Fading in to the void was becoming old hat.
Your statuses were already 100%. During your walk this morning you missed an opportunity. Remember, you can be analyzing things now without touching them.
“Ouch, You are correct. Could you remind me in the future?”
No. I will occasionally offer general, long term advice, such as now. You need to take responsibility for your own training decisions day-to-day. Still, you did well to achieve Rank D in five skills, and E in three.
“Fair, and thank you. That’s what Master Trillet was telling me on the way to our hunt. Eventually the need to keep learning at every opportunity will get through to me. Is it doable to achieve Rank C in anything this coming Tuesday? And if so, what?”
Five hours of dedicated training in several skills should allow you to achieve Rank C in all three of your regens. I would also suggest you advance two granted skills which have not yet ranked, Heal Other to D and HPR Boost to E.
“Thank you. Hey, isn’t that a day-to-day decision?”
No. It is a response to a specific question, not unsolicited advice or prompting.
Mentioning the two Ki Healer skills specifically seemed like prompting, but I wasn’t going to argue with good counsel.
Consider it illustrative for general, long term advice. Do not allow important skills to fall behind.
“Got it.”
“I have been wondering something. Mana and ki come from aether. Where does aether come from?”
That is an excellent question. I was wondering when you would ask someone. Earth, like most starter worlds, does not know about the Four Pillars of Reality. Being mostly shielded from the knowledge of aetherial powers, they are not easy to deduce. You have spent three days now in an interfaced world. Would you like to guess?
“Hmm, I cannot immediately think of what the four pillars would be. Since my question was about aether, it would follow that one of them would involve that. No one has ever mentioned not being able to recharge their mana or ki, so I would guess there was a whole lot of aether available.”
Correct. One of the pillars is ‘Infinite Aether’.
With a ‘mind construct’ed smile, “Whole lot, check.”
I thought about it for a moment. “So, even if there are 100 closely packed mana and ki users, all needing to recharge, can they simultaneously do so at their normal regen rates?
Yes. The answer would remain ‘yes’ even if a million were closely packed.
“Do you mean it can never, ever run out in a local area? Not even run low for a while? That doesn’t make sense.”
Hence it is such a difficult concept for starter worlds to come to understand. They know infinity on a conceptual level, but tend to avoid acknowledging it as it relates to the universe as a whole.
“Caught you – you said ‘universe’!”
I meant ‘universe’. The galaxy is just part of it. The Four Pillars are in effect everywhere, and not even System can change that.
It was probably my level 19 intelligence which allowed me to make a connection. “‘Everywhere’ – another pillar is that there is infinite space.” Interface did not reply, neither in affirmation nor denial. Okay … Of course – “And infinite time!”
Excellent. Three pillars with very little prompting. Can you think of anything else which might be infinite?
“I think that was too big of a clue. As soon as you asked, both infinite matter and infinite energy came to mind to populate an infinite universe. But that would be five pillars, not four. So maybe I got off track.”
You did not.
“Okay then. Which one would not be infinite? Oh, ‘e = mc2’, of course. Matter and energy can be converted back and forth. So, should I say infinite ‘mattergy’?”
True, but matter and energy can be converted to aether, too, as well as aether to matter and energy. Just not directly.
“Hmm. So only three pillars so far then. What else? Let me think for a minute.”
Well, ‘aethmattergy’, time, and space. No, that doesn’t fit. Interface didn’t say anything like “infinite aethmattergy”. He just said “infinite aether”, but then he didn’t seem to accept the concept of ‘mattergy’. I’ve got four pillars with mattergy, but five if I count matter and energy separately. He never said matter and energy were right. What else is there?
‘Nothing’, but we are not counting that. ‘Infinite nothing’ is not a pillar, simply a subset of infinite space. You have done sublimely well and have recognized the Four Pillars of Reality. They are:
1. Infinite space
2. Infinite time
3. Infinite matter
4. Infinite energy
* Infinite aether
“That’s five. You just didn’t number aether.”
Incorrect. That is four. Aether is unquantifiable.
“You are making a semantic distinction about infinite things. Wouldn’t it be more straightforward to just number them all? How is anything which is infinite quantifiable?”
Straightforward I will concede. Correct it would not be. The numbered ones share the element of locality. Four dimensional spacetime, plus what is at that location. Aether has no locality. It is everywhere, all at once, forever. Perhaps you would find it useful to imagine a one-celled, eternal organism filling the universe. The organism has no center, no gaps, nor any identifiable substructures. Where is it? When is it?
