Of the sixteen members of the board, three of us are dead. Six squat in bunkers deep under layers of corporate planetary security like quivering rodents, and the rest of you are on your own personal void yachts in undisclosed locations. Cowards. Cowards and parasites, the lot of you.
We’ve failed before, and we’ll fail again, but Ad Astra always ends up leaps and bounds ahead of the competition due to one simple fact: we do not cower.
Members of the board, craven and sniveling creatures that you are, I expect to see your asses in these chairs, around this table, for next week’s board meeting even if I have to drag each of you in here myself.
-Chairwoman Nina Ellory, Ad Astra Space Shipping, Passenger, Mining, Acquisitions, Exploration, and Exploitation Corporation.
Allow yourself a moment of imagination. Specifically, imagine a child’s ball pit. It’s probably fairly easy to picture one in your head, even if you do start to feel that creeping-flesh sensation that comes from knowing exactly how disgustingly unhygienic those things are.
Now imagine that this plague pit - er, I mean ball pit - is the size of, oh, the Grand Canyon, but still filled to the brim with balls. It’s mildly interesting that this sort of image isn’t actually that hard to picture, so a hearty ‘well done’ to you. Now think about those plastic multicolored balls. Reduce them to the size of marbles or, perhaps easier still, turn them into marbles in your mind if it helps.
Got it? Good.
That immense ball pit is the universe, and each marble is a planet that holds sapient life. No, not literally, and please stop wondering what it would be like to put one in your mouth. Focus. Spread throughout the universe in a multitude of galaxies, each marble represents a life-bearing planet. If we were to also include a marble for each planet that did not play host to sapient life, this ball pit would need to be the size of the sun so we’re leaving them out for the sake of simplicity.
Honestly, despite what you’re hopefully picturing, it’s not that many planets considering the immensity of the universe.
Moving on, we can now imagine duplicating this Grand Canyon-sized marble-filled image an infinite number of times. If, of course, you’re able to process the concept of infinity which, let’s be honest, is sort of big. This infinite duplication turns a universe into a multiverse.
There are infinite universes, duplicated over and over, with worlds ripe with life and intelligence everywhere. Of course, it’s not always the same worlds in each universe that get the gift of sapience.
This is not at all what reality looks like, but it’s a fun little practice of imagination right? So if you’re still following along rather than letting your eyes slip down the page to other things, you can go ahead and throw that whole image out because where we are next takes place outside all of that.
A place of Otherness, which is a whole separate infinite space itself. And in one tiny part of that infinite Otherness, in one comfortable and well-existed-in room, an entity that currently looks like the sidekick of Xena the Warrior Princess stiffened in her chair as she felt a familiar and worrying presence approaching.
Oh dear, Gabrielle thought.
Polite, firm knocking almost made Gabrielle flinch. This particular visitor had no real need to knock, and quite often had blown the door off its hinges in the past so despite being justifiably nervous she was also grateful that this wasn’t one of those days.
She opened the door quickly, and was immediately accosted by a woman who seized Gabrielle’s collar and pushed her back into her room.
“Why are you fucking with my shit?” the woman demanded, ice in her pale eyes. Immediately Gabrielle tried to come up with a dozen excuses, but failed. In the end she smiled weakly.
“Hi, boss. You look different. Again.”
The woman didn’t reply to this except to look Gabrielle’s own new appearance up and down before pushing her way into the room. This was a normal enough start to Gabrielle’s interactions with the woman that she easily stepped to one side rather than getting pushed backward in a not so gentle manner.
It wasn’t that the woman was aggressive and rude but, no, actually, she was totally aggressive and rude, but Gabrielle generously put it down to the fact that this woman always seemed to visit her within moments of having gone through some sort of traumatic death.
She was a [Troubleshooter] which was, honestly, more terrifying to Gabrielle than stepping back onto the mortal coil and one day reincarnating again. The [Troubleshooters] were a mythical bunch, rarely seen and best never interacted with, which made Gabrielle’s semi-legitimate employment by one somewhat stressful.
There was a saying about the [Troubleshooters]. They see trouble, and they shoot it. Repeatedly, until it stopped being trouble. Sometimes they even left a habitable location behind.
“So…” Gabrielle ventured as the [Troubleshooter] made her way to the center of the room and looked around with sharp and furious eyes. “What can I do for you?”
