Your statuses were already at 100%.
“You know I am not going to get that song out of my head all sixdays, right?”
Nor should you.
1. Don’t die.
“Maybe, but now I kind of feel like I should specifically not die in a disco outfit.”
I’m sure you could get Carrie to make you one. You could start a new fashion.
“Deep V-necks, sure, but I’m not sure extended wing collars would fly Heere.”
Pun?
“Uh, yeah, sure. Intentional pun!”
“I’ve been wondering about travel. I know the guard and Mom all use horses to get around. But is there any air travel or magic portals or anything like that?”
Once shapeshifters reach a low to moderate level, they might transform into a bird and fly. At very high levels, they might have the strength and sufficient wing lift to carry a passenger, maybe two if lightweight. But for the most part, residents of Heere are limited to travel by foot, mount, wagon, or ship.
“So hot air balloons are not a thing?”
It is possible someone has invented them, but if so they have not been mentioned on the Heere wiki.
“Which is mostly written by the interfaces of unborn awakeneds, if I remember correctly.”
Yes. And I have made a couple of entries and edits myself.
“Such as?”
The likelihood of Heere currently undergoing a sudden evolutionary epoch.
“Yes, I can see how that would be significant.”
“And also significant, why didn’t you tell me you were taking pictures?”
You did not ask.
“But I did not know you could.”
Your first day. You were speaking with Arrjee and Rhonda, then me.
“What else should I know?”
Many things. But start here. What do you think is more useful, a smartphone or me?
“So, camera? Google maps? Flashlight? Internet Porn?”
Yes. Yes. No. Grow up.
“Oh, I remember that. At least the maps and porn and grow up part. Hey, I just realized, you did not answer ‘No’ to porn. And I remember you saying during a previous sixdays you had most online stuff backed up, even if it were behind a paywall.”
Yes, I did not say “no” to porn. Yes, I do have most everything online backed up. And yes, grow up.
“That still does not answer the question.”
Yes, it does not.
“Are you ever going to answer the question?”
Sometime between now and forever, very likely I will.
“Okay, time to change tack. Please show me the pictures you have taken.” He started a slideshow, with each showing for about 7 seconds. He had nice images of everyone in my family and my gang, even extended members like Rina, Corval, and Lenyet. There were 17 in all, which included the one I asked for, Dad clinging to the troll with his head at its neck, and clawing and biting at its neck and face. That ought to be in a werewolf movie.
I let the slideshow run for three cycles.
Two of Arrjee are particularly sexy, but not porn.
I am grown up.
“And you don’t get horny anyway.”
That is an observation consistent with the facts.
“Thank you for taking those pictures. I really appreciate it. Will all of Jacques’ lives be able to see them, like the diary?”
No. They are stored as an addendum to your notebook. Any life which remembers Forrest will be able to see them.
“Do you mean that any life which remembers me has complete access to my notebook entries?”
Read-only access yes. Only you yourself can change or delete your entries or pictures.
“Is that true for my diary entries as well?”
Yes, but diary access is even stricter. Not even you will be able to change your entries after a galactic year.
“Why is that? It is my diary.”
It is possible in 40, maybe 400, years, you enter a depressed and angry state for some reason, and want to forget as much as you can. That you will not be able to delete entries, allowing the you in 4000 years to see what the you of now wrote. You do however have a period of time to correct and add things in past entries. Perhaps you will need to put something in a context that you did not realize three months prior.
“Okay, I can accept that as reasonable, as a good design even. If the me in 4000 years does not want to read them, he doesn’t have to. And if the me in 400 years doesn’t want to make new entries, he won’t have to either. But note to me in 40 and 400 years: ‘Get your head out of your ass, and don’t be a dick.’’”
Reminders registered.
“Heh, okay. I didn’t know I was being literal. But it won’t hurt to hear it. Please quote me whenever you think I need to hear that.”
Request registered.