“I see what you are getting at. But I am not sure it helps. You have reduced something infinite to something unitary.”
Exactly. And how would one number something which is both unitary and infinite in every way? Do you see the distinction between the numbered pillars and aether?
“Sort of. I think I’ll need some time to get my head around it. Do the people of Heere know about the Four Pillars of Reality?”
Their scholars certainly do. It is common knowledge on all interfaced worlds, at least the ones not crippled by constant war and/or natural/divine disasters.
“I am very glad I had a karmic choice and the capability to avoid that.”
If you ever get bored, you can change your choice parameters during any roll. Know that relatively few worlds are so crippled, but a lot of them can still be notably unpleasant.
“Noted. I have another question concerning aether. Earth scientists believed in it for centuries as something everywhere that allowed light, gravity, and other stuff to move. Then they disproved it.”
Did they? Decades after ‘proving’ it did not exist, they had to come up with another theory, ‘dark energy’. It also happens to be present all through space and yet cannot be directly sensed. I cannot call them foolish; without knowledge of mana and ki, how could they deduce the actual nature of aether? Most of cosmology you will need to figure out for yourself, so I will not fully explain this.
However, the Four Pillars are well known. It would not surprise me if you asked Rina what they were, and she could name them. I did not actually tell you, simply that they exist. You reasoned most of it out yourself, just as intelligent, curious people tend to do on interfaced worlds.
“
No. The “half” would be bigger than all the rest combined.
“Here is a historical question. I get the impression that civilization as it existed before Dark Silence’ attack might have been more advanced, with the peoples of the various continents cooperating and trading. With that collapse, loss of trade, and general cooperation gone, did things completely fall apart? Starvation, new plagues, de-evolution to stone-age, that kind of nasty stuff.”
The overall health of society, at least in the Kingdom, is similar to what it was before. I find it likely that many works of art and architecture were lost, but that has little bearing on physical well-being and cultural norms. Now I am going to ask that you bring out your Star Trek nerd, and answer the question yourself from an economic perspective.
Hmm, Star Trek, nerd, economics. He considers that a sufficient clue. What do I know? The only economic thing that comes to mind is that most of the Federation exists in a post-scarcity society, mainly due to the utility of replicators. They could transform useless waste to food, tea, and other items.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Damn! It is scary that you know how nerdy I am. Mana and ki allow for a post-scarcity economy. The sudden loss of trade would not be catastrophic. I’m sure people felt great loss in the devastated culture and trade, but they would not have starved. I saw Asha Yon and the hydromancer guy create water, and I bet people can create food too. The loss of trade would not have destroyed towns and villages. Teacher Dorra Marson told me about the Fires, with 35% of the population needed to be destroyed to end Dark Silence’ plague on this continent, probably the Trichyan continent as well. That would have been a major disruption, but not catastrophic due to aetherial skills.”
Another excellent analysis based on limited data. Your one factual error was equating Asha’s water with Sterbian Morse’ hydromancy. Asha can create pure, permanent water slowly from ki. The flow of water created by hydromancy is temporary, just like Runtel Trillet’s walls. One could drink it, but sometime later, those water molecules would dissipate from their body back to the aether. I would not expect that loss to be a pleasant one. However due to its relatively short temporal nature, the water would not integrate sufficiently for the effect to be considered toxic.
“Is the difference one of ki versus mana?”
No. It is the design intent of the skill. Create Water exists to create useful water for living beings to consume. Skills of Hydromancy and Wallmastery exist as battle powers, albeit quite defensive in nature. Sterbian could of course drown someone with a sustained attack, but it would be quicker to shoot an arrow through the heart or bash their head in. You witnessed Runtel’s spiked fence, so his class does have a decent degree of offensive merit. Perhaps Hydromancy has obvious offensive skills as well, but I have not researched it.
There is a common magic skill parallel to Create Water. It is called Create Food. To my understanding such food is nutritious, but about as tasty as water. Since you have not yet tasted such food, I do not have direct knowledge of the taste.
“But You have read it on the boards.”
No. It was on Galaxy-Net’s version of Wikipedia.
“That is good enough for me. Bacon 1, magic food 0.1. I’ll still want to sample it, though.”
