[Feat: Seeds of Gaia

You are never far from home. Once per day you can plant a seed anywhere, forming it from your own mana and willpower. You choose the type of plant but the quality, and how quickly it grows, is determined by your spellcasting check.]

Phanya hrm'ed in thought, not for the first or last time. Why would the system give her a magical feat when everything else focused on her physical body? After talking with the others she figured this was her Ancestry Feat given at Level 1, whatever that meant. Maybe she should've chosen something magical at Level 2, maybe that was the plan for whoever or whatever was watching through this system.

But, ever since she chose the secondary Commander class instead, Phanya felt so much more alive. Her body tingled with potential energy at all times, a coiled spring even at rest, but never uncomfortable or distracting. She was sharpened in body and mind, complete, and she would never want to give the feeling up.

Except, now she had this feat about magical plants, and no idea how it worked compared to the rest of this system. So Phanya snuck out of the bunkhouse after dark, using her enhanced balance to navigate around beds without tripping over the piles of junk that orphan kids like to collect. Stepping into the open was easier, despite the lack of any streetlights; porthole windows dotted the dome of the hot spot, shooting a dozen spotlights that caught in the perpetual smog cover to create ambient light.

The greenhouse itself was still almost pitch black, by Wiessa's own design. Phanya could never really understand the eccentric woman, but if Phanya could somehow make or help plants then that magic absolutely had to go to her. Once she could figure out how to use it, at least.

Whenever she used one of her other feats or class abilities, Phanya felt the energy build and contract in the back of her skull — if the brain is a muscle, then her feats made her brain flex like a muscle. The feeling was immensely unsettling outside the panic of a fight, but it quickly became second nature as her body adjusted to the new sensation.

But now with this particular feat Phanya just felt warm, especially in her chest. The heat grew and Phanya zoned in, using her enhanced body awareness to follow the heat to a pinprick point of fire. Right there, right next to her heart.

That must be the mana, even if Phanya still had no idea what magic really was. She held the fire in her metaphorical hands and tried to shape it, hoping that she had enough willpower to compensate for a total lack of instructions. Think of food, plants you can eat! Not like these awful nettles that gave her a rash that one time.

Something without physical form shifted, and with a start Phanya realized her mistake. She thought this magic would just create a seed in her hand, but that little fire was going to keep growing until she actually put it somewhere. The pots! She took a step forward in the dark, the leaves on those damn nettles scratched against the tip of her nose, and Phanya sneezed.

She jolted, her hold on the fire slipped, and overloaded mana screamed in her body before it took the path of least resistance. The energy shot off like a bullet down Phanya's spine, through her legs, and directly into the tarmac with a loud crack, startling her again before she could recover from her sneeze.

Phanya took a long second after that to compose herself, sitting on her haunches, wondering whether the flashbang of light and sound happened out in the open or just inside her head. Either way stars swam in her vision, leaving Phanya to blindly paw at the ground in search of any new seed. She found a pinky-sized crack in the tarmac that hadn't existed a minute ago, probably, and nothing else.

Phanya stood and wobbled, smothered by a sudden wave of exhaustion. Just from using the feat once? Her body ached in ways normally associated with a long day of manual labor, and now her limbs begged for Phanya to just curl up and go to sleep here in the greenhouse.

This whole magic thing is some nonsense.

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The next morning Phanya beat the shuttle to the pickup location. For once, she was excited to meet the good manager and maybe, finally, get somewhere in his weird little game. She leapt into the open door before the floating platform could carry her, relishing in the feeling of coiled leg muscles letting her skip a few seconds of waiting. It felt like she hadn't done anything except wait since she escaped the mall dungeon, and finding out of her numan heritage had lit a fire for Phanya to run, do things, solve problems, and just be active.

