TEKI
The integrator checked the list of the classes that were assigned and did the equivalent of a frown. Almost none of the people in the human compound had been assigned the class their parental units requested. This was utterly and totally unacceptable. These people had paid good money for their children to gain specific advantages. One change might have been excusable, but almost everyone ending up in a strange and unexpected class was not something that could be explained away easily. Teki checked the system logs, grep-ing (doing a string search) for names of expected people and feeling happy, for once, that the planet was so sparsely populated as it meant that the logfiles had not yet been compressed. He saw that the initialisation fragments were accepted correctly, but then, during the class assignment, things went pear-shaped. He was relieved. Technically, the company had fulfilled their contractual requirements. The fact that other classes were suggested and eventually chosen was outside of the scope of his company and thus outside of the purview of him. The classes that the parental units asked for were suggested, but they were not chosen due to the fact that the system provided different classes, red ones. He sighed a sigh of relief and reached out to eat a bar of nutrition paste.
That was when he stopped as he was seeing the entire message for the first time:
> Providing class resources to integrator 712’355’091’884 (Cvetka Kralj)
> Class resources possible: 3’175, 53’878, 125.
> Checking for special class resources in the Little Box of Beta… failed. No testing resources permitted
> Checking for special class resources in the Local Resource Folder… failed. No special class resources in local folder
> Checking for special class resources in ¶§2≅ẞĥ3… providing special class ŝŝYanigalŝŝ
> Offering class selection for integrator 712’355’091’884 (Cvetka Kralj)
This continued for every integrator, except that the weird combination of characters “¶§2≅ẞĥ” were followed by a different number. Teki checked for the resource with these characters in the system logs. Any logs that pertained to Tsanh. He then ate the nutrition paste as the system checked. Eventually, the system found something: Literally the first entry in the logs was the following:
> Exploration drone 72’421’555 found new planet, adding to database as ERROR, “¶§2≅ẞĥ” prevents adding to database.
> ¶§2≅ẞĥ integrated. ¶§2≅ẞĥ adding planet to database as “Tsanh”
This was 10 years ago. Whatever that ¶§2≅ẞĥ was, it already worked with the system. He sent a message to a colleague asking if they knew that thing.
Then he curled up to sleep.
He woke up to a message not to go ahead with the integration. Except, it was too late.
NKETJDI
The integrator was hiding under the sand. The tall, multilegged creature didn’t need sight. It interacted with Solidarity directly and it generally had no need to leave its burrow. The goal had always been to get at least 5 repositories of the planet to the rank of 32. Which had been incredibly difficult. The creature had to splice changes into the genetic code of the native creatures to extend their lifespan to make the goal even slightly feasible. Then, it had to set up repositories in the settlements and manually integrate the natives into it. It had to understand the development of the native creatures to ensure that integration of newlings would process well. It took a lot of hard work, and just when the creature thought it could just downshift and wait for the level ups, creatures from a different world tried to cross-integrate. Its race didn’t sleep in the way of most other races: As the planet had a day and night cycle far longer than their rotation around its planet, the race hibernated (or downshifted) instead of using a more short frequency sleep/wake rhythm.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
These goshdarn foreign integrators were always a possibility of course. The first defensive beacon in their system had been planted a long time ago after all. However, the utterly insane speed with which these creatures rushed integration boggled the mind. There was no adjustment, no biosculpting, no magisculpting, just an insane rush towards an unknown target. In this moment, the integration hit it and assigned it its foundation skill class equivalent: Solidarity’s Investigator. These classes were assumed to be necessary in a future far beyond its hibernation, but they did in a pinch.
In contrast to other creatures, this was not Nketjdi’s first time to run into a foreign system. As a researcher, it occasionally ran into foreign systems. None felt quite as harsh though. It was not something that it could put into words, but being in Solidarity always felt nurturing, soft, tempered by an administration that Nketjdi assumed to survive its home star. This system had a vicious edge to it. And the creature didn’t have any reason for this feeling but how it subjectively felt to be in it. It was not sure what caused this assessment apart from the awareness of just how many combat classes this foreign system had and how its experience worked.
ROAR!
Though the summoned monsters that in this moment burrowed to Nketjdi might also inform that decision.
CVETKA KRALJ
The lizards were bigger than her and even bigger than Rush. They seemed to be about as long as a bus on less popular, mountain routes in Slovenia. The group had grabbed bladed weapons, some also grabbed shields. Her spear-like weapon with a long blade, an iklwa, was glistening in the light of the 3 moons of Tsanh. She slashed at the creatures that climbed the rocks and dislodged one of them from the stone to make it fall. There were screams, shouts, hisses around her, but she concentrated on just the area around her. Just trying to handle the next lizard. She ignored the kill notifications that came in, even the level up notification was not worth anything more than a slight glance, an awareness that no new features were unlocked, and a dismissal. She then tried to stab the next of these thick scaled creatures, but again, the iklwa was inferior to its natural armour, so that she had to shove the creature so that it would lose its footing and then be killed by Newton’s laws. In a short breather, she realised that she had been quite lucky. She was still standing, she was mostly uninjured and while she was rather tired, she could cope. Others were not so lucky. Rush was bleeding from several wounds, Ben was currently using a healing potion and for a moment, he glowed in a beautiful green light, Layla blasted a lizard to smithereens and then immediately made a run for it, shouting for a mana potion. She was one of Rush’s lackeys but Cvetka still threw her one of hers. She currently had no spells and didn’t need them. She still took them with her to the battle to give to others.
In that moment, there was a weird feeling in her body, as if it was rapidly rotated into a direction that didn’t even exist. She gasped, then she checked her status. “Yanigalean resistance” had the word “(active)” behind it. She didn’t feel different at all and had no idea what exactly caused this activation. There were no lizards nearby, most of the monsters had been dispatched. Then she noticed how others were climbing down the mountain. She tapped Crystal, an aspiring healer – not because of empathy but because she knew the worth everyone put on their health – on the shoulder. She noticed a message: “Sharing the effects of Yanigalean Resistance with Crystal Adebisi.”
Crystal looked at her with shocked eyes. “What just happened?”
Cvetka responded, equally confused: “I just wanted to ask you the same. Why is everyone climbing down the mountain?”
Crystal looked shocked: “Because… I needed to get there…. Now that you tapped me, I think that I was under some weird mental influence and didn’t notice. Thanks for getting me out of that trance.”
Cvetka made a displeased noise: “Ugh, so this is what happened. We should follow them. Carefully. I am not sure how much Yanigalean Resilience I can offer, but we need to at least understand what is happening.”
Crystal nodded: “Sounds okay. Let’s go”