirth warmly. Even in this empty region of space, with its incredibly low density of magic particles, Larune’s eyes sparkled with magic. After a few pleasantries with the human magical systems officer, Ezenirth got down to business. It was time to fill in some of the persistent gaps in his understanding, and frankly, his recollection of the tutorial.
***
Mental health is not a joke. It is something that we all need to commit the time, energy, honest and space to support. I was in a low place, but I was working through my issues. It would have been better to share how I was feeling with my friends, but that wasn’t possible under the circumstances and, even if it were, it wasn’t what I wanted to do at the time. I needed to evaluate all of my relationships and that meant my relationships with my friends as well. I knew that they would be there for me, but what I really needed was someone with a fresh perspective. Seek and ye shall find.
Talking to my plants because it may be positive for their growth, quickly became sharing my thoughts with my plants. I was sure that Geeq could hear what I said aloud, so I was cautious not to over share, but I enjoyed the opportunity to externalize my thoughts as I processed everything that had happened. It can be hard to externalize your thoughts when alone, so I was concerned, but a little relieved when I started to hear the voices of my plants in response .Don’t worry the plants weren’t actually talking to me, the voices were in my head. The voices were a jumble of discordant thoughts and ideas at first, but over the course of a couple of days they began to align until they were one, aggressively chipper, fiercely loyal and charmingly amoral personality that went by the handle Springlit.
I think that Geeq started to get really concerned when I casually asked “did you hear that” at odd intervals and recording and playing back apparently random moments of silence in my quarters, but I managed to confirm that all of Springlet’s communication was completely telepathic. Geeq really thought that I had lost it when I asked him to test the air in my quarters for foreign contaminants, but that eliminated the possibility that there was something in the air making me hallucinate.
I was convinced that Springlit was real. With a little effort and coaching from her, I got the hang of communicating back with Springlit without speaking, allowing us to have much more in-depth conversations without any nosy computers listening in. I could smell a new skill brewing and I was starting to get a little more interested in the universe of opportunities that was waiting for me when I finally got to a place to, you know, leave my quarters.