But now she had to wait for the shuttle to fly all the way to a boring waiting room. In a bid for some minor social stimulation, Phanya politely knocked on the wall towards the front of the shuttle, and after a moment's hesitation a hole opened silently in the middle of the wall. The cockpit was the same inhumanly bare design as the rest of the ship, with seats and a dashboard of the same glossy white material that grew seamlessly out of the hull. There weren't even buttons to mar the dashboard, just a holographic overlay floating a centimeter above the surface, but at least the pale blue lights gave a smidge of color to the room.

The driver turned his uncomfortable-looking seat towards Phanya, hands clasped in his lap, and gave her an unreadable look through his mask. "Can I be of service, ma'am?"

"Honestly, just wanted to say hey. We've done this so many times but only talked, like, once. Er, has it been just you flying me to these meetings? Or is there a whole fleet of servants sporting the whole dehumanizing mask deal?" Phanya tried to give a good-natured grin, but it was difficult to hold when the mask could only stare blankly back.

The silence grew a beat past awkward before the driver responded in measured tones, "Ma'am, it would be inadvisable to attempt extracting information out of me."

"Oh right, because I'm sure the good manager monitors this shuttle in case I slip up." Phanya looked up and waved in the general direction of the ceiling with a cheerful, "Just trying to pass the time!"

"Just pass the time, huh," the driver mumbled. He likely meant that just to himself so Phanya pretended not to hear him, before he cleared his throat and continued, "Please be aware that, should you choose to maim or kill me, Mr. Fairbanks carries an extensive insurance policy."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Whoa, whoa!" Phanya said, throwing up her hands and taking a step back. "What the hell, man? I didn't — I wouldn't — just, uh, forget I said anything, alright? Sorry for disturbing you." She took a seat without a direct line of sight to the cockpit, letting out a huff when the portal finally closed a tense moment later.

The driver hadn't moved when he said that. His hands were still in his lap, his voice was still a professional monotone. It was just so casual, Phanya had never seen someone discuss their own murder like choosing the music channel before. Sure, Fairbanks was a dweeb, but could working for him really make you that numb?

Phanya snapped out of her thoughts when she saw the pearlescent dome zip by in the distance. The shuttle had changed course at some point, instead flying to the brutal gray blocks of the recycling plant and attached apartments. They landed inside the top floor of the tallest building, but inside everything looked nearly identical to the manager's home. Same glossy interior, same lack of signage, same basic waiting room. The familiarity was strangely comforting.

Phanya had mostly settled her sense of unease by the time she was called out of the waiting room, but a small knot of it still pressed on her nerves. Caspian Fairbanks sat in an identical copy of his living room, complete with the strange sculpture chair of twisting white vines. Everything was the exact same, except for his posture.

After their disastrous first meeting the manager had kept his body language under tight control, never showing any emotion past his polite business façade. Now, he leaned forward with his fingers steepled in front of his face. He looked ridiculous, but doing anything different this time gave Phanya reason to worry.

"So. Have a pleasant chat with my driver?"

Yeah, that made sense. "Look Mr. Fairbanks, I want to apologize for speaking out of turn. Especially if I made your driver uncomfortable, it won't happen again."

"Oh I have no doubt of that. After all, coded messages are only effective the first time you use them."

Phanya no longer felt anger at Fairbanks' outright refusal to ever speak plainly. Now she just felt a sad, quiet longing to break through the lens of a cheap spy thriller that the manager, for some reason, viewed the entire world through. "Please sir, I promise there weren't any coded messages. Ms. Uxral teaches us that the first step to a productive work environment is knowing your coworkers, so since your driver is kind enough to pick me up every day I was just trying to be nice."

Fairbanks nodded at this, as if he was contemplating a nugget of sage wisdom, before he suddenly stood up and straightened his clothing. "Is that so? Come with me, please." Without waiting for a response he strode out of the room and Phanya hurried after, struggling to maintain a respectful distance away without losing track of him.

The next room was another smaller shuttle bay, holding another smaller shuttle. It might have been the new one that Fairbanks had considered buying during a previous meeting, but the sleek things all merged together in Phanya's memory. It was little more than a circular open platform with a plush couch running around the interior circumference, except for the front where the driver sat waiting at the controls. Phanya joined Fairbanks in the seating area, and tried very hard to not acknowledge the driver.

