Alain’s red eyebrows met together as Ur’s mask shifted to an incredulous emotion. Both of them were transfixed, as if dazed. Their eyes scanned the air in front of them, necks bulging forward, if the status screen was a tangible thing, they’d be all over it, forehead squished. Ur’s black fabric stretched unnaturally as he stopped petting the book on his lap. His animated mask moved to a horrified expression.
“I thought that… something was odd when I watched you fight Esenaji’s spawn, but this… this changes everything.”
Ur almost unmasked himself. Then, at the last second, he stopped his hand. “B-Brin-Brian.” He grimaced, then triad again. “Sir… Brian. Can you confirm… this? No. Nevermind. You already did. I’m sorry.”
Brian clutched the pill as he felt the hem of the dress graze his outstretched legs, a cautious expression on his face.
“... My god. If this is true...'' Alain’s face stretched on the sides, his skin pulling his longer wrinkles taut. It was one thing to be surprised, and another to be like this. My skills and Samuels’ are vastly different. Is that the problem?
”This changes everything. '' Ur's mask continued as he scribbled something on his golden pages, finger functioning as a pen. Strange letters appeared before disappearing into the paper, dissipating as if they weren’t there a moment before.
The same reddish writhing forms as before appeared underneath his skin, akin to worms in a frenzy, seeking a feast of blood. He could see them bulge over his taut robes, contorting like thick cables. A faint chewing sound could be heard. “I need to go. I need to see His Majesty. Alain, I'll notify you when I'm done. If I can, I'll send some guards to escort you. Ben should be available.'' He gave a final look to Brian, who was still in the corner, his long dress now strained and ripped. He looked like a trapped dog.
“What is happening?”
Ur had already grasped the door with his big fingers, he swung it open and this time it did leave a mark on the wall as it collided with it. Brian winced. The feminine voice quickly worded his thoughts. “Alain will debrief you. In short, it means we might have a chance. Against them.” He took off and Brian could see the outlines of a white corridor before the wind pressure rebounded against the door, closing it with a bang. The wall remained cracked.
Alain stood up and started pacing against the corners of the exquisite room, his polished leather shoes tapping against the parquet like a drum. “Sir Brian. Do you realize the situation you are in right now? “What is happening? Really?” If I had known this before Esenaji…” He blinked, then slapped himself on the cheek with a motion so quick brian could only see the afterimage of it. His face was already reddening.
“Of course you don’t. It’s not even a full day ago that you were transported in Thoum. It seems I’m still green. As Ur has already said, I shall explain to you our alarm.”
So frustrating. Get to the point. Alain’s right arm raised as his left descended, creating the illusion of a geometrical circle. “At the bottom, we have bronze tiered skills – of course, I’m talking about Natural skills here, not the additional ones you got as boons for completing your trials before coming here – those are unreachable to us, except for some astounding cases. As I do not know how long it will take for Ur’s urgent request to be considered, I’ll keep it short.” He moved his left arm on the bottom a tick up, like a clock. “Bronze tiered skills are usually weak, and contrary to popular belief, they are harder to upgrade due to the starting unfamiliarity than their advanced counterparts, those on the Iron tier. Iron skills are usually stronger, but they don’t diverge too much from their lower variants.”
This was technically new information for Brian, even if he had come up with his own theories years ago. Just… some of his time in the Pits – in the tutorial, was blurred.
“I know this… already. Move… on.”
“Good. I wasn’t expecting any less. Just to confirm, what are the next three steps above Iron?”
“... Steel, Carbon… and Gold…”
“Exactly!” he clapped his hands with vigor. Somehow, the illusion of the wheel in the air didn’t disappear. Alain put his hands back in position and smiled so wide his gums showed. “Steel. Carbon. And Gold. The three next theoretical milestones. They usually take years, even full decades of dedicated use before a veteran takes – because at that point you’re anything but a novice – to get on the cusp of Gold.” The wheel solidified in the air, and from the center poked Alain’s face as he moved his neck forward. “How, exactly, did you manage to reach Sapphire, the next step, in such a limited amount of time?”
“I –”
“There is no need to tell me, Sir. It was a rhetorical question, I apologize for wording it so badly.” He let out a hearty sigh. “We are not like Esenaji’s people. Even if you don’t believe me, you shall see, as time goes on.” He retracted his hands from the metaphorical wheel and continued on as usual. “You may not know it, but reaching Sapphire at your age… Sir Brian, how old are you, if I may ask?”
“Probably… twenty-six or twenty-seven. Why… are you asking?”
