TEKI

The village was eager to learn and, having access to the internet, Teki was eager to teach them. The first skill, the group excelled in, was water purification and desalination. The techniques they had were rudimentary at best and the village generally used stone buckets to get water from the river instead of desalinating the nearby seawater. However, Teki saw a few situations where he could assist, like creating a pulley system for putting buckets on the backs of scorpions for ease of transport and avoidance of unneeded trips because using their stinger and the assistance of others to put it onto their exoskeletons would mean a bucket would be put on a back in a slanted manner, so it never could be added when full. But Teki also learned a lot and most of it not as part of deliberate teaching. It came when Tumbles-from-Hills got injured in a delve and xir group quickly not only helped but quickly shifted to gain medical skills to assist. When he saw the entire Village congregate around new hatchlings and when he saw how much of a low-key affair integration into the system was for them. Yes, people were giddy about their foundational skills, but the village didn’t need to care that much about their starting metrics. There were no numerical statistics, so the entire implied competition was not relevant. It also meant that he needed to consider his own conception of himself. He was used to thinking that there were things he excelled at and others that he was bad at. However, now that he was part of the repository, this no longer applied. It was eerie. And it shook his sense of self more than he wanted to admit: He always prided himself on his skills and the few spells he could cast. But now, he taught the magic to others, gained skills and others were able to gain the same skills just from the repository. He felt a twinge of jealousy, except when Glances-into-Shadows managed to increase the skill to a new level and he was able to reap the benefits.

When Skips-one-Step happened by, he asked her for help with the system. Skips looked at him and flatly stated: “If you have specific questions, go ahead and ask, but I cannot give you a general list of tips about what to do. There are no accelerated courses for Solidarity.”

Teki nodded: “I guess, yeah. This planet is freshly integrated, so there are no things to know.”

Skips nodded: “I mean, there are, but they become evident in due time. Like, paths… if you often switch between specific sets of skills, these can become paths and you can switch between them. But… at our levels, changing paths is about as fast as manually changing skills. So, these things are explained at higher repository levels. So what I can tell you is to absorb the new information when it becomes available.”

Teki once again nodded: “I see. I understand what you mean. Oh, by the way, do you expect any shipments? The next ship is due soon and I thought that you might’ve forgotten about it.”

Skips cussed: “Shit! But… shouldn’t it only arrive, like, 6 months in‽”

Teki hummed: “It almost is 6 months in. You kinda went native and forgot, didn’t you?”

Skips looked embarrassed: “I kinda did… I guess I need to get over level 10 by now.”

Teki moved up and down in confusion: “I am a hair’s breadth under the threshold. I could have crossed it, but I don’t want to force the upgrade until folks are reasonably prepared for it.“

Teki hummed: “I shouldn’t tell you, but the compound is close to make another attempt at the grade 9 and I fear that someone will get first Ten. I know that you don’t care about the bonus, but consider it. Do you want Rush to get it?”

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Skips sucked in air audibly: “Let me ask you first: how prepared is your village for the upgrade?”

Teki made a vague gesture: “It upgraded to level 6, but there is a lot left to desire. I am not sure about the preparation. I did teach fighting techniques to the folks here, but not enough that we can withstand an attack of a horde of level 20s…”

“Imagine, if I did level up when I reached the required amount of experience,... about 15 local days ago. Would anything have been better? Would your mission have been feasible‽” she asked. He never ascribed certain things radiating from someone’s eyes, but in this case, he could understand the metaphor as the appearance of fierceness in her face as translated by Unlimited Potential was enough to make him step back.

“It would not be feasible,” Teki admitted, “The village is still learning combat techniques and the upgrade would have gutted the place, so I appreciate that you didn’t go ahead..”

Skips hummed: “Thanks for the warning. I will assemble a group to delve the grade 9 dungeon. Regarding any supplies for me, use them as you see fit – unless they sent crisps. I kinda miss those.”

Teki smiled: “If they do, I can bring it over.”

Skips shook her head: “I will drop by. I need to level my Foundational skill anyways. It’s only level 11 right now.”

Teki nodded: “Sounds good! I know how insanely fast you can be.”

JAARU ANIIK

The ship Jtaak-la-Ntiekti was a busy place. Jaaru and Init were on different shifts, but they shared the same bed: Jaaru in shift 1, Init in shift 2, and a stranger called Dzegda in shift 3. After the hard work of loading, the flight mostly had the tedious work of constantly and unobtrusively cleaning. Jaaru actually appreciated work that could be done completely silently and where there were significantly fewer tantrums of dissatisfied folks than in her actual job. Though it normally left her spent enough to fall into bed immediately afterwards. The ship was a place of bustling activity – and of filth – and at least seeing things look much better after she was being done with them was a bit of a relief. And so was that the menial staff was mostly ignored. And while it would be easy to slack off, Jaaru knew that she was in this role on the reputation of her sister and thus worked as diligently as she could even when she didn’t feel like it.

There was little chance to talk with her sister unless they both found quiet moments to have whispered talks under the bedsheets (which led to some people assuming them to be lovers). But she learned a lot about the harebrained plan Init had thought of: Apparently, according to Init, restricted classes existed but would no longer be assigned due to being overpowered. However, due to a bug or interference of some external side, in the area around the planet Tsanh, these classes would be available. Thus, Init hoped that Jaaru and her could snatch up one of these overpowered classes before the system patched them out.

As she was cleaning the screen of a “virtual window” that showed the space outside when it didn’t show advertisements, her boss, an alien that looked a bit like a centipede, came over. “Hello Jaaru. You’re doing good work here, I never see you slacking off like some of your colleagues.”

Jaaru smiled: “Thanks, boss! I am doing my best.”

The boss asked: “You want to go down to help unload material?”

Jaaru nodded: “I do indeed. This is why I put my name on the list to volunteer.”

There was a pause: “You are aware that this is voluntary and didn’t take it because you were forced?”

Jaaru nodded, aware that there was an unspoken question, but not fully aware what it was.

The boss wrote something down on a tablet, then spoke: “Grand. That’s what I needed to know. Just making sure everything is in order and you’re not hazed. May I ask, any reason you want to go down there?”

“Wanting to see a different planet,“ she lied, “I want to be one of my friend group to say that they set foot on a foreign planet.”

“Sigya are too human at times, but of course, go ahead,” the boss said.