KEREU TAAKI

The day started early. Kereu woke up hungry and had to use his healing magic to fix his neck, which didn't deal well with the lack of a decent bed. As he got up and snacked on a slice of bread with nothing on it, Kereu realised that getting food from the little things they had saved in the dungeon was not a long-term plan. He asked one of the others, Maajjai, if they were able to get to the city to get some food.

Maajjai shook her head: "The bike's still in Breezeplains… or The Backwater,… I guess. Is there some food around here?" She pointed at the plains which contained nothing but wild vegetation.

Kereu made an unhappy noise: "I don't know what is edible out there. Do you know anyone with skills regarding this?"

Maajjai nodded: "I do, but she is not around here. My neighbour Miita has a daughter who is quite strange. She doesn't speak but can hear. And if you give her pen and paper, she will write better than most of the folks here. She knows everything about plants. It's a shame her mother doesn't let her integrate."

Kereu responded: "A shame indeed. Do you know why?"

"I do. She doesn't trust people not to take advantage of her. She is worried about many things around her. It is so difficult to have a disabled child. Especially as she is working and now has been hindered by the drain in effective levels," Maajjai mused.

"What is her name. And can we contact her?" Kereu asked.

"She's Karyn, her daughter is Leightyn. They are from Earth. I am not sure what made them come here, but they are not bad people. They worked with me for a while. Yeah, I can contact Karyn, I have her on messenger. What do you want to ask of her?"

"To ask her daughter to tell us what can be foraged around Breezeplains," he explained.

Maajjai nodded, then cussed: "The network is down!"

Kereu cussed: Before, it had been possible to communicate internally on Tsanh, but apparently that function had been shut down. The communicator now turned into a a pretty but useless stone. "It looks like they are trying to shut us down! All the more reason to try to get Leightyn in. Or anyone who knows agriculture. That would be good."

Maajjai nodded: "Yeah, it's a shame that most of the farms that existed before the integration to Unlimited Potential had shut down. Otherwise we could have used these to feed ourselves long term, but I guess it wasn't really economically efficient to work the soil here when other planets are much more fertile."

Kereu agreed: "I can see what you mean. The climate here is one of the worst. Even though The Breezeplains are supposed to be the least inhospitable."

Maajjai had an idea: "Maybe we can find one of the former farming villages and find information about how to work the soil? Maybe some more hermit-like folks might even still be around."

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Kereu smiled: "Sounds like a plan! When the vehicle returns, we should suggest it."

SKIPS-ONE-STEP

"Shivers, I know that this is not what you like doing, but you want to get into the dungeon, so they need to understand you as an asset. And from what I understand of the group, they do need someone who fulfils the role of the 'tank'. That is how they probably will see you as you are so well armed," Skips explained as she tried to teach her friend the task of taunting dungeon monsters to focus their attention on xir. As it never was a role she fancied, she was ridiculously bad at it herself. In the grade 9 dungeon, they tried to focus the attacks of the monsters on them. It seemed quite difficult for both of them, as it generally required specialised skills.

Skips sighed and once again used a Recovery skill to tend to her wounds, then used the Medicine skill from the repository to help both Shivers and xir snails. Shivers sighed in relief as xe felt better again: "I appreciate your help with this. "

Skips shrugged it off: "It's no problem! I am just glad that I can help you at least a bit."

Shivers responded: "I just feel like I suck at this really bad. I am not so much of a fighter. I generally prefer to learn new things and learn about how different people work. Fighting is just not that interesting to me. I really preferred if I didn't have to do… oh, wait, maybe…"

"Yes?" Skips asked.

"I kinda feel like I am too bad at this. But maybe… maybe the black system doesn't want me to use these skills directly. It seems that the skills from the black system want me to work indirectly…" Shivers mused.

Skips understood the situation suddenly: "You need to use the snails?"

"I might need to… let's try!" Shivers let xir snail down and then had it crawl to the nearest Salamar.

Xe tried a taunt and looked at the Salamar. The creature attacked the snail as if it was the source of the taunt. The snail hid in his house and weathered the attack. Xe used the moment when the creature was distracted to attack it and slayed it.

Skips cheered on xir and gave the snail shellpats.

Shivers smiled: "This is actually quite useful. I can focus on the others during battle and see the magic that the black system is using."

Skips looked at Shivers' eyes which had a rainbow-coloured sheen, as opposed to the black eyes of most scorpions-of-Tsanh. "Can people see the magical structures? I cannot and find it confusing that you can."

Shivers nodded: "I can. I don't think others can, however, as they have different eyes."

Skips looked relieved: "That makes a lot of sense. Your quest reward is actually very usable. I wonder if Solidarity knew."

"Of course it knew! It knew or that spiky fellow knew… The entire quest was to protect settlements," Shivers confidently stated.

"Then why does it do that? Why does it make us suffer?" Skips asked, fully aware that it was hypocritical as Unlimited Potential did the same.

"I don't know, but I have some ideas. If you think of our repository… it was at level 7 for a long time before the aliens arrived and now it's 18… maybe it is that… maybe we have been complacent. Or maybe it wasn't able to fight them off… or it uses the aliens to spread its influence. I mean: There are repositories on Windrush."

"Oh,... and Windrush is currently under a complete embargo. So… it could be because of a foreign system?" Skips asked.

Shivers nodded pensively.

Skips thought for a moment and then said: "Actually: no. If people knew about a different system, there would not be a Windrush any longer. Let's hope that they keep things under wraps and don't wildly broadcast it."