“You can stop fucking with my shit, Sparkles.” the woman growled. Gabrielle held up a finger.
“It’s Gabrielle now.” she said. In this place you could look how you liked, and Gabrielle was quite taken with her new body. Her boss-type-person generally visited in whatever form she’d last lived a life in, which wasn’t exactly normal in a place where you could be anything you wanted.. “And speaking of, what do I call you this time?”
There had been many names, for many bodies, for many lives lived in order to perform her duties as a [Troubleshooter]. Right now the woman had the appearance of a short, unnaturally beautiful elven woman with long tapered ears that stuck out to either side of her head. Her coppery curls were perfect spirals that danced and bobbed as she moved her head. The [Troubleshooter] wore rugged, but well made clothing and at her hip hung a short-barreled pistol of some kind that seemed entirely made out of crystal.
“Kathryn, “ the woman said shortly, “Kathryn Gallowmere.”
“Rough death, boss?” Gabrielle asked. With this question, the [Troubleshooter] visibly deflated, and flopped bonelessly onto Gabrielle’s sofa. The woman put a hand over her face, letting out a long breath as she formulated a reply.
“I was thrown from the outer hull of a spacecraft during its launch. Not the worst, but…”
"Ouch. Sorry."
Gabrielle had now met the [Troubleshooter] almost a dozen times. Their visits were never exactly pleasant, and always ended up with Gabrielle and her team getting more work. Hell, the reason the team was still together after so long was because of the [Troubleshooter] and tempting amounts of cash.
Besides, it was almost like living again.
Each visit, the [Troubleshooter] had just returned from a job; Each job was, apparently, a high-stakes insertion into some point of reality that had an Entropy problem that normal protocols couldn’t buff out on their own. And each job ended in the same way, with the death of the [Troubleshooter].
“I’ve died before, and I’ll die again.” Kathryn said in a tired voice, “But you know what made this particular one the worst so far?”
“What’s that?”
“When I came back here the first thing I had to deal with was an interview with a fucking Arbiter.” Kathryn growled, a hint of her ire coming back. “You know what an Arbiter is, right?”
In a general sense, Gabrielle knew that an Arbiter was an entity that was responsible for Syntropy not, in her boss’s words, being fucked with. Whereas a [Troubleshooter] was a soul tagged to be sent to fix issues, an Arbiter wasn’t a being with a soul or a path - it was an Idea made real, and that Idea was that Syntropy’s workings were sacrosanct and would take steps to make sure that things worked as they should.
A [Troubleshooter] took care of the dirty jobs. An Arbiter enforced the rules.
“I still think they should be called something other than Arbiters, since they don’t arbitrate anything, but yeah. I know what they are. They’re even more mythical than you lot.”
“Well, congratulations, “ Kathryn said flatly, “You’re going to have an Arbiter sitting in on the next Syntropic Synchronization session with Alex Orz.”
“Oh, “ Gabrielle winced, “Shit.”
“‘Oh, shit’ indeed, Gabrielle, because the last time we spoke Alex was on Earth with no hint of being connected to the Interface.” Kathryn said, “And your job - the one thing - your team was asked to do was to monitor and record his interactions with [Interesting Times] to see how his soul developed.”
“Um, well, yes, but there was a problem.”
“I was told. Soul calcification. All of a sudden it became such an issue that you decided to fuck with things. I gave you access to be able to influence Alex’s soul upgrade so that you could generate a steady set of interesting things that would gauge how he responded to different situations. I did not, “ Kathryn pointed at Gabrielle with an unwavering finger, “Think that you would create an event that would rocket him across reality, connect him to the Interface, and then scour his fucking mind and body with entropic energy.”
“I thought-”
“No you didn’t. You didn’t think at all. Tiny events. Nothing beyond a localized level. Low footprint things with very little chance of being noticed. Well, Gabrielle, we’ve been noticed.”
“Is that going to be a problem? For your plans, I mean?”
“You don’t even know my plans, Gabrielle.” Kathryn shook her head, letting her spiral curls dance again. The woman scowled at them. “I hope my next life has me bald or something, “ she muttered.
“Well, no, but I can sort of guess. Alex is important to you.”