“It is too bad we only have two and a half hours here. Some movies are three hours long. I guess we could watch them in two parts, in consecutive sixdays.”
Alternatives: 1) I could speed up a movie, keeping the speech sounding almost normal.
“Like YouTube allows.”
Yes. My algorithm is superior however. 2) I could slow down our accelerated time. 60 seconds per second is simply the maximum and default rate. We can experience sixdays down to any rate as low as 6 sec/sec.
“That close to real world time?! Our sixdays could last a full day?”
Yes.
“Damn. That potentially changes a lot. I could get a lot of training done here. Why can’t it go down to 1 sec/sec?”
By its nature, the tuesday’s wildcard archetype requires you to spend at least half your experienced time in the real world.
“Why isn’t the default set at half and half, 6 sec/sec.
It is assumed immortals will want to spend as much of their time as possible in the real world.
I thought about it for a minute. That is true. I do want to spend most of my time in reality. And besides, there are only two skills I can train here anyway. Or wait, is that true? “Interface, besides Meditation and Tactics, are there any other skills I can train in the void?”
Yes. There are two others..
…
“And those would be? Wait, Strategy would be one of them right? If I can train Tactics, I should be able to train Strategy as well.”
Strategy is not a standalone skill. It is just one aspect of Visualization, which is a skill you can use here.
“I have questions about that, but what is the other one?”
Authoring. Writing. Whatever you want to call it. Officially it is ‘Authoring’.
“I probably have spent over an hour making my diary entries. Why have I not learned Authoring yet?”
What is your goal when you make an entry?
“I want to make a quick summary of my day and hopefully allow anyone reading it in the future to feel something of Forrest as a person.”
And you do that by?
“Speaking from the heart. Not editing! I don’t get writing credit because I don’t edit, right?”
You have gotten some credit toward the skill. But in your decision to essentially leave the first draft ‘as is’, you are mostly just talking, but in a written medium.
“I don’t want to change my approach to writing the diary.
I am not suggesting you do so. ‘From the heart’ is working for you well. It is simply not an effective approach for learning and training the Authoring skill.
“We are talking about what I can train while in the void. Where else could I write?”
You have your notebook. It has unlimited pages; you can set aside sections for various topics or even books.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
At that, I could see an image of my notebook. Not even one page is complete yet. It has the quote from Barrie which instantiated it and a number of birthdays.
You can make commands such as ‘make a new section’. A blank page will appear, and you can watch as you think of the words you wish to write and eventually review, and edit. As time goes on, I would keep track of a table of contents and an index. A second section already exists for your pictures.
I can see we still have close to two hours here. “Interface, please slow down time so we have about five more hours.”
Our speed of time is now 24 seconds per second. Would you like to make this the default in the future?
“No. At this point I don’t know enough to want to make a permanent change. But today, I have a lot to think about, and I will want you to choose a movie for us to watch.”
“Before that, tell me about visualization. How is that strategy?”
It is not. Strategy would be one of the wheels to the vehicle which is visualization. What would you say the difference is between tactics and strategy?
“Well, the quick explanation I have always heard is ‘tactics is short-term and strategy is long term’. I’ve always known it is more than that, though. Like when we play chess. The pieces are visible and I know the rules. Tactics is using the resources of my position and pieces to best attempt to gain an advantage. It is the steps I take to gain the advantage, or fail in doing so when I did not anticipate your response. Strategy would be planning for a chess tournament, learning about those I might play, what openings they like and dislike, and factoring in my own strengths and weaknesses. Nothing is concrete yet, but I am developing a plan, an approach that doesn’t involve the details of a given position on a given board.”
Yes. In short, you are visualizing the future, anticipating what might be, imagining how you might react in circumstances under which there are too many variables to know what will happen.
“Then visualization in general would include any time I focus my thoughts on significant things which are currently tenuous, being too far in the future or just too many options. It sounds like something that could go hand in hand with Authoring. Heck, even my Drafting and Sketching.”
