CVETKA KRALJ
Cvetka was in her room, the door locked, the curtains drawn, the light off. It was night in her area of Tsanh and she was about to make a call she absolutely didn’t want to do. She stared at her communicator, then at her hands, then at the closed window, then again at her communicator. She was procrastinating, obviously. She went mentally over everything she wanted to say and tried to find the courage to make this goshdarn call. She checked the time in her hometown on earth, it was not a time where a call would be impolite, early afternoon was the best time to do a call, actually, she only needed to summon the courage to select the number and click on that little button that said ‘dial’. Very simple, right? Indeed, the actions were, but yet, what would happen afterwards required her utmost courage.
She opened a bottle that Rush had given her earlier out of his special stash. She drank from the bottle and grimaced from the very mature taste, an acquired taste she never bothered acquiring.
While it shouldn’t work so fast, she imagined the liquid courage from the bottle travelling from her mouth, so her stomach, to her bloodstream and then her brain. Inspired (or distracted) by this mental image, she selected the number and hit the button.
For a long time, there was just an unpleasant beeping noise. She was able to parse its meaning by the shifts in the noise: Local relay, interstellar transmission, remote relay, ringing on the other end, and then, a click and a voice: “Who’s speaking here?”
Cvetka cleared her throat: “Hello, Mister Sparrow, or should I call you ‘the grandmaster’?”
There was a pause that could just have been the line, but she hoped that the person was caught unawares. Then, a response that sounded more subdued: “Who are you?”
She would have almost answered, but caught herself. There was no need to antagonise this person and make him aware who did so. “That’s immaterial.”, she steeled herself for what she was about to do and continued: “I am talking to you about your grandson Rush.”
That caused an immediate reaction: “Is Rush okay? Has he been injured? Has something happened to him?”
She responded, straining herself not to rush through her sentences: “He has been severely injured. It was by your hand. And yes, something has happened to him. Someone has found the tendrils you spread in his mind and cut them off. And now, I come here with a proposition: Either, you send a new passenger drone to Tsanh, or I am going to call the numbers of a few media companies whose owners have folks down here on Tsanh and I am going to tell them some interesting stories about how your tricks work. If you are lucky, you will just be exposed, if you are unlucky… weeeell, imagine who else can use mental vulnerabilities in minds that were sculpted to have them as soon as they are well known. Would this be something you would dare to risk?”
The person gasped: “I cannot just send equipment to an integrating world.”
She smiled: “Haitch-ess-ell 15 rose raven sparrow. Do you want me to continue?”
He pleaded: “Please stop! This should not be made public!”
She noticed a message that her Yanigalean Resistance had been triggered and shuddered. This guy was level 100. If he had a line of sight or information about her, she was not sure if the Resistance would have held. She was a level 10 after all.
She responded: “This would be awesome on a billboard, with an explanation as to whose mental tentacles it jiggles! Don’t you think so?”
He started chanting a spell. She was sure he wanted to make her stop. Her Yanigalean Resistance struggled against it. She sang an old song from her mother. When she was still alive. As she sang, she felt her resistance strengthen. Then, the spell ended and again a message appeared that her Yanigalean Resistance had resisted the spell.
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He said: “Forget that this phone call took place and hang up.”
She tried to sound confident even though this spell left her shaken: “Billboard it is then. Grand!”
The voice at the other end sounded shaken as well: “That won’t be necessary! If you are level 50 already, there is no issue getting a passenger drone down! I will handle this immediately!” Then, the old man paused before continuing: “Just… please take care of my grandson!”
Cvetka’s voice softened: “That is how I found the despicable manipulation. I don’t mean him harm and I am pretty sure you don't either. I just can't let certain things stand. Like manipulation via social spells.”
After a few pleasantries, she hung up, fell onto the bed in exhaustion and sobbed. She prevailed, but it had taken everything out of her. All for access to the best dungeons. All to give the humans on this planet a fair chance to get to level 20. All because for the entire group, the defeat on the run to level 10 stung. Sure, she could argue that this helped to quell the tide of violence that flared up, but she was aware that the most important reason was her own bruised ego.
KEREU TAAKI
Kereu arrived home, tired from work and from walking home. His children were in the main room, lying on the bed and sleeping. Their sleep was more peaceful than the days before. Kereu had over the previous days slowly tried to heal them and it had worked at a snail’s pace. He reached out to his oldest, Kaail and felt for her health with his skill. He felt the Diminishment in her tissues, in her organs, even in her eyes. He reached out to her eyes, discerned the spots of diminishment, and tried to heal them. It hurt him. It tired him.
In a sudden flash of inspiration, he tried to, instead of healing, to isolate the spots. To prevent them from spreading and doing more damage. As he did so, he felt a weird change in himself. He felt more energetic, more steady, more competent. Then he saw a message:
The skill Magical Healing has reached level 2.
He smiled. He could work with that. If no healer made it to this planet, he would need to become one.
SKIPS-ONE-STEP
The human had seen a map of the planet in front of her and twitched. Teki had crudely drawn it on a leaf. “So, the Grade 19 dungeon is in the Kha Ha Mang valley. If we follow red system terminology, which I very much would avoid, but right now cannot, we get there following the Kha Hai Ka wadi, then going upstream towards the Kha Hai Jje range, then cross the saddle and follow the Kha Jji Twe stream downstream. Solidarity definitely needs to get a better naming system!”
Teki nodded: “You are right. With both things. Can you get there? Can you get a group there? And can you get them there fast?”
Skips looked utterly frustrated: “If I could get my foundational skill over rank 9, sure, but with rank 9, it will be an expedition.”
Teki asked: “You plateaued?”
Skips nodded. “Yeah! You’d think that with the amount of running I did since Unlimited Potential hit Tsanh, I would have levelled the skill up, but I didn’t.”
Teki looked intently at her. “I wish that I could help you with this, but you’re far more skilled than me. I can only help you with the integration stuff.”
Skips responded: “I need to ask Shivers. I definitely need to work on it. Otherwise we will have such a difficult run. It’s such a distance.”
Teki nodded: “I get that. I might not have been the most considerate with the dungeon placement.”
Skips shrugged: “It makes sense to place the dangerous critters away from settlements, so I am not even annoyed with that. But everything comes with pros and cons… and right now I’m working around the cons.”
Teki nodded: “Ah, thanks!”
A while later, Skips had rushed to her village and repository. She immediately found the snail caves in which Shivers-in-Sunlight cared for the animals. She greeted xir: “Hey Shivers! So, there is good news and bad news: The good news: I found out where the higher level dungeons are. The bad news: They are in the middle of fucking nowhere! And I have not been able to upgrade Longstrider in ages.”
Shivers nodded sagely: “I understand that you are on a level where you felt good enough and never felt like there is an urgent need to be better, but maybe you need to think about that. Maybe you need to think about why that is?”
Skips took a long moment thinking about that. “I need to consider that. And I guess I need to run a lot to understand the issue.”
Shivers smiled: “It might be that you need to temporarily slot in other skills. I had to do that to upgrade my own foundational skill.”
Skips looked at Shivers, deep in thought. “I will try this. I’ll be back before sunrise.”