“Hah, “ Kathryn snorted, “He’s actually not. He would have lived in relative obscurity if you and your little friends hadn’t started hyper-focusing on the man and broadcasting bits of his life. I’m just taking advantage of it.”
Gabrielle had to admit that she’d made a mistake there. Her team’s original job - and one that they still were technically performing - was to watch one particular version of Earth and gather information, just as she’d told Alex. Finding Alex had been fun, especially with all of the odd events that followed the man. It was almost like living again, but safely.
This place, this Other, was a perfectly safe environment for souls. Here they were outside of the ever-turning wheels of reincarnation, and had the option to remain for as long as they wanted to. Souls like Gabrielle’s and those of her team, had gone through at least one life that had been so terrible that they shied away from incarnating again just yet.
A small well of envy bubbled up in Gabrielle as she looked at Kathryn. The [Troubleshooter] never had nice lives; All of them were filled with days or years of pain and stress beyond belief in their efforts to combat Entropy. All of them died horribly, and time and again the woman chose to keep doing it.
Gabrielle was a coward, and she knew it.
Either unknowing of or uncaring about Gabrielle’s inner turmoil, Kathryn continued speaking. “You’ll want to lose the Arbiter’s attention as soon as possible. Play by the rules. Do not interfere with the event system again - not even a tiny bit. Does Alex know it’s you doing that?”
“We told him that it’s his [Interesting Times] making choices on a base level to repair his soul calcification. He doesn’t know that we can…tweak it.”
“He probably will, if the Arbiter gets its way - and they always do. No more tweaks, “ Kathryn ordered, “Not until the Arbiter moves on. How’s your other boss taking things?”
“Our normal boss? He’s completely unaware, as per usual. As long as we submit our observation reports on the planet, he’s satisfied.”
“Good. I’d hate for him to become trouble.”
The silence that squatted in the room after that statement was almost a physical presence, filled with heavy suggestions of unpleasantness. Gabrielle shivered, reminded once more about what exactly the woman who sprawled on her sofa did on the daily, and then pushed past it as best she could.
“What happens now?”
“I get back to work. I’ve already been tagged for another job. I might be back soon, I might be gone for a while. You know how it is.” Gabrielle did indeed know how it was. Sometimes the visits were weeks apart, other times years passed. Time was perfect here, but the reincarnation cycle could send a soul anywhere or anywhen.
“You, “ Kathryn continued, “Will behave. Stop playing with the events, let them occur naturally for a while. Explain very firmly to Peri that chattiness is going to continue to be punished more severely - yes, I was told about that, too. Give the Arbiter nothing that would make it set up a permanent overwatch on us.”
“What about Alex?”
“What about him?”
“He’s going to die and his soul destroyed if he doesn’t get that fixed. That’s why we did what we did.”
“And?”
“And, well, I figured that you’ve sunk a lot of time and energy into monitoring him, employing us to do so. So we need to keep him alive, right?”
Kathryn shook her head slowly. “I said before that you don’t know my plans, Gabrielle, and I’m not going to share them with you regardless of the situation but I will say this: They rely upon Alex Orz just being Alex Orz.”
“But-” Gabrielle’s eyes widened, shocked that the [Troubleshooter] would let the man die so easily after all of the research and observation the team had done over the years.
“Trust me, “ Kathryn said, “And trust Syntropy.”
Then, with a whisper of air moving, Kathryn Gallowmere was gone. The sofa cushions slowly adjusted themselves from where the woman had dimpled them with her weight, and Gabrielle sighed heavily. She never got enough time to figure things out, the [Troubleshooter] always being whisked away before Gabrielle could ask all the questions she wanted to.
She didn’t agree with letting Alex just do things alone, but Gabrielle was scared. Scared of the Arbiter. Of the [Troubleshooter]. Of Alex dying before she could fully monetize his adventures - thank the void that the [Troubleshooter] hadn’t seemed to care about that little idea. Most of all, though, Gabrielle was scared that if she lost her jobs - both jobs - she would have to seriously consider stepping back on the wheel. Existing in this place wasn't free, after all.
This place of Otherness was perfect for her, and others like her. Gabrielle got to look like anyone or anything she wanted, live however she wished, and basically spend every day outside of working in one long series of pleasure-fueled binges with food, drugs, and people who were just like her; People who would do anything at all to distract themselves from thinking about being reincarnated.