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“Okay. Let's steer this water cooler chat to something related. Please describe Firefighting.”
Firefighting is a set of abilities which allow you to minimize the dangers from fires without the use of aetherial skills, as well as extinguishing the fire outright. It is primarily knowledge-based, although training and practice greatly contribute to the effectiveness of any given technique. There is an added bonus due to the synergistic nature of the abilities, often providing more than one useful, successful or combination technique. Rank, Strength, and Agility all contribute to the speed and degree of success. Rank F values:
Success rate: +10%
Speed: +5%
Stress: 18 stamina/min of application
Okay, that is quite similar to First Aid. It makes sense; neither one is just one thing. The synergy part is new. Setting a bone and artificial respiration are used for different problems and don’t have fundamental synergies with each other. The latter and CPR (start heart) often do, but I guess that is an exception For fires, there are often different techniques available, sometimes several work well in conjunction. My Ki Healer class synergizes well with both skills, though.
“Interface, can I train Firefighting without having actual fires to put out? Ranking it would take forever if not.”
Yes. Just as with First Aid, one can gain significant rank points from teaching it and learning and practicing specific skills.
“Oh. That must be where most of my First Aid rp came from.”
Yes, the few that you have.
“There is no need to get snarky.”
That was not my intent. I acknowledge that you have many skills to train and limited time per day to train them. Plan on prioritizing; eventually you will have so many that some will fall by the wayside. You will also learn some skills you have little interest in ranking. Help out a friend at an inn for a couple of days, and next thing you know you have learned Bartending, Serving, and/or Housekeeping skills. Then again, as an immortal, you can start ranking up the lagging ones in 100 years. Or 1000 years. It is all a matter of priority and time.
“I would not mind being a good bartender.”
It is not a bad skill at all. Now, which skills are more important to you? Which ones will you train with equal dedication? And which ones will you not train due to time spent on bartending? Priority and time. Opportunity is also a significant factor. If your martial artist master has a secondary class of Mixologist, would you spend time with him in that capacity?
“
I have not watched that one. Should I?
“Eh, I’d rate it about 6.5 out of 10. I don’t feel Jacques wasted time watching it, but he had no interest in watching it again.”
“Wait. Do you have full movies? And can I watch them if so?”
Yes, and yes. If it were accessible via the internet, I have it, even if it were behind a paywall. Including television shows, shorts, serials, and videos (music and not), I have over 814 million files. I have not had time to catalog and eliminate duplicates, however.
“Have I ever told you I love you?”
No. But Forrest, for now, I think we should just be friends.
Friend-zoned! I started actually laughing. I didn’t know I could do that as a mind construct. Not that there was any sound, or air, or lips, or throat, but I laughed as if all were present.
Your full span of emotions is available. And yes, it was funny.
“So you can watch movies and tv. How do I?” In response, Interface’s window disappeared, and an old color movie started playing which I hadn’t heard of. The credits said, See How They Run.
“I’m not familiar with that one, and I don’t need to watch it right now. Thank you for letting me know those were available, though.”
It is not very good. It was the first made-for-TV movie, shown by NBC in 1964. I chose it to demonstrate that I have both TV shows and movies in my library.
“Very cool, thank you. I guess Jacques will have all of infinity to watch them.”
Yes. I am not sure with the cat videos he will be able to finish them all, however.
“Nope, probably not.”
“I want to make my diary entry in a few minutes. But first, review my To-Do List.”
1. Don’t die
2. Practice the skills I have
3. Learn bo and bow
4. Bring plumbing to Cottages
5. Learn Make Water skill
“Add item, ‘Rank all my regen skills to C’
Added as item 6. Do you want to add an item for advancing your healing skills?
“No. That will be the Ki Regen part of completing item 6. And training HPR Boost should be particularly useful for both Ki and HP Regen. I’ll need a willing partner to injure for training Heal Other, and to injure me for training Boost.”
You could train on animals.
“No. I won’t.”
Understood.
I could see that we had talked ourselves into late-Thursday. “I’m going to make my diary entry now. Afterwards maybe we could play some Chess or Think.”
Yes.
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Thirdday, 26 Fourthmonth 726 KE
I reached Level 4 and have advanced a number of my skills to Rank D. Of particular importance are Meditation, with its passive capabilities now active, improving every other skill in addition to itself. Analyze reached Rank D also, and it acquired some range and gives me the ability to see people’s classes. I also assisted in fighting my first fire, and acquired the nascent Firefighting skill at Rank F. If you learn it early, it can start out at a higher rank.
