--------------------------Memory Report: 'Yellow' Nael Kathay 012-------------------------------
.:: To, my captain and all other office worms reading this ::.
When I planned on taking a vacation, this was NOT how I imagined things to turn out.
“Go to the beach,” he said.
“No problematic threats,” he said.
“Just forget all your worries and relax,” he said.
Well, James, I hope you are pleased when you see my name on the latest memory report. I hope that’ll give you some insight to actually VERIFY information for at least once in your pitiful human life. I just had the worst day of my life right now, and that was BEFORE, I was being chased to my death by a freaking mutated Vampire!
Well… at least I think it’s a vampire, it’s strange that it’s not burnt to cinders out in the open sunlight, but no blighted corpse would have the judgment, intelligence or speed of the scary woman who’s currently chasing me to death.
Vampires are scary enough as they are, and one that’s immune to sunlight? I'm definitely not going to see tomorrow. I’m scared and I'm not ashamed of that. You people really need to do more research on vampires. Contact those shadowhunters maybe. Good suggestion.
You should try it.
I have no proper equipment, nor the strength to deal with anything above giant snakes. OF WHICH WAS THE ONLY THING WHICH WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HERE. James told me of a "breath-taking beach with shallow waters which were NOT infested with poisonous life forms, with good tourist-friendly services, pretty girls, and lots and lots of good drinks."
After I got off the closest train, I headed to the town marked on my map. James said there was one here and that they sold all sorts of top -quality snake- leather merchandise here too. Glossy blue leather jackets that are naturally as strong as steel which is also relatively wallet-friendly? Hell yeah, I want some of those, give some extras so I can give them to my brothers and sisters in arms as well. Yea I’m talking about you Sooya, I'm not as heartless as you think.
I knew all of you fools were going to love it. But what do you know, not only was there a striking ABSENCE of locals, the entire town seemed to lack buildings too. Like, the whole thing, burnt to the ground...
I, for one, wasn’t aware of any mass genocide occurring in this location whatsoever. Being a member of the explorer’s association, I was duty bound to report whatever things that seem odd. Well, this entire town seems a bit odd,
Good observation skills, Nael, you did well.
Then I had to figure out as to WHY the locals were apparently dead. There’s no undead blight in this part of the world, but having an entire town go out like this has GOT to have nasty consequences. So I either have to report this to a local branch and not get any credits OR, do the investigation myself, and get a LITTLE bit of credit. Yea I know, someone there right now is going to be like;
“Oh, Nael, how could you be so low? There’s practically a mass genocide right in front of you, and all you’re concerned about are CREDITS?”
Oh, well, I’m just an elf trying to survive, after my own kind THREW me out because apparently, I’m not glowy enough and I don’t have enough magical stores to cast supremely flashy spells.
Well, Boohoo.
Those 'pathetic humans' as they called them, were not so pathetic after all. Some of em were even WORSE than the monsters in the Great Forest. Especially those dimwits they call adventurers.
Oh, the horror!
But still, they accepted me and helped me to get my career as an Explorer started. I really need to climb the ladders to pay back my debts and I’m not going to be able to do that if I'd be stuck as a rookie forever.
Well, the problem is, they don't have the time to wait for my lazy ass because they’ll just bend over and die in a few decades. Wow, talk about a short time limit to fulfill a life debt. Thus, I need SOMETHING to distinguish myself fast or I won’t be able to do anything.
After all, a few decades isn’t a lot of time.
After spending nearly two hours in a ghost town filled with ashes and the stink of rot, I eventually gave up. The most I could find out was that there were dead soldiers from a bordering town that were apparently, as anyone might guess,
Not supposed to be there.
And you know what, they don’t carry convenient letters stating all their intentions and plans like in the stories. I’m not a detective. I gave up, you can figure all that shit out yourself.
(yea I'm talking to you reds).
Then I followed this really big trail of carnage to the edge of the forest, and eventually, came across a redmane bear.