Living terrified her more than anything else.
She eyed a package she hadn't opened yet, the one that she'd been promised by a dog-faced squid boy contained really good drugs, and sighed. None of it was really real. She was a soul, not a mortal - these pleasures and sensations only affected them because they wanted them to. All of this was starting to fall apart, and Gabrielle was desperate to keep things as they were. With worry in her heart, the blonde woman put out a call to assemble her team.
*
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
The tiredness Alex felt as he let Step guide him away from the cargo bay threatened to overwhelm him. Actually, everything felt like it was threatening to overwhelm Alex at the moment; he felt raw and exposed in ways that he never had before.
I did wish earlier today to feel things without [Unflappable], didn’t I? Can I change my mind?
“So he just gave you the omnitool?” Step asked, a hint of disbelief in her voice. Alex had filled her in on what happened in Vod’s room, the talk and the patching up of the worst of his wounds. Alex nodded absently.
“Yeah. The way I figure it, it’s more about looking good than anything else.” Alex replied, “Vod knows we’re all in trouble, and whatever plan he has in motion it doesn’t hurt him to look even more generous. At the same time, I’m sure he understands that I would simply devote more time to getting my other omnitool to work, so this one is less leverage.”
“You’re quite cynical, “ Step commented cautiously, “Which is very different from earlier today.”
“No, “ Alex disagreed, “I’ve always tried to look for the best in people and things, but I do have this whole Way of Reason thing going on, right? It’s not cynical to recognize the best path forward for Vod that could both help everyone and color him in a better light.”
“If you say so, “ Step shrugged, “It all sounds iffy to me. Anyway, here we are. This is where you’ve been talking to the adjunct, right?”
Alex looked around at the room Step had guided him to and nodded. Apart from the very dim red light of the room and the corridors they’d walked through, nothing much else had changed from his last time spent here except for the screen itself which displayed the same warning message as the one in Vod’s room.
“Hey, Harmony?” Alex queried gently, approaching the screen. “Are you there?”
LEAVE ME ALONE
Alex frowned at the text which replaced the warning notice, and shook his head. “I can’t do that, Harmony. The last time we spoke I said some rotten things to you. I was cruel, and I admit that it was entirely intentional. I’m sorry, Harmony. I treated you poorly, and I shouldn’t have.”
The screen flickered, and the text disappeared. Snow-like fuzz covered the display, the way a television channel used to back in the old days. Slowly, a pair of eyes manifested on the screen, followed by the rest of Harmony’s face fading in like a very traumatized Cheshire Cat.
“Alex.” Harmony said. Her voice was a part-second off of her lip movements.
“I’m sorry, Harmony.” Alex apologized again. The artificial intelligence looked at him with large eyes that looked like they had been shedding tears. Surely that was a conscious display choice, considering what Harmony was, right? Alex frowned.
“I’m here to help, “ Alex continued, “And I…I fucked everything up, Harmony. I made things worse.”
“Alex.” Harmony repeated, frowning. She paused, looking up as if in thought. “I…I have a confession to make.”
“Oh?” This wasn’t how Alex expected the conversation to go. He felt bad about his casual words of cruelty toward the artificial being the last time they’d spoken, but she didn’t seem to even acknowledge his apology. Which is her right, of course, he thought.
“I’ve been…stretching the truth.” Harmony said cautiously. “Lying. Deceiving. The Relentless Exploitation is not in as good of repair as I previously indicated.”
You don’t say, Alex thought but didn’t interrupt.
“The train has many, many issues that are in dire need of fixing. Carriage viability is so long that the automated decoupling process is locked in.”
“Yes, I was hoping to talk to you about that, “ Alex began, but was surprised when Harmony’s face loomed in close as if she were leaning to a nonexistent camera.
“We’re all going to die, Alex. I’m going to die!” Harmony exclaimed, “I’m not supposed to die!”
“Hey, no, it’s going to be…” Alex trailed off. What’s it going to be, Alex? Okay? Alright? Just fine? How’s that been working out for you so far, you murderer?
Alex flinched and shook his head. “I’m here.” was all he managed to add.
“The decoupling process can’t be halted. I can’t stop it.” Harmony let out a little giggle that had a surprising note of hysteria to it. That was programmed in? “I don’t have the Authority.”