“Gods. Because that’s unheard of. As of right now we only have two… samples, to look from, so you might be an outlier, had it not been for the sheer difference in tiers. It’s simply not comparable, that is akin to corresponding a newborn Gaian to… a rock, or a tree, it’s just a different matter entirely.”
Brian's eyebrows drew closer, converging towards each other.
“Don’t look at me like that. You’re the anomaly.” HIs arms slumped, as did his will. “That should theoretically be the limit. But we have written records, only written records, of people achieving something more, and they are usually described as people grander than life.” His eyes scanned the air. “Something I may be seeing right now, on your status screen. A maxed out Skill.”
“I have it.”
“Yes, that’s the whole point, Sir.” The old butler took a lungful of air, savoring it as if it was smoke. “Furthermore, I have no clue what that (modified) part entails, we’ll need to check it out. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’ll – I’ll be with you, don’t you worry – will have to undergo a proper interrogation. Just… Please, do not lie then. The less you do the happier both of our lives will be, believe me.”
Even without basis to confirm his claims, Brian did. This went beyond a theatrical performance.
“This also means we are in a load of shit if Esenaji decides to sell your information. Damned fucking oath! Also, from now on, at least for a while, you will disappear. If this is true, and I believe it is – we will find out if it isn’t. You might be the single most valuable piece in the board that we have. ”
“I'm.. not an object.” Brian’s irritation surged up as he bared his teeth, looking feral.
Alain moved his hands in front of his pristine suit, palms facing Brian as if to shield himself from metaphorical bullets.
It was at that moment that his wristwatch pulsed with a red light, illuminating his face and a good quarter of the room in an ominous glow. He nodded, stony faced. “That was way quicker than I anticipated, he must have pulled some strings. I'll explain as we go on forward. Please follow me out of the door, guards should arrive shortly.”
He turned to Brian. He was still in the corner. “Sir, I’m urging you to follow. The sooner we arrive, the better it is for everyone involved. Please refrain from using any lingering skills, as they could be used to track our location later.” He pointed down the tidy hallway with a finger, he had become so frenzied he still hadn’t rolled down his sleeves, revealing beefy ashen forearms.
He speedily opened the door and greeted someone, then waited for Brian to follow suit.
***
Esenaji Argentia paced in her little, ugly room.
Majin, are you done yet?! She asked through their telepathic link, his form swirling above her. She could feel his presence at all times, like a veiled ghost looming on her. She hated it. She hated not having freedom and not being alone.
Unfortunately, the benefits outweighed the drawbacks.
Her previous dismissal irritated her. How dare they… Only a single sacrificial orb remained in her grasp, which irked her further. Majin rippled with power over her, making the shadows surrounding her flicker like a puppet show.
She was tired of it all. Of their dismissal, of their stupid city, and their stupid organized hierarchy. It pissed her off how uneducated, uncivilized and backwater they were. Technology for them was a thing of the future. For Esenaji’s people it was a thing of the past. Back in Serra everything was different – better. They had successfully located coordinates of the third and fourth before they were even called here. A fifth was underway, too. That was acting like proper Gaians. Now, their king was bound by a contract he could not sever for a long while.
Her smile folded. She didn’t envy him.
It had been months. Everything was bad here. She was constantly being watched and observed, it creeped the hell out of her. Although… her sisters might be faring even worse, since they didn’t have her authority. Esenaji shrugged, it wasn’t her problem at the end of the day.
It had almost worked with the third, but…
Her desire to tame Ryan, the second, was completely naught. Just a glance at him and you could tell it was bad news if he got too close to you.
I’m almost done, Aye! Just a couple more seconds!
Stolen novel; please report.
Took you long enough.
She’d have to ask for a “favor” to Priscilla, to give her an orb. She was surprisingly stingy in using them. More for her.
These black skinned Gaians couldn’t even process the idea that the likes of Majin were complete beings with an actual soul rather than a construct. Which was good. She had stumbled upon a few good things due to their negligence.
She paced in the room with her spongy wooden sandals. She couldn’t take it anymore. Esenaji was about to ask Majin again when she froze. A source of power washed through her and she grit her white teeth. Black spots began to dance in front of her eyes. She could only grasp something so as to not fall.
The discharge rebounded on her and went back to Majin, which promptly shut off. He would be unusable for a whole day, maybe more, depending on the information received. Her expectations of him weren’t good enough to begin with. She glanced at her hand, she could not afford to use her last orb to recharge him – she had wasted too many orbs for comfort for that. From now on, she had to ration.