Yea, you might have heard of those majestically fluffy, grey bears with a large patch of red fur around its neck. Yep, those same giants which are twice as large as a normal bear, live at high altitudes, possess impenetrable skin and walk upright? Apparently, one of them had enough of the mountains and with the same idea as me, came to the beach for a vacation. I’ve heard that they’re highly territorial towards anything on two legs, so I got down on all fours to try to appear less 'bipedal-ey'.
But apparently, that wasn’t enough for the furry brute. You REALLY need to give more attention to those things, like what the fuck is useful about the fact that they don’t like things that walk on two legs if it’s useless even if you try to walk on four?
The experience was… Traumatizing, to say the least, and I nearly died. The saving factor is that they were susceptible to shiny objects. I lost my incredibly polished elven longsword as a result. Well you see, THAT is what one would call 'useful information'. Print THAT in a textbook for Heaven’s sake. It was the only item I was given as I was cast out from the elven community, you know.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Painful sacrifice.
They gave it to me saying;
"here take this, and good luck out surviving in the great wilderness."
As if that would work, It was probably for the sake of decency. Well, you know what? Throwing me out wasn’t a decent thing to do in the first place. I kept the blade in pristine condition so I could plunge it in the heart of that snobbish man they called a 'council head'.
He pulled out a lot of bullshit, just because I and his daughter had a... thing…
Okay, I admit that me getting thrown out had more dimensions than what I initially claimed. I also hate that all that useless information is probably going to be inside this report.
Anyway, there goes my motivation for revenge. I hope that bear cuts itself, but then again, I pray that it’s not intelligent enough to start swinging that thing around. That would be horrifying beyond words, and I don’t want to be responsible for it. And I’m concerned about that because SOME people in SOME particular office are handing out false information to new recruits and I’m having serious trust issues and concerns regarding that bear. Can't you folks even properly assess the intelligence of a single bear?
For that matter, I don’t want ANYTHING to do with bears ever again. I felt like it was staring at a bug. If I make it alive, I’m tearing down every single bear hunt in the lobby.
After that, I had to fend off freakishly large birds, run away from a nest of snakes in the middle of their mating season, And survive a showdown against a feral raccoon over my lunch. That raccoon was stronger than it had any right to be. You people probably need to reassess the entire wildlife ecosystem.
I eventually got to the beach, battered, bruised, and hollow inside.
The beach was empty as was expected. James is so going die If get back, I promise you Sooya. You better start looking through the new applicants soon. There were no 'special shops and services', no 'pretty girls' of ANY race with the exception of turtles, if that would do. I have no idea what them reptiles find appealing but their shells looked shiny, so that may count? Probably. Then the worst of them all; no 'drinks'.
As I was trying to reorient myself towards the direction back to the station, I saw it. It was a pretty girl. Apparently, the corpse of a pretty girl. She was the only person still in one piece except for the fact that she was dead. Just my luck.
Damn it all.
But then again, she was mostly naked give for a few rags and most of her features were pure white. Skin, hair, the whole deal. She looked human, but I guessed that humans weren’t supposed to look like that. Then again, what the hell do I know? When my depraved eyes started to ogle her, I decided that I had enough. I would do the most decent thing a man could do the entire day after what I had experienced.
To bury her.
For giving me at least one glance for my virgin heart, I would repay the favor. And for the sake of decency alone, I decided to cover her up with the only thing available- seaweed. I dug a hole, Tossed the body inside with regret, and started to fill it back up. Then, as I was doing the most honorable thing I’ve done in WEEKS, she apparently decided that I was just too perverted, or That I violated her or something, probably. I have no idea what goes in her head. I’m just an elf, no Valak.
Then she denied me of it. My sole contribution to goodness. Yelling and with pretty much VERY ‘inhuman’ movements, she got up and came after me.
I was scared shitless. I was PRETTY SURE she was dead. I would never give away such an opportunity if it presents itself. I’ve heard many a story like this where one would find a damsel in distress and then be her hero.
But NO, someone up there just didn’t like me, going as far as to tease me, and then send her to kill me. Blighted undead isn't that fast, and she had the eyes. The glowing red eyes of a vampire. Wait. It was orange….