Once everyone sat down the shuttle raised into the air slightly and took off, exiting through a short tunnel into a shock of noise and activity. They were floating near the ceiling of a massive warehouse, the main production floor of Cyracorp Recycling Facility #826, while hundreds of workers toiled away below.

Phanya could barely see any of the actual people scurrying like ants amidst the churning machinery. Belts and mechanical arms moved and sorted garbage in a ceaseless flurry of movement, with laser grids in open portals as the ultimate destination for most of it. They broke anything down to its material components, and Phanya had heard plenty of horror stories about the complete lack of safety features.

A thin bubble forcefield snapped into existence over the shuttle and dulled the cacophony of industry into a dull roar. Fairbanks hadn't moved until now, just watching Phanya as she leaned over the edge to watch the people below. "Your 'teacher' is a smart woman, so I must wonder what she truly meant. A productive work environment comes from keeping the people alert and on their toes."

Fairbanks casually waved a hand over the edge of the shuttle, and several drones flew to his position. They were technically just cameras in a spherical chassis with a gravstrut ring and stabilizer fans, called whistleblower drones from the odd chiming sounds they made. But to Phanya they looked like giant eyeballs with a halo and wings.

With another wave of his hand the whistleblower drones flew down to the floor and started zapping random employees for reasons completely beyond Phanya. She didn't know what Fairbanks was trying to show her here, but she bit her tongue before she could snap at him to stop.

Satisfied that he had made his point, Fairbanks leaned back and picked up their earlier conversation. "Anyways, you'll need more than just social capital to buy out my assistant. He wasn't exaggerating about the insurance; good help is so expensive to grow! Really, Ms. Phanya, if you truly weren't fishing for intel and just admired my assistant then it'd be cheaper to buy a base model of his genetic template from me."

It took Phanya a second to mentally double check what Fairbanks so casually admitted, but it explained the driver's equally casual view of his own mortality. "You... you mean he's a clone?" she whispered with a hiss, as if the driver sitting a meter away from them wouldn't hear. "But that's illegal!"

"Ms. Phanya, please don't insult me," Fairbanks said, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he was the one exhausted by this exchange. The shuttle made its way back to the small hangar and landed, silence blanketing them once again. "I know you aren't recording these meetings, and I doubt you'd have access to some experimental sub-atomic spyware that can bypass my scans. It's just us here, all the families have clones to play with. Or does yours have their own way of keeping their bloodline pure?"

"Is all of this just because I'm a numan?" The words escaped before Phanya could catch her tongue, but the implication of her family breaking such a major law sent a flare of anger through Phanya.

And her question caught Fairbanks off guard, for all the wrong reasons. "Obviously? Why else are we doing this?"

[Quest: Spy Games complete! +1 XP]

Phanya blinked at the notification. That's it? That's the whole point of this stupid game? "Oh... I thought by 'family' you were talking about Ms. Uxral and the rest of Fableton."

Fairbanks chuckled at a joke that Phanya hadn't said. "Why would I ever refer to those proles as a family? We split them up for good reason, like that TICO cover story of yours. Keeps families from ever forming."

The flare of anger within Phanya caught into a proper fire. "Sir, for the last time it isn't a cover story. I'm a TICO kid, and those 'proles' in Fableton are the only family I've ever known! Heck, I only just recently learned that I'm a numan at all!"

For a split second the mask slipped and Phanya saw the cold anger just under the surface for Fairbanks, this time mixed with an odd pity. "Still dedicated to the cover story, eh? Have it your way then, Ms. Phanya. You are dismissed, have a good day."

She took the long walk out through the side entrance of the pearlescent dome, same as always, but this time that lump of unease had returned with a vengeance. Both her gut instinct and the outside guts were telling Phanya she overstepped this conversation, somehow.