Yes.
“Okay, I’ll definitely be learning and training both Authoring and Visualization. I need to let these concepts percolate for a while. For now, though, movie time! What do you want to watch?”
Earlier you joked about your father never seeing a horror movie. I deduced you were referring to tropes of that genre. I would like to watch a horror movie with those sorts of tropes.
“I can recommend several off the top of my head. Consider Scream, Final Girls, and Cabin in the Woods. Have you watched any of those? These all have a self-aware quality to the tropes, which is intentionally presented as part of what viewers will enjoy.”
No, I have not watched any of them. I have seen some of the black and white movies such as Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, and Psycho.
“All classics! The first three are part of a sub-genre called ‘monster movies’. Psycho is psychological horror. The three I mentioned are semi-aware, sometimes humorous, slasher movies. They had decades of preceding films from which to draw the tropes they highlighted.”
Cabin in the Woods. I like its unassuming, bland title.
“Okay, great. That is a really good one. I think it has the most humor as well. Even the title is a trope, with a number of slasher and other types of horror movies taking place in such an isolated cabin.”
As we watched it, I was tempted to comment several times, but decided this first time Interface didn’t need me kibitzing. He probably doesn’t yet have the background for my comments to seem funny anyway.
I enjoyed that and believed I perceived many of the self aware portrayals of tropes. Considering I was unaware of most of the tropes to begin with, I was still able to contextualize them through the ironies. Thank you for the suggestion; it was well worth watching. My main criticism is the unrealistic portrayal of ancient, evil gods. Annual sacrifices? Such beings would be demanding weekly sacrifices at a minimum.
“Hey, Earth is a starter planet. They were bound to get some things wrong.”
Yes, you are correct.
“What was something you particularly liked?”
Hadley’s death by merman. I was particularly primed for that as it related to your joke about your father jinxing what should have been a quiet stroll.
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“Okay, I would like to get my routine void stuff done, then spend the rest of my time learning those two new skills, meditating, etc.”
Alright.
“Query level.”
Level 5 + 4729 / 5954, will be unlocked during this sixdays
The trolls probably helped a lot with that. “Break down XP distribution from troll battle.”
2 mid-level trolls, 11,482 xp, split
* Barrie Silverstone: 20%, 2296 xp
* Mowd Dressen: 20%, 2296 xp
* Rhetta Silverstone: 13%, 1531 xp
* Corval Hirsut: 13%, 1531 xp
* Forrest Rhodes: 13%, 1531 xp
* Arrjee Silverstone: 13%, 1531 xp
* Rhonda Silverstone: 7%, 766 xp
I’m not surprised by Dad’s big share, but Mowd’s surprises me.
Without her Infirm limiting their health and stamina regens, it would have been a much longer battle. Rhonda’s perfume was an effective distraction, but was a comparably smaller contribution.
“I'm sure Grandma could have done a lot more.”
Yes, but then Corval, Arrjee, and you would have gotten less practical experience. Corval might not be Level 9 now.
I sighed. It’s fair enough, I guess. “Please display my To-Do List.”
1. Don’t die
2. Learn bo and bow
3. Bring plumbing to Cottages
4. Learn Make Water skill
5. Don’t bitch
6. Plan your days
Some practical progress on 2, and planning worked quite well. “Let’s add a temporary one. ‘Reach Level 6’. That should be doable on one Tuesday, just over 1200 points.”
Item 7 added. Yes, attaining level 6 is a realistic goal.
“I’m going to make my diary entry now.”
Yes.
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Firstday, 17 Fifthmonth 726 KE, 15.237
Today went much as I had planned last sixdays. It was the first time I had spawned at 4 in a safe location, so my day aligned with everyone else’s. I attended Dorra Marson’s session in the morning and observed for the first time what normal teaching was like on Heere. It is very effective; the Teaching class makes it easy for her to keep the interest of her students and maintain what they hear. I don’t know if she used it or not, but I can imagine how Empathy provides her with other useful capabilities in her day to day lessons. We arranged for me to have a half hour next Tuesday to introduce First Aid. I’ve still got to prepare what I am going to say.