Then again, she was up and about in the light, and most of all, she was still dead.
I triple checked.
So an undead. Contact them shadowhunters.
Right.
Now.
Fact number 5 of all standard explorer’s facts;
An undead exists because of either really dark magic, or it’s severely pissed off. Pissed off so much that it’s enough to resist death. No matter what the situation, there has never, in the 4900 years of which the association has stood, there been a case of ‘friendly’ undead. Since there was no blight, and no traces of dark magic, She was either severely pissed off or was a vampire.
Either way, I’m screwed. It’s been nearly an hour since I’ve started running, and I’m not going to last much longer at this rate. She’s still behind me at the speed of a desert runner like nothing ever happened.
No fatigue, eh.
Well, Fuck it.
Fuck you, James.
Fuck you, office worms with false info.
I don’t like these mental reports, lots of additional stuff gets mixed in, don’t take them to heart, but it’s not like I have any other option. Whoever is reading this, kill James for me if I don't make it. And maybe fix that stuff about the bear. If I survive and this gets published or something, I’m going to go into hiding for a few weeks.
Nael, Sending memory report,
Signing out.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I felt a headache incoming as I read the memory report and sighed.
We were in a Tavern and I gazed at James, Lily, and Mahki making merry with no reservations whatsoever. I felt my headache increasing. The five of us were part of a ‘Yellow’ team of rookies with myself as the apparent ‘leader’.
Not like they actually listen to anything I say. It’s more like I’m the official gal to place all the weights of responsibility and whatever official bullshit anyone would ever throw at us. I stared at the report again for some time before putting it down.
If I hand this over to them, they’ll just laugh their asses off and say;
"Oh Sooya, Nael will just scramble his way back here without a hitch. ya don't have ta worry" or something along the lines.
I had a feeling it’s true though. He was the one among us with the highest chances of survival in any given situation. Not because of any skills or anything of the sort, but rather dumb luck or maybe one of his peculiar antics.
They’ve been so used to it that they accepted it as some universal law or something. They even started to associate him with a cockroach. They say he belongs with the greens but was rejected for official reasons. It wasn’t the first time we’ve gotten a memory report from him, either and obviously, not the first time he survived after he did so.
But it IS, a bit concerning that he just got thrashed by a redmane and a vampire in the same day. Then I read the report again and was having second thoughts.
Memory reports were a unique specialty of the Explorer’s association and are actually written by a highly complex, intelligent construct which receives memory/thought fragments sent from the members of the association via another complex network system which is a headache just to get even the most basic understanding of.
The original Network system was basically useless since the memory fragments would just be a mesh of complex overloaded information, and was utterly useless. Then some guy or the other named Lord Belthrow made this self-learning golem and several generations later, someone asked it if it could make any sense of it. And what do you know- It did!
After that, it would sort through those fragments and send a report based on it to an association official to get it sorted out and if it doesn’t contain sensitive information, have it published to everyone close to the sender. That particular golem, named the ‘Blue Tree’ of all things, is the core of the Explorer’s association and the heart of its success. But the fact is, it's a self-learning golem, and as was expected, it eventually developed a personality and huge levels of sass.
Though all the info in the report is very much accurate, it also contains EXTREMELY accurate and irrelevant thoughts of the sender as well. At the same time, it's hard to ignore, and the association even has an entire team dedicated to figuring out a complex report.
I KNOW this thing has a lot valid of information in it... but then again, it’s hard to take it even the slightest bit seriously. Sometimes, the golem gets pissed for who knows what, or maybe it just feels like trolling others and would dump a lot more shit and hand it out in an extremely unique fashion. If it’s edited, the thing would get MORE pissed, and no-one wants that, so to try and appease it, the more...’ unique’ ones get ‘published’. Not any of the confirmed casualties get published but still…
I have no idea what the hell I’m supposed to do with this and so, I put it aside for now.
It would be better for Nael if I show it to the others... a bit slowly, at that.