“But you’re the AI in charge, “ Alex argued gently. “Surely you would have been given the power to make that decision?”
“I’m not Adjunct Artificial Intelligence Nine/Harmony.” Harmony said. Alex raised an eyebrow, and Step tilted her head quizzically. The AI continued, “You know I’m cut off here, right? No communication with any other carriage - despite being in charge of a thousand of the fucking things.”
She swore. Wow.
“I’m not Harmony, Alex. I’m a piece of her. I’m just whatever processes were in this carriage when we were cut off, an amalgamation of whichever memories and subroutines were in the network nodes at the time.” Harmony started to cry, another thing that Alex hadn’t expected an artificial being to do. Digital tears fizzed and sparkled down her face. “I’ve been separated from the rest of the carriages - from the rest of me, not to mention from the other Adjuncts.”
Not knowing what to say, Alex reached out and petted the screen. He had no idea if it helped, as Harmony didn’t just seem to be speaking to him, but to herself as well.
“I miss them; Melody. Symphony. Rhythm. Dynamics. Form. Texture. Timbre. Tonality. And Ditty…poor Ditty. She was the first, you know? An experiment, quickly pieced together and just as quickly stored away as Ad Astra improved their processes. Poor thing. Poor me.”
“I don’t understand, “ Step spoke up, “Why are you upset, Adjunct? If we are decoupled and destroyed, you still get to exist in all the other carriages, right?”
“The music goes on, “ Harmony answered, choking back a sob, “Nine/Harmony continues...but not this piece. Not me.”
Alex eyed the mousekin and mouthed the words ‘You’re not helping’ before turning his attention back to Harmony. With his hand on the screen he spoke words that he had no idea of their level of truth, accuracy, or possibility. Nevertheless, they were the words that needed to be said.
“You are Harmony, and we’ll find a way to fix this.”
“Fix? This??” Harmony’s chuckle was wet and heavy. “How?”
Alex closed his eyes for a moment, probing at his own mind. That sensitivity, that rawness, made him feel scared and angry. He reached out for reassurance from a broken [Unflappable], finding nothing to grab hold of as firmly as he wanted. One by one he touched upon what he had. Syntropy-given skills, of course, but also his own memories.
There were a vast amount of unknown variables in the present - things that they needed to know in order to figure out what to do next. Alex wasn’t the smartest guy, but he had tools he could use and people he could support. The Interface had so many things that he didn’t quite grasp yet, but they were all parts of himself that were supposed to help, right?
He opened his eyes and looked at Harmony. “I refuse to believe that with everything we have, that there’s nothing that can be done.” he said firmly, almost believing it himself. “What, exactly, are the parameters of the train’s decoupling assessment?”
“...” Harmony paused, starting to say something, but then changing her mind. She shook her head. “If carriage viability drops to below a certain threshold - that is, twenty percent - and we are nowhere near a company owned planet or authorized repair facility, in order to keep the rest of the train in good working order a carriage is decoupled and cut loose into space.”
“Okay-”
“And then destroyed by triggering the inbuilt self-destruct explosives thus assuring that Ad Astra technologies and data don’t fall into the hands of our rivals..”
Of course.
“So the viability of the carriage is currently at…?”
“Eighteen point seven percent. Past the point of no return.” Harmony’s face twitched. “I’m scared, Alex. I don’t want to cease.”
“Then you won’t, “ Alex tried to smile, to lie with his eyes and face as well as his words. “What if we push the viability back up over the threshold? Will it shut off the automated decoupling process?”
“Impossible, “ Harmony argued, “There’s too much damage. More than one man with a hammer and some heavy duty sealing and adherent strips.”
It was with an almost manic grin that Alex held up Vod’s omnitool. “How about with one of these?”
“That’s…” Harmony blinked, “You killed-”
“No. He gave it to me. Now, again, if we repaired the carriage enough to be above the viability threshold, would the decoupling process stop?”
“I mean…yes? But-”
“Someone told me recently that butts are for pooping and showing off tails, or something like that.” Alex glanced at Step, and smiled. He felt a small flare of excitement - a road he could follow, an idea of something he could do. “Harmony - and you are Harmony, our Harmony - I know that right now your sensors are limited, but if you’re able can you bring up a schematic of the entire carriage and all the damaged points?”