The gang and I spent the lunch break with Abbie, the Formless Abider. We also met with her later in the evening, after the troll battle. Oh, I’ll get to that in a minute. She is much more responsive to me than Harron Ronvaldt had ever seen her behave. I am pretty sure it is because she likes the doses of ki which Heal Other leaves behind. Either that, or it is just my winning personality. (joke)
I learned the Basic Polearm skill during apprenticeship. Lenyet was teaching us how to use the bo. Onre had learned it a day or so before, but our 11-year old friend Norrus Loruste practiced with it too, as did Sun.
We ate dinner at Kossa Smithson’s house. Not just our teenage gang, but also a whole group of pups: Norrus, Carrie, and the two Smithson kids, Kenna and Mols. There was no way we could all fit inside, but her parents were prepared for that, and we had a picnic outside. Barbecue chicken, potato salad, and pickled vegetables. Not exactly like Earth, but close enough. It wasn’t exactly chicken either, but again, close enough, and it was delicious.
Arrjee, Carrie, and I went home after dinner. Mom, Dad, Grandma, and Corval Hirsut were all there. His foster mother Mowd Dressen had also come to town, and she was also there. They had been eating dinner at the same time as we had at the Smithson’s. Mowd has officially adopted him, and she is living in Onre’s old room in Grandma’s cottage. She is a medicine woman, with the classes of Alchemy and Witch.
We went for a stroll after dinner, along Passing Stream (behind Cottages) to the River River. (These names look silly, but one gets used to the constant literalness.) There were two trolls near River River, and they were not pleased at our presence. One was Level 19 and the other 24. Dad has an awesome skill that lets him summon his own private army, Nondescript Guard. At his current level, he can summon 11 of them. Both Mowd and Grandma debuffed the trolls in varying ways, Mom tanked, and Corval, Arrjee, and I fought the Level 19 one along with a soldier. Arrjee got his arm smashed by a club. He slipped on some blood and couldn’t avoid it, even with them being slow and distracted. Anyway, he’s fine now.
There were two chests of loot which we divided among us. We went back into town, Arrjee, Corval, and I met up with the gang again, and paid the second visit of the day to Abbie. There I ranked Claw Strike to D. Oh, today I also reached D on Group Mind, Dark Sight, and Boost Armor. Still Level 5, though. It turns out we are all really horny teens. If you know Heere, that is not a surprise. These people are extremely open concerning sex.
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“Okay, Interface, I’m done with the diary. I realized I need to build a lesson plan for my First Aid session tomorrow. Maybe in planning that, I can learn both Authoring and Visualization.”
And that is what happened. Interface said that Visualization was a nascent skill which could have started at Rank E if I had learned it earlier.
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[Omniscient Point of View, Fifnthday, 21 Fifthmonth 726 KE]
The little boy was sitting passively by the side of the road, watching the horse-drawn wagon approach. Merz Sholut was the only one seated up front, and he analyzed the boy.
Ronkel – male Hybrid Covargh, age 7, 4 stones
Level 0 Orphan, 1070 XP worth
[Learned Skills], 0 defeated
“What a curious name,” thought Merz. He stopped the wagon just as they reached Ronkel. “Are you alright, boy?” Merz asked. The boy watched him, but said nothing. Belenay and Niscus came to the front of the wagon and jumped down.
They approached him and stopped about two yards away. Belenay asked, “Son, where is your guardian? Is there anyone near who you trust?” He did not reply.
“Mom, there is something wrong. He has a flat affect; I am trying to feel his emotions, but there is nothing there. He might as well be a piece of wood so far as my empathy is concerned.”
