JAARU ANIIK

The trip to The Backwaters settlement was not as miserable as she expected it to be. She had forgotten how much it sucked to be low-level, how there was a small bit more effort behind everything that compounded. And yet, as soon as she piloted the flying abomination that seemed to fly only to spite the systems, she felt the weight lift. She knew that she could fly this thing even if all other tasks which had no related skills were much more tedious and frustrating.

The most frustrating situation was to her that people could no longer swap their skills using her vicinity. So instead, the group moved from the dungeon to the warehouse. Init had easily removed the locks from the warehouse proper, so now the group needed to be dropped there and picked up. The group sent a delegation of new people who could not fully integrate to The Backwaters, near the shore of the river that the Sygians called "The Back" in a sense of either wittiness, obliviousness or both, even though it was actually called the New Thames, to help set up Jaaru for the next integration.

Jaaru had noticed the pull of the ground as soon as she left the dungeon and when she finally arrived in her settlement, she again felt it as soon as her feet hit the ground. Jiiti led groups into her workshop. The place was made out of pilfered materials in a shelter in the forest at the edge of the settlement. The ground was just soil, which was just to Jaaru's liking. Jiiti smiled as she saw Jaaru's expression: "If you can sit down in the corner, you can do your weird Established Founder magic, but please stay out of our direct way. We need to make more of these planes."

Jaaru shrugged and looked at the corners. Only one of them seemed comfortable enough or at least not full of debris. Jaaru ambled over, cleared the area and was just about to take off her shoes when there was a knock on the door. One of the builders,

Xinliie, opened to an angry group of people. "We cannot let you hog the repository range!" the person shouted. "We demand Jaaru to come with us! We want everyone to profit from the Repository, not just you and your friends, Jiiti!"

Jaaru looked at both sides and shrugged: "Can you protect me in case the shit starts steaming?"

The other person nodded: "We are all low level, but we have been able to squirrel away weapons and such."

Jaaru nodded: "I can see your point. Where do you want to go?"

"To the town centre," he explained.

Jaaru shook her head: "I need soil to establish a repository. So, I cannot do it there, when there is all asphalt and stone."

The other person smiled: "Init told us and we prepared."

She saw that this person was part of those who could not be fully integrated. All the people who were behind him were. This made her hesitantly agree: "Sure, I mean, I don't have any preference myself. If you have organised something, I can come with you. But please tell me who you are!"

"I am Iimelu, this is Faai, that is Luuida and Saiidu is over there." He went on an explanation about the names of the entire group.

Xinliie looked at Jaaru: "You cannot be serious."

Jaaru shrugged: "Is there any reason why I shouldn't?"

Xinliie explained: "These people are not of the best moral standard. Like smuggling and bootlegging."

Jaaru responded: "I mean… that was said by people who made contraptions for various local groups that are not of the best moral standards as well. I know that and I don't care. I am aware that society will change and I feel that this will mean that history will disregard it either way, but this is something I look at purely from a perspective of convenience: We need to fight a system and for that, we need to have good access to skills because Skills beat Stats. So yeah, I would appreciate it if we can look at it in that manner."

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Xinliie looked at her: "I don't like it because we cannot easily defend the town centre, but you are your own person, so I can't do anything but to disagree… I wouldn't go with drug and booze pushers, but sure…"

Jaaru shrugged: "I understand what you mean,... but this place is in the middle of nowhere, I can see earth attack that place, I cannot see them attack a crowded city centre. That would not follow their narratives. It might even cause disagreements on other sygian worlds."

Xinliie and Jiiti exchanged looks that Jaaru couldn't parse. Then they nodded. Jaaru followed the group to the centre.

The huge intersection near the town hall had been excavated and blocked. In the middle, a tent was erected. Faai explained: "You can have shelter from the elements there. We will keep you fed, watered and safe! The fact that our group is headquartered here as well doesn't really matter that much."

"Is there a gang rivalry? I would rather not be involved." Jaaru said.

"Not really. We're involved in different things. They sell all kinds of illegal contraptions to anyone who cares. We sell booze and psychoactive stuff. They make work easier, we make existence easier. We never really step on each other's toes. But we don't like each other, if that makes sense." Faai explained.

"They look down on us because we sell booze and drugs and are not mechanically minded. We don't really like them because they are a bunch of tossers who before the system had a tendency to overpromise and underdeliver. Some of the stills they made for us didn't work well." Saiidu explained.

Jaaru nodded uncertainly and entered the tent. There, she took off her shoes and let the magic take hold.

SKIPS-ONE-STEP

The runs of the dungeon continued while their level rose. The group had run the dungeon several times, but now returned back to their repositories. Sure-Climbing-Friend was the first who was returned to the mountains at the edge of the Kha Zha plain to the celebration of the entire village. Then, person after person was returned by the group until in the end only Nourishes and Skips returned to their own village.

Shivers ran up to Skips and embraced her in a hug as soon as xe saw her: "Skips! You made it back! I was worried!"

She hugged Shivers as much as she could with their difference in sizes: "Shivers! How are you faring! How was your time with the humans?"

Shivers smiled: "I learned a lot! Including more about why drop bears exist. So, I have been working on a few things and gained a few skills."

Skips was happy. "That's great to hear! Tell me more please!"

Shivers was just too happy to oblige: "I learned more about how the system of Unlimited Potential works by gaining magic examination skills and observing level ups. So that is something I try to turn into Solidarity skills. There's also news from the humans they didn't want me to know: Apparently they receive their supplies from a different planet now, instead of Windrush. There had been some kind of collapse that I didn't understand."

Skips looked shocked: "They did? I wasn't aware! The Sygians are generally not in too bad of a shape. They have some of the worst climates, sure, but they are a resilient kind of people. I wonder what destabilised them…"

Shivers gave the equivalent of a shrug: "I don't know either… but it had worried the humans. Can you tell me about Windrush?"

Skips nodded: "I have never been there, but from what I have heard, it's a very windy planet. Big oceans. Very cold. They also were integrated recently in terms of the system, like, 50 human years ago. There was quite the battle for the planet, but in the end, a peace treaty between them and earth was reached and their system replaced by Unlimited Potential. Oh, I forgot that there are no oceans here, it's far bigger than the sea that Tsanh has. Like immensely bigger."

Shivers wondered: "So, they live all the time as if it was the stormy season?"

Skips disagreed: "No, the wind carries no sand on Windrush. Or far less. The planet is not very sandy from what I have heard."

Shivers looked surprised: "Wait, wind without sand? How can that even be?"

Skips made a pained gesture: "I guess… the wind doesn't rush over areas that contain sand, it rushes over areas that contain areas with lots of plants so the wind has far fewer particles in it. So it feels less gritty."

Shivers looked shocked: "I would love to experience that! This sounds so amazing!"

For a while the discussion shifted to different topics: the snails, the dungeons, the community, who found whom and changed genders, agriculture and other topics. Eventually, Shivers asked: "You know, I tried to see where I can experience wind without the sand, so I checked the list of repositories… Why is there something called Windrush-Breezeplains and Windrush-The Backwaters?"

Skips gasped. A cold chill ran down her spine: "I don't know… maybe folks from Windrush got integrated here… but how would they know to do so? And why? I mean, you'd not send an unintegrated person here…"