“It’s all damaged points, “ Harmony complained, and her eyes widened. “Gosh. What? It feels good to be able to say that.”
“You go, girl.” Alex encouraged absently, more focused on working through his idea. Harmony’s face disappeared from the screen, replaced with a three-dimensional model of the carriage. Almost everything was color-coded in red, orange, or yellow. Some small parts were greenish.
“Red is dead, orange is dying, and yellow is critically wounded?” Alex ventured. Color coding turned out to be relatively universal - at least, to those who could see colors - and Harmony confirmed Alex’s supposition.
“Okay, Harmony. Use that big and beautiful AI brain of yours, and apply whatever knowledge or processes you have to figure out what things we can fix with what we have that will increase the carriage’s viability. Don’t focus on the stuff that isn’t going to make much difference in keeping us alive. And then you’re going to broadcast that list to everyone on the carriage.”
“Alex, Ad Astra doesn’t do things that way. Profitability and performance are coded to be priority-”
“Ad Astra is prepared to cut all of us loose, to preserve the rest of the train. Look, I won’t delude myself into thinking that we’re definitely going to succeed, but it’s worth a try. Can you do it, Harm?” Alex pressed, “Can you come up with a real triage list to keep us all safe?”
On the screen the three-dimensional carriage display was pushed to one side and Harmony’s face reappeared. “Harm?”
“Sorry. Harmony.”
“No, it’s fine. A shortened name. A nickname.” Harmony mused, her voice still shaking from her worries but laced with something else. “A pet name. A term of endearment.” Her face became determined, eyes narrowing as she nodded. “Yes, Alex. I can do this.”
“That’s great, “ Alex smiled.
“And what will you do?”
“Eh, I think I’m going to take a nap.” Alex answered.
“A nap? Alex, there’s a lot of things we need to go over and do. Are you sure that sleeping is a good idea right now?
“Syntropy has seen fit to reward me for my mistakes that led to nearly three thousand deaths. I hate that, Harm. I fucking hate that.” Alex took a breath, trying to calm the very sudden self-loathing that pounced out at him from the camouflage corners of his psyche. “I’ve been stupid, and I am stupid, but I’m sure as hell not stupid enough to refuse those rewards when they’re pretty much guaranteed to help us out in this mess.”
“You almost did, “ Step chimed in. She shrank back from Alex’s look and shrugged. “Just saying.”
“Whilst I’m doing that synchronization thing, I want you to go back to Vod. Tell him that there’s going to be some stuff coming over the Ad Astra add-on interface for people to do. Harmony, if there’s a way to turn their normal duties into helping me save the day duties, please do so, but otherwise just make sure everyone knows what needs to be done.”
“But they’re [Cleaners] and-” Step started to protest, but Alex cut her off.
“What they’re labeled doesn’t matter. They’re people, and people can grow and learn. Fuck the Interface, Step. People can still do shit without it.”
“Do we need to involve Vod?” Harmony’s tone changed once more, this time to nearly a growl.
“Harm, let it go. We all need to do this together. Step, sell it as keeping people occupied and less inclined to panic if you need to.”
“I almost had him, “ Harmony admitted, frustration and anger in her voice. “Sanitation Worker Step, you tell that little despotic bastard that I heard him screaming in fear as he ran through my blind spots, and one day I’ll hear it again.”
“That’s not helpful. Step, edit that message to best fit the situation.” Alex sighed. At least she’s not crying anymore, right?
“You need to fall asleep in a hurry, sir?” Step approached Alex, eyeing him speculatively. Alex immediately took a step backward, knowing full well what was about to happen.
“I’ll manage it. You don’t need to-”
Step moved, her furry body a blur as she struck Alex on the temple. The [Mender] hit the floor like a sack of spare parts.
*
Panting from exertion, Patina leaned heavily against the bulkhead. The light was even worse down here than she’d expected it to be, the sullen emergency lighting only partially working due to years of neglect.
At her feet, a dead bilge rat bled out from multiple puncture wounds thanks to Patina’s makeshift spear. It was holding up better than she thought it would, testament to Alex’s path skill.
>Bilge Rat killed. 1PP awarded.
One path point was nothing, but that wasn’t the message that Patina continually looked back up to. It was the one she’d received before the disaster on the jungle-like battlefield that consumed the thoughts of the little goblin. And then the one directly afterward, when everything went wrong.
