SHIVERS-IN-SUNLIGHT
The settlement Village-At-The-Shore-Of-The-Ocean-Near-The-White-Cliffs was the last settlement of the quest. Shivers and Skips approached the place with vague anticipation. The village was small and only a Level 4 village. Shivers met the inhabiting Scorpions-of-Tsanh and explained the purpose of the quest. Wooden planks were in short supply in this area of the Kha Zha plane, but the settlement had some in storage for the skitterbugs. Shivers was able to explain the process of infusing the substance that skitterbugs avoided. Xe noticed that Skips kept her distance from it. Xe eventually decided to ask and she showed xir the slight rash on xir soft leg: “It seems to cause skin irritations to humans, so I stay away – Unless I have to because it’s skitterbug season or someone falls into the stuff.”
“I had not been aware of that.” Shivers admitted, “Thanks for helping me despite this.”
“No problem! I want you to succeed.” Skips turned around and corrected another undifferentiated Scorpion-of-Tsanh how to retrieve the planks without spilling the material they were steeped in in a wide arc.
Eventually, the skill advanced to level 4 and Shivers-In-Sunlight received a message from the system:
Quest completion: Kha Zha needs barriers
The repository of Village-At-The-Shore-Of-The-Ocean-Near-The-White-Cliffs has received the improved skill. (73/73). Please return to your aligned repository for the rewards.
They departed soon after and while they could have raced with wild abandon, they were not in any kind of hurry. Shivers had never had the same urge to race through the plane as Skips had. Skips used any excuse to use her foundational skill. It resonated with her in a way that xir foundational skill did with xir. Sure, xe always was the one looking after the snail farms in the caves and so it was unexpected that xe gained that skill, but… it always was something that was chosen for xir, never something that xe chose.
Eventually, Shivers broke the silence. “I like the sky at night. It is unimaginable to think that your world is one of the lights up there. And yet…”
Skips understood: “And yet it has been a prison. And it has kept you from others.”
Shivers confirmed: “I want to see the day sky. Actually see it, not glance upwards while I fail to fully control my body. It’s too bad that this is not possible.”
Skips raises her eyebrows: “I thought this was the reward: That the system fixes your vision.”
Shivers rose and lowered xir stance as the equivalent of a human headshake: “The reward is that the system fixes one instance of perception disability for a person I designate. This can be me, but it should be my Sister Rises. Having xir vision constrained to a small slit must be.”
Skips shook her head in the equivalent of the rise and fall gesture of the scorpions-of-Tsanh: “She can cope better with her disability. I would love it if you could be able to escape from your prison of the night sky. In addition: With the attempt to integrate this planet, I don’t want you to be a helpless target during the daytime. What if monsters arise and attack?”
Shivers asked: “Monsters?”
Skips nodded: “The System spawns monsters to force people to fight them and to level up. That way, the System has the chance to reshape society to be more violent and competitive. That’s what the thing does.”
Shivers shuddered: “I didn’t imagine that it was this scary… Why haven’t you mentioned this earlier?”
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Skips fidgeted with her hands: “I hoped that I could manage to explain things to them, that they could understand that it was prudent to leave Tsanh. They didn’t understand. They didn’t stop. That is why I want you to be able to fight. I like Rises and I would like to see her not being reliant on slitted pieces of wood to be active during the day, but I think that for the village, it would be better if her vision is not fixed, as she can still be active during the day, and instead you can be active. Even if you were not my favourite person in all my life, it would still mean that the village has one more person for the defence of the village and of those who are unable to fight.”
“I understand. It feels selfish, but I cannot object to your argument. I just hope that Rises gets a quest of her own to get this reward…” Shivers stopped and xir stinger moved to and fro as a sign of contemplation.
Skips paused walking for a moment, then continued: “I tried to make the village develop skills in order to allow the village to have more available skill points. I know that an unfortunate situation is coming.”
Shivers understood: “It must have been a bad situation for you. Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”
Skips forgot to suppress her foundational skill for a moment and ended up several hundred paces ahead of Shivers, then slowly returned, her head lowered. “I was afraid that I would be rejected,” she eventually said quietly.
After an embarrassing hug given their anatomical incompatibility with Shiver’s claws, xe expressed: “Rejecting you would not have changed anything. You were not even instanced, so you could not have prevented it. And now we will handle it together.”
CVETKA KRALJ
The fact that they were celebrating Rush’s birthday didn’t put her in high spirits. Neither did the fact that apparently system initialisation was only a few days away. She didn’t want to get involved in this social game between Sarah and Rush. She was however affiliated with Sarah and thus involved in this mess.
Rush made a loud, boasting speech about the integration, his skills and the upcoming battle against that bitch that did him dirty. Cvetka listened and tried to look interested but could only feel disaffected. Yes, Rush was the strongest and on the top of the pecking order of the early integrators, but a little bit of humility would do him good. She made the correct listening noises at the correct time as she didn’t want to seem uninterested, but her thoughts were not there. Her thoughts still featured wounds that closed themselves in seconds and a person running so fast drones had issues to catch up. She took out her phone and covertly started to check if these skills existed in the existing system of Limitless Potential. It turned out that they did, but they were not skills that someone could have gained within less than a decade without some absolutely broken combination of skills or situations, like early initialisation. She gulped. Then, she covertly sent a message to her own parents to urge them to cease the integration.
Minutes later, she received the response: “Yes, it is hard. That is known. Get over it!” She sighed. Of course they didn’t fully read the message. It was time for her own plans. She excused herself from the party amidst complaints that she was a party pooper. Then she contacted Teki, even though this contact was not supposed to happen.
SKIPS-ONE-STEP
Having more or less constantly suppressed her foundational skill during the talks, she rushed home to the village afterwards, telling Shivers-In-Sunlight’s parents that the quest had been completed and prepared the tent for xir return. She also explained to xir parents that Shivers planned to use the reward for xirself. While this was something that xe feared to tell xir parents, they had never expected xir sister to gain the reward. Even Rises-At-Dusk herself didn’t. She did however feel happy to hear that Shivers considered her. When Shivers did return, the tent was ready for xir. The sand was soft and water as well as snake stew was provided for xir. When xe arrived, xe ate a bit and drank the water. Xe then partly burrowed into the sand and asked: “Did you prepare my parents for my decision?”
Mother Chirps arrived at that time and responded: “It is the right thing to do. Skips-One-Step mentioned it already. Rises-At-Dusk never expected to get the reward. Don’t worry about it.”
Shivers hugged xir mother. “I worried about how egoistical it would be. Skips provided a reason for me to take it though. Have you explained that one to the village already?”
Skips had not and blushed: “I wanted to do that.”
Before Shivers burrowed completely, xe said: “Please do, I asked System to provide the reward.”
Chirps looked at Skips questioningly. After a long breath, Skips explained: “The foreigners that came, they are working on installing their own system. But, they also want to spawn monsters. The villages have started using barriers, which might repel the beasts, but we need to be ready to fight and to gain many new skills.”
Chirps understood: “To forge our settlements to fight a common enemy? So that we share our skills in shifts as the fight goes on day and night?”
Skips had to explain: “It is supposed to have the opposite effect: To encourage competition between people.”
For the first time, everyone was quiet.