Uh. So, yeah! No. We might have a problem. Majin exclaimed in her mind’s eye. He was frantically waving his little arms around as he jumped with his little feet. Teal fingers outstretched as he sweated icicles in the black liminal space.
What is it this time? VIsion returned to her, and she resumed pacing in circles, the carpet was all but forgotten as it continued to pile creases on it. Her plan was to obtain the status screen of the fourth one, whatever his name was, and send it to Sarra, her birthplace. They would then analyze the skills and come up with a good way to convince them to join them. So far it hadn’t worked with the third, which was the only other one she had successfully managed to obtain the status screen of. His was most impressive with already a skill bordering on Steel. His lip reading ability would prove especially useful once tiered up high enough.
Ryan was off the question.
Well, actually the p–
Drop it, Majin. I don’t care. Esenaji watched her pink nails with ardor. Did it go right or did it go right? Which one is it?
I–It worked, I have his records, b–
Then spit it out before I unplug you from the rest of the world.
Silence turned to sobbing as he sent the information, crying in a corner. It was adorable how his little shoulders trembled like frail twigs. She loved to break him. Each time he came back a little different.
As always, she first received the lightest information to cross over to her soul. This almost always meant the name was the first thing she saw about their targets. It was interesting how the System kept hold of something so trivial. A name. As Majin’s skill took everything he had to power it, the information was sent to her line by line. She scanned it. Brian Spencer. A boring name and an equally boring taste in clothing, she found. No natural skills listed, but those would come in time. He had… four slots, which was unusual. She’d have to check on it later.
He fought well, though, even without them. He had managed to fend off against Majin for a good while. A commendable feat, for a newly called Pioneer only a few months into the ordeal.
She eagerly eyed the text that was forming in the air. Howl - Bronze. With measly points in its progression. She figured the skill was new as it seemed as if it hadn’t been utilized at all. He hadn’t even tried to use it against Majin, though it wouldn’t have worked with such pitiful power.
Her smile died down as she read the fourth line. Majin. Majin! Answer me! He stirred and retreated even further, cutting the connection. Weak as he was, he wouldn't be able to open it again for half a day, at least.
“Agh, you useless fucker!” Her shoulder slammed against the old furniture, shattering it to pieces. The noise was deafening as splinters flew at breaknecking speed around the room. She’d let someone clean it up after. Esenaji approached the bed, but it too had broken pieces of wood on it. She couldn’t be bothered to pick them up so she just threw the sheets to the ground as she lay on the soft mattress. Her eyes scanned the line, it was slowing down in speed as the information was too heavy. That couldn’t have been possible. Reaching Gold in just a couple of weeks or months in the tutorial wasn’t something even remotely close to the realm of possibility. She cursed as the connection was still severed.
The next line was already forming, but… No. It can’t be! She shook her black hair around and breathed out.
“Calm down. I’m sure there is an explanation. You just have to find it.” Theoretically, it was possible to achieve low Gold in a couple of months, through repetitive training, although the subjects more often than not returned as vegetables – but high Gold? She wasn't so sure about that. She looked at it again with a different eye. Natural weaponry, the skill the fourth progenitor, Brian, possessed, was a fairly straightforward one. From the description she could see it was Goblin oriented, and he really seemed a bit sharp, even from afar. That probably meant that he was going to develop functional retractable claws and night vision in the long run. What slightly worried her was that it was the first, and thus, lightest skill to cross over.
She vowed to send a message to her sisters when she finished to –
Esenaji’s blood ran cold as she read the next line. it read as “???”. This wasn’t the first time she read such information about the status of others… but… it was… It meant he had at least a skill over Gold. This wasn’t possible. Was he… even human? An idea dawned on her – was he an actual human? Was he – no, it – even a Pioneer? The more she thought about it the more it made sense. It could be one of those shadows that infiltrated in their midst. Maybe their information was compromised, or simply wrong. It was notoriously hard to divine anything related to Progenitors, so it could be possible.
She jumped up and her mattress folded in on itself, but she didn’t care, then she stopped. If she left with such vigor, they would suspect something. She craned her back to the room’s interiors. They might suspect something already. Her bum touched the ground as her thoughts passed at light speed.
Primal horror chilled in her veins as she read the final, last line. She was glued to it as a mother meeting her first child.
[IN–
[INSUFF–
[INSUFFICIENT DA–
[INSUFFICIENT DATA.]
The door burst outward as she stormed out of the room. She had lost her sandals in the process. Her steps indented the flooring. Damned vertical city! There were no shortcuts, so she just opted for bursts of speed.
She had never seen that message in all of her years using Majin while using his powers. Not once.
