SKIPS-ONE-STEP (SARAH GREENLAND)

She woke up feeling all kinds of miserable and there were few areas of her body that didn’t hurt. She also knew that something had happened to her. Integration, according to the message. She opened her eyes and saw a huge creature with pitch black carapace and too many legs stare at her with big black eyes. It shook and spasmed while doing so. She lowered her head a bit as if bowing, just from a prone position. "Hello. Thanks for rescuing me." She felt her voice sound harsh and kinda… off.

"No bother. I had been in the area to understand the structures that appeared there when the System asked for my assistance in the safety of you. I am glad that my limited capabilities sufficed. My name is Shivers-in-Sunlight. Do you have a name?"

"Sarah," she replied.

"What‽" the giant insect sounded confused: "How does your name not mean anything‽"

"The place that I am from doesn't really give names that are meaningful. They mostly just sound good. But if that is a frustrating matter for you, feel free to give me a name."

"Skips-One-Step." Shivers said quickly. After a moment, it explained: "You move like you have the Longstrider skill. Especially compared to the others of your species."

"How can I check?" Sarah asked.

Shivers-In-Sunlight responded: "Like this: Status!"

Sarah tried to and a message appeared:

Name:

Sarah/Skips-One-Step

Home repository:

Unaffiliated

Species and state:

Post-integration human (Tsanh-optimised)

Skills:

Longstrider (Level 1)

"Yeah! I do have the Longstrider skill on the first level. What does it do?" She rubbed her left eyebrow nervously and realised that her skin felt strange. She touched her skin on parts of her face and her neck. It felt slightly more hard and rough. Looking at herself, she realised that her skin seemed to have changed colour to match the sand.

"It is the most common way to get around. To travel faster. For my own quest, I took it at level 3." It showed the difference between walking with and without the skill. With the skill, it was much faster but trying to understand the leg movements made them seem inconsistent.

"I see. Can I try?" she tried to move with the skill, which just seemed natural, and without it, which felt clumsy and slow. It was something that she needed to concentrate on not doing.

"Very good!" the scorpion said, "You are learning, but to progress, you need to affiliate yourself to a repository. There is a Spider-of-Tsanh village nearby, but it would be a bad place for you as I assume that you can't climb like a spider. I would suggest that you come with me to my village and get registered there. It is a beautiful place."

She nodded. "Yeah, sure! I don't want to be that close to the human settlement anyways."

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As they moved, she realised just how less oppressively hot the desert was. Even as she ran as fast as she could, the air felt more like a pleasant spring day than a hot day on a desert planet that they all had to take classes about in order to cope with it. She remembered the entry "Tsanh optimised" in her status and realised just how deep the changes went.

"It is not a movement-matter that prevents you from keeping up, it is a skill-application matter. Remember the way Longstrider integrates with your gait." Shivers explained as she struggled with the speed.

Skips-One-Step tried to concentrate on the difference between running with and without the skill. Eventually, she caught up with the Scorpion-Of-Tsanh. As she did, a message appeared:

Skill gained: Longstrider (Level 2)

Your foundational skill improved to level 2. Please align with a repository to provide the skill to others.

New threshold: Level 2

You can now learn a Level 2 spell from the repository you aligned yourself to.

She smiled happily. "I gained Level 2 in the skill."

Shivers smiled as well: "It is easy to do advances in a foundation skill. I had been able to advance to level 7 in mine in less than a year. Though I returned it to the repository for the quest. It's not like I can raise slow livestock on my journey..."

"You are a farmer?" she asked.

"Yeah, I manage the snail farms around my village. It is a job that I can do at night, when the light doesn't make me shiver." Shivers explained. It then explained the Heightened Sunlight Sensitivity some Scorpions-of-Tsanh have. While they were having the discussion, they were running with their respective Longstrider skills. It didn't tire them and they held a conversation about the quest as normally as people would normally do on a city sidewalk.

As Shivers tells about the reward, Skips realised what was wrong here: "So… how long had Tsanh been integrated?"

TEKI

The ocean was salty enough to cause serious issues to the keani. The salt levels were high enough that Teki barely could leave the surface. The same surface that all kinds of critters ran over as if it was solid ground. The Company fortunately provided a workspace in the form of a pod, but leaving said pod would be dangerous. Spending the next 5 years in a tiny pod was better than spending them in a tub, but not by much.

And then that woman got herself eaten.

Her father, literally named Darwin, demanded document after document. He was once again on a call with the human and he was not happy: "Is there any reason why the doors were open?"

Teki explained: "Dear Sir, there was the implicit understanding that in the vicinity of monsters, people would barricade the door. There were no automatic defences because to do so manually helps with skill acquisition."

Darwin made an angry grunt. "Has her body been recovered? I need to start a new Instance soon."

Teki shook his head: "It could not be retrieved due to the speed in which the scorpion was moving. Sarah's tracer moved at about 50 km/h. Though currently it slowed down to a more sedate 30 km/h. We have tried to get an optical feed, but it failed."

"The tracker can be used as a surveillance device, right?" Darwin asked.

"In theory, yes, in practice, the bandwidth is insufficient." Teki started a few commands and a series of horrible clicks and hisses were audible. Then, a laugh followed by another series of clicks and hisses. While the connection was miserable, staticky and plagued by long delays, Teki thought that he had recognised that laugh. Sarah. Everyone had assumed these scorpions were wild animals, if these however showed signs of civilization, the entire plan changed.

"Turn off that noise!" Darwin insisted. So, even though the voice was clearly of Sarah, Teki closed the link.

"Did it not transfer?" Teki asked.

"That was one of the most horrible sounds ever!" he growled. "Anyways, you will retrieve Sarah's remains… or else I will have some words with your boss!"

Teki responded: "Certainly so. Can I have the video and audio records from inside of the compound? I feel that it would help me."

Darwin seemed to take this as a personal challenge: "Name one good reason why this would help?"

"Something inside was scary enough that your daughter preferred the company of monsters to it. To understand what this was might explain where she is fleeing to." Teki said.

"What makes you think that she is alive?" he raged.

"First, the lack of blood in the vicinity of the compound. Second, the workings of the tracker. It would be dissolved in a monster's stomach." Teki explained. 'And third, the fact that you just heard her, you absolute failure!' he thought. The fourth reason was that the initialisation patch for her showed an error message. Not the common one: "Departed. Cannot initialise." but one he never saw: "Unknown target species. Initialisation might fail." But that would show him being corrupt and probably end his life.

There was a pause. "Let's really hope so. For your sake!"