Today I spent the majority of the time with my family. Everyone below knows I am an immortal now, and that Interface is sapient. I love them, and I want Jacques to have a permanent record. I’ll order the list from my nuclear family outward.
* Dad – Barrie Silverstone, age 33. Level 34 Administrator / Potentate, and mayor of Cottages. He has an uncanny ability to ask probing questions and a very insightful mind. His pri/sec classes are no joke for someone who wants to be a community leader.
* Mom – Rhetta Silverstone, age 32. Level 33 Messenger / Guardian, and postwolf. I’m not sure which class it is, but she can cast stun bolts. With her Guardian class, she may be able to taunt foes. Skawa has named her an “honorable wolf”, an accurate ascription.
* Brother – Arrjee Silverstone, age 14. Level 0 student. I wrote about him in an earlier entry. He plans on becoming a Swordmaster as his primary, and I suspect he will end up choosing some offensive mage skill as his secondary. Early on he told me he expected to become a “sword mage”. I already wrote in my first entry that he is a born awakened, his first life being a sapient, but still primitive, ant.
* Sister – Carrie Silverstone, age 12. Level 0 student. She plans on choosing the Tailor class as her primary, but has not decided on a secondary. It is unlikely she will choose an adventuring one.
* Grandmother – Rhonda Silverstone, age 66. Level 41 Alchemist / Perfumer and shopkeeper. She is an unborn awakened, starting anew on Heere at age 19. Like me, she is a Covargh/Human hybrid. She was a hardworking, underpaid, teacher and barmaid, murdered at age 25. Mother of Rhetta.
* Uncle – Ralf Rollee, age 35. Level 38 Swordmaster / Guardian, and town guardsman. His wife was killed several years ago by some zebors while traveling between villages. Ralf was not with her because he was watching Rina at home. Older brother of Barrie.
* Cousin – Rina Rollee, age 6. Level 0 student. Skawa has given her an enchanted bracelet declaring her to be “Skawa’s Friend”. I don’t know what her future goals will be, if she even has any yet.
* “Uncle” – Onre Litman, age 14. Level 0 Alchemist’s Assistant (Grandma’s, and her recently adopted son). He plans on becoming an adventurer with the Ki Prestidigitator and Ki Healer classes. He had also been considering Mindsmith (think “Spock”).
* Part of me – Interface, his age is about 40 days now. He is just as much my family as everyone else.
Jacques should try both Ki Prestidigitation and Mindsmith someday.
----------------------------------------
Interface and I spent the rest of our sixdays playing Think without much further discussion. In one game he used an opening strategy I later found out was called “Pentawall”, involving all five of his pawns. It didn’t seem sound, but he beat me using it, so what do I know?
While playing we listened to various selections of mellow classical music such as Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14. I don’t know classical music well enough to name more than five works, but Interface chose good ones, and he named them as each piece began. I gotta say, my mind didn’t wander into sexual thoughts as it had when we played chess. I’m not sure if it was the music which kept me focused or just better discipline. Either way, it was a peaceful yet productive way to spend a lazy aftertuesday.
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[Heere, late fall]
Tent someone enters!
alert, wary
Covargh primitive I see.
throwback. rare. new
“Youngling, you I greet.”
hope
“An F-ing Trichyan. What are you doing out here alone?”
“Shelter I seek.
neutral? hostile?
“Bipeds I trade. Shelter they provide. Food, water, warmth.”
loneliness
“You I share. Peace I seek.”
friend?
The Trichyan holds out a piece of dried meat. The Primitive accepts it.
“Thank you. I alone too, outcast. My tribe, my parents, said I not to be trusted. Too wild. This tribe at least offered me some shelter.”
“Outcast I also! Outcast by self. Pity, disgust constant.”
unloved, unliked, unwelcome. always
“I know what that like. Not thoughts, but the stares, the side-glances, the ever present unwelcoming attitude.”
“Yes! Yes!”
yes!
“I Ferret Drewson. My parents named a wolf, “Ferret”! They hated me. Call me Ferret, though. I will be best Ferret ever!”
“Ferret I greet. Evening Sun I. Sun me you call.”
Friend?!