This was unprecedented. She needed to act.
It was wearing the skin of a Progenitor, but it was anything but that. The system messages more than confirmed it. She’d probably get labeled a traitor for what she was about to do, but once she unveiled the truth all of them would see the truth. She’d unveil its guise.
She picked up the pace as soldiers were already trailing her, wondering what the commotion was about.
She needed to kill it – that thing. Before it grew too strong.
The fake would be gone by tomorrow.
***
It took less than a minute for people to come. Brian mistook them for civilians, since they weren’t wearing armor or weapons, things he took for granted guards would have on.
They approached them and wordlessly flanked them, the young man had squeezed in too close to Alain for his liking, no way of escaping now. He was encircled. His brain burned. No one was looking at him, and as they started moving with him in the center, he almost stumbled. Since he couldn’t do anything he diverted his attention on the hallway he was walking on. His feet felt even colder as he stepped on top of white marble. There were some gemstones, big and small, dotting unblemished walls. Once every few seconds they passed by a window overlooking a different part of the garden below, and Brian could only gasp at the sight, there was something magical in there.
Flowers.
Big, small, narrow, and colorful flowers. People were kneeling on the grass over some dirty rags, planting or eradicating them from the ground. His vision took in the coldness of the wall for a second before he could see them again. They were uprooting them! So many colors! For these brief moments, Brian felt like a kid again, his smile bright and cheeky, the kind that a grandma loved on her grandson. He had forgotten how some of them looked, at all. Like pink, proper, actual pink – or purple! So pretty!
Then reality hit again as they turned a corner.
There were no windows here. Only marble.
Instead, real life statues adorned the sides of the other hallway in a myriad of dynamic poses, they looked alive, and as they passed them he noticed the incredible level of detail. He was used to wooden totems or some worshiping rocks painted with fresh blood or ground up herbs.
This was… art. Brian blinked. It felt good to know that in some imperceptible recess of his mind he still had some appreciation for it.
They were even on the ceilings — suspended by threads, rocking due to some wind that had found its way in. With how they were poised they looked prone to dive to the ground below, hands in front of them.
That, eventually, passed too. He returned to the real world and he noticed Alain was speaking, but as he wasn’t the one being addressed, he gave himself a few moments to think about everything he had been told. From what they’d said, he was abnormal — and, truthfully speaking, something about the tutorial just wasn’t feeling right within him. He brought back the messages with a wordless whisper, and they sat there. Yeah, still 4th. It didn’t make sense now more than ever before. They had also said it had been 10 years since they were thrown into Thoum, their new world. Almost the same time he had been in the tutorial. He reread the message once again. That “calibrating” wording really gave him the wrong – there was no way he had been in the Pits for slightly more than two fucking months. Could the System, something so complex as to make all of this, really gaffe so hard? He doubted it.
It had classified this… place? As Earth’s biome. His thoughts naturally swirled to Samuel, that kind.
Aside from his chubby body, which could mean he had let himself go upon arrival here, as they certainly didn’t lack in the food department… Brian recalled them saying he had been transported here weeks ago. His skills… they were subpar. You’re telling me the third fastest human being on the entire fucking planet doesn’t even have a Steel tiered skill? High Iron was the highest he had achieved, with two others still at bronze. That was unthinkable.
His feet brushed a white carpet and they stopped, he almost ended up splattered against Alain’ damp shirt. Now that he was looking at it, his back was drenched.
Big as they were, they hadn’t met anyone in the hallways. They came upon a small and innocuous looking door, blending in within the surroundings.
The old man pulled out an ornate key from his pockets and turned on the door, opening it. It was well oiled.
“Good.” he gestured with his free hand to go in. Inside, the small room was bare except for a lever on the left side of the wall. The guards flanking him moved forward with no hesitation and he had to go with the flow to not get trampled on.
It felt like the walls were colliding with him due to how small it was. It reminded him of an elevator, instead of a room. The two stood in the dead center of the room, taking most of its space. The moment the doors closed, their expressions turned to stone, not dissimilar to the statues Brian had seen earlier.
“We’ll be going further in now. We’re already close, so we’ll reach our destination in a few seconds.”
His hand grasped the lever, pulling it. After a few seconds, he opened the doors again with the same key, and a lush garden was upon them. He could even hear birds chirping and see mole burrows on the ground. Teleportation?!
“We’re here. We’re in the proper royal quarters, His Majesty the King, his closest aides, and some Elites live here. Esenaji, though she might have access to this place, wouldn’t have the guts to come here. You two, good work. Let's go, we’ll be seeing the king Himself."