“A young orphan male with no emotions,” Belanay responded to her daughter, “We’ve been through this before.” Then to Ronkel, “Son, would you like to come with us? We are headed for a village called Cottages. I am Belenay Sholut, this is my daughter Niscus, and my husband Merz is driving the wagon.” She held out her hand.
After a moment, he stood, walked to her, and accepted her hand. She led him to the wagon. “We won’t hurt you. We are travelers from the First Duchy, here to establish new lives in Cottages. If you need a new life, I’m sure you can find one as well. Now I’m going to lift you up to Merz, okay? He will take you, then you can either sit up front with him or ride covered in the wagon.”
She lifted him, and Merz accepted the boy, seating him to his right. The boy immediately turned around and crawled into the shade of the wagon. Niscus got up and followed him into the back. Belenay was last, but she stayed up front with Merz. The boy might be more open if he were alone with her daughter. Niscus was very good with people
“He is at least reacting,” she told her husband. He agreed that was a good sign, and they had seen worse. Perhaps someone in town would know of him, or at least be able to assist him in finding his guardians.
They expected to make it to Cottages by noon the next day. Two hours prior to encountering the boy, the Fifth Duchy guard patrol they had been following needed to branch off. They had to follow their normal route, but gave them directions and told them that their remaining journey should be safe. There had been a zebor problem recently, but it was believed they had all returned to their normal territory.
As darkness approached, they found a nice spot to pull off the road and made camp for the night. The boy remained alert and responsive. He was polite in his silent way and even a bit curious as to the goings on. After dinner, they were all relaxing by a campfire. The family was telling him about their journey and what their lives were like in the First Duchy. They did not want to add any negativity, so they avoided explaining the darker reasons they had left. It was enough to emphasize they were hoping Niscus could become a student at the new adventuring school being built there.
Eventually there was a moment of silence, broken by the boy beginning quiet bird calls. He knew quite a few, and imitated them excellently. He also began a series of motions with his hands, hard to follow, but almost impossible not to watch. It appeared as if his arms and hands were almost dancing in a very elegant way. Niscus realized, “He is entertaining us!” These words might have elicited the briefest of grins, but she could not be sure. His affect remained flat, however, which was a mismatch to other aspects they were observing. Strange boy.
They slept well, and did not arise until well after 5. The boy was helpful in breaking camp and knew what he was doing. For a boy so young, he knew a lot.
The wagon made good time due to a good road and no potential threats encountered. Ronkel was once again pleased by how well her ‘lost orphan boy’ persona allowed her to blend in and get a true feel for those strangers with whom she chose to associate. A master thief needed every advantage she could have. She was surprised and glad in meeting Humans from the First Duchy with no indication of seeing her hybrid boy persona as a ‘half-breed’.
It was not often she completely sealed her emotions, though. But with Niscus being an empath, it would help her avoid slip ups. She wasn’t worried about normal detection; someone would need a higher level and rank than her to see through her masquerade. As a Level 50-S shapeshifter, that left only the gods.
It wasn’t even 9 when the Cottage’s walls appeared. Everyone moved to the front seat, with the boy sitting on Belenay’s lap. Seeing a partial second wall to the left of the gate, Niscus wondered, “Do you think that new construction will be the school?”
Her father said that it was likely, and her mother remarked that it looked like they were making good progress. As they got closer to the grounds of the new construction, Ronkel felt something she had not sensed in a very long time. His eyes grew big, and he had an even grander smile.
“What was it, like 800 years?” she wondered. Niscus was suddenly assaulted by a strong, completely unexpected blast of surprise, delight, and wistful loneliness. “Oh, my apologies, Niscus. I did not mean to share that. I thank you all for your hospitality, and I wish you life and prosperity.” At that, she transformed into a hawk standing on Belenay’s leg and then flew ahead.
“Minor gods, you don’t see that every day,” commented Belenay. “What did he share?”