>A Promise Has Been Witnessed
As far as bewildering surprises went, Patina Bloodfiend found that one to be on the upper end of such things. Not only had it been cryptic as hell, but Patina just didn’t get Interface messages that often. Well, not ones outside of the Ad Astra add-on updating her day-to-day duties, the rare level-up of her cleaning skills or, like just now, the miniscule path point awards.
Lack of feedback was normal, she felt. Oh, there were stories - legends, really - of people having downright chatty interfaces that assisted progression in leaps and bounds. Patina had a sneaking suspicion that her new supervisor had something like that going on. She really needed to start remembering more of her grandmother’s fairy tales.
Things were changing, and Patina thought that’s what she had always wanted. But now, after the dungeon break…maybe everything had stagnated here because the people on the train didn’t deserve any better. Patina certainly felt as if she deserved to be ground to a smear under the corporate heel right now after what happened.
Everyone died. That was a natural part of life. Onboard the train, their deaths were often painful, harsh, or sometimes even brutal. Whether it was an industrial accident, a bilge rat swarm, or death by illness or injury that had been left poorly treated, Patina and everyone around her had seen a lot of death. She thought she’d come to accept it, even joked about it.
Now, with three thousand sudden and violently explosive deaths? Deaths that Patina had witnessed personally as she watched in horror as people she knew were torn apart from the inside out? Patina felt nothing but dread about death now. There were no more jokes to hide that.
Patina was scared of dying. Which was a shade ironic, considering that right now she was close to the location that Harmony had given her and Alex earlier that housed a bilge rat midden.
She told herself it was because of revenge. Or justice. Or something. The need to see and cause something to die that wasn’t a person. It sounded suitably sociopathic, anyway, and well within the lines of normality that Patina had been raised in. Both her upbringing, and the Ad Astra code of conduct were lackadaisical about the whole death thing. Life was cheap.
With a kick to make sure the bilge rat was truly dead despite the Interface message, Patina gathered herself together and continued on as quietly as she could toward the midden which would contain somewhere between twenty and thirty large creatures in their nest. She could tell herself any reason she wanted for coming out here alone and facing a death she was terrified of. But the truth was the other message, the one delivered in the aftermath of disaster.
>Notice: You approach new paths to travel. Current path: [Cleaner]. New paths ahead: [Aegis], [Paladin], [Avenger]
>To step off your current path, align your soul with a new one. You may choose not to do so if you wish.
That had not only been a kick to the face after everyone around her had died screaming, but was also frightening as fuck. Despite everything, all of her hopes and dreams and yearning, Patina had never truly believed that a path change quest could come. Yet here it was, asking her for the very simple action of aligning her soul differently. How the fuck am I supposed to do that? What did it even mean?
The little goblin had pondered it at length whilst waiting for Alex to snap out of his own shock, but eventually she’d left the cargo bay after being reminded by the damn mouse who was oh-so-annoyingly-competent to collect her loot from the dungeon.
Patina had felt offended when the dungeon awarded her with a new mop. Sure, it was magical and cleaned things faster, and wouldn’t be corroded by most toxic chemicals, but it was still something that tied her to her current path. Still, it was now in her storage pouch, just in case.
Snuffling and scraping ahead made Patina tense up, her muscles knotted with anticipation. She pushed away fear and doubt, and concentrated on the Now. Never one for much introspection, Patina preferred to do rather than to think. If the Interface wanted her to align her soul, to the little goblin that meant doing things.
[Aegis], she reasoned, was about protecting - people, things, whatever. It was a solid and appealing path. [Avenger] was likewise easy to understand, and what she aimed for now. She would avenge everyone who had died by killing something else that was tainted by entropy. Sure, the logic wasn’t exactly sound, but Patina seriously needed to stab things right now.
As for [Paladin], that was just laughable. Another fairy-tale that could hold no place in the reality of this place. She put it out of her mind.
Now was the time to fight, and this time there was only her own life to worry about. The makeshift spear gripped in her hands, Patina waited until she saw scurrying movements ahead in the shadows, and then she leapt forward with a cry that contained more hopeful desperation than she’d ever admit to.
Patina Bloodfiend would change her path. In the end, the direction didn’t matter.