KEREU TAAKI

There was a queue in front of the house as Kereu returned. Everyone in the queue looked injured or sick in some way. He waved to them as he walked past: "Give me a moment to drink a glass of water before I can see you!" There was a murmur in the group and he walked into his place. His kids and his wife, now recovered, were greeting him and he hugged them. Now that they all integrated into the red system, they had their own foundational skills. To him, this seemed still quite miraculous, but if the others felt that way as well, they didn't let it show. He actually did drink water, went to the facilities and then allowed the first people in the queue in. Kereu asked the couple to sit down and asked what the issue was. It turned out that the man had pain in his hands from his manual labour work. It was not even an injury so much as repeating the same actions hour after hour. Kereu understood, put his hands on the hands of the man and let his magic seep into the hands, then used it to correct the repeated injuries, cause the pain to recede and allowed him to earn a living once more. Kereu gave the man the thumbs up and explained to him how to integrate. No names or money were exchanged and he let the next one in as the couple left.

It was late in the evening when he finished with the last patient when a person knocked on the door. Kereu opened the door and moments later found himself on the floor.

"This is the police! You are under investigation for fraud and tax evasion!" shouted a gruff, obviously distorted voice.

Kereu asked: "Sorry, why would you accuse me of either when I am not even charging a single, red kurush?"

"Do your yadda-yadda later to a judge! I don't care!" the policeman shouted as he cuffed him, while others cuffed his children and his wife.

Kereu, at this moment, could only let them handle him. He felt afraid, scared, and panicked. He chided himself for offering his help so easily, for attracting the attention of the government, for being too obvious. He stared out of the window as the tall, old buildings of the poor quarters of the city passed by. He realised that he was for the first time in a car and under any other circumstance, riding in a car would have elated him. In this situation, he only felt afraid and vaguely motionsick.

In the police station, he was put into an empty room with a mirror. His handcuffs and footcuffs were attached to the chair he was sitting on. Then, there was a noise coming out of an unseen loudspeaker: "Are you Mister Taaki?"

Kereu tried to look at the source of the voice but didn't see it. "Who is asking?"

A mild electric shock hit him: "We ask the questions! You answer. What is your name?"

Kereu remembered some crime shows and responded: "I would like to invoke Varikaan 3."

There was a pause, then the policeman agreed: "You want a legal representative based on the integration treaty of Windrush?"

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Kereu nodded: "Indeed."

A policeman entered the room and handed Kereu a tablet: "You get one call."

Kereu tried to move his hands to it and the policeman chided him: "Voice commands only!"

Kereu understood the game: The voice recognition was probably poor enough that making a correct call was hard and doing it on the first try impossible. He tried to calm down. Then he spoke, not to the device but to the red system: "Solidarity, can you please find someone willing to take on legal skills to assist me, Kereu Taaki, in the police station Stormgrove?"

He saw that his request was accepted by the system and a few moments later, the system reported that someone named Kadish Anashii was en route.

Kereu looked at the policeman: "I cannot use that device as it tends not to work with Sygian speech, so I used a Request for Services."

The policeman asked: "When will your legal representation arrive?"

Kereu checked the system: "About 5 minutes."

THRIVES-IN-WATER/TEKI

There are a few rules in life: Don't swim near an undersea volcano, don't tell your manager the truth and expect to remain employed and, as he found out now, never trust someone whose movement speed was insanely fast that a place was nearby. Thrives, formerly Teki, would love to just curl up and fall asleep as they reached the Grade 12 dungeon. Of course, on the way, there were several fights against high-level salamar and vulporis (huge desert foxes that spit fire and have some sand manipulation spells), which Skips would have simply avoided, but still, the way was tedious.

"Okay, does anyone of you have something to keep me awake?" Thrives asked as they approached the round portal flashing the sequence of Grade 12.

Skips gave him a tired smile: "The nearest coffee shop ought to be on Windrush. I can offer you some Recovery, but that does little against fatigue."

Thrives made a gesture of polite decline: "Save your energy. We are going in there and you might need to use it later."

Skips nodded.

The group entered and immediately shuddered. This dungeon was not a sand desert, it was a rocky desert, swept by a strong, cold wind. Nourishes shook like a wet dog and the others were likewise uncomfortable.

Digs-our-Caves turned to Thrives and asked: “So, what can you tell us about this place?”

Thrives looked around: “This is a Rockwell Dungeon: The ground is rocky, the monsters are salamar, not the regular ones but the advanced ones with two elemental types. We know these ones already. Same for the vulporis that we fought. There are also Fakelings, disguising themselves as rocks and attacking you when you step on them. It’s always a good idea to throw something at any big rock ahead of you. Or to be fast enough to get away, I guess. There are rushpaws, which might be an interesting challenge for Skips: They are about half as tall as a Scorpion-of-Tsanh and hella fast. Sure-Climbing-Friend can trap them, Skips might be fast enough to outmanoeuvre them. The rest of you: get to higher ground when you hear fast footsteps. The boss monster is a rock-eater. A giant worm that burrows through rock. It makes the ground less stable. It turns the place into a rockpile. And eventually drops the area. So this thing needs to be defeated quickly if you don’t want a 500 metre drop to await you. You need to predict where the creature appears and then quickly defeat it. Digs might be able to help with that as well as Sure-Climbing-Friend.” Teki heard wings and quickly rolled to the side. A giant bird swooped down at him while Nourishes blasted it with magic. Teki said: “Oh, and I forgot: giant swoopers also fly around here!”