“When you said we would get help, I didn’t expect… this.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Rory raised an eyebrow at his apprentice.
“I just didn’t expect something so… morbid,” Apostolos said, staring at the top of their walls.
“It’s not that bad.” Rory shrugged, not seeing the issue.
“You sure?” Apostolos shook his head. “Because stitched-together corpses feel morbid.”
Rory crossed his arms, frowning as he took the time to reassess his solution. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said that attempting ten waves of tier five monsters would likely be too much for them, a tier five and a tier four, even with the benefit of their wall. His solution, therefore, had been the creation of sentries.
How had he accomplished that? Easy, he’d first made some basic frames constructed of bloodwood and Crimson Steel joints, runes carved into the frames. Each frame was designed to be only a few feet tall, so they could easily stand atop their wall. After that, he’d grafted and stitched together the corpses of deceased monsters around the frames, like gnome-sized Frankensteins, utilizing his blood affinity Essence Spark to aid in bonding the bloodwood to their outer flesh layer. Once that was done, a crafted crossbow was given to each animatronic-from-hell before they were directly nailed onto the top of the walls, able to interface with the small amounts of Pneuma they could store.
It was somewhat surprising how quickly Rory had been able to make the constructs, and he had felt proud of himself when he’d finished.
Blood Imp Construct
Grade: Uncommon
Constructs fashioned from the remains of monsters, parasitic bloodwood, and applied Inscriptions. The capabilities of such constructs are limited by the Inscriptions carved upon their inner frame and the energy supplies available.
“I don’t know, Master. There is just something that feels wrong about them.”
“You’re still too squeamish about this stuff.” Rory sighed.
“And with all due respect, that’s why you have a blood affinity, and I do not. Respectfully.”
“Yeah, yeah. Like I don’t hear the underlying meaning.” Rory snorted.
In response, Apostolos merely shrugged.
Smart ass. Where does he get that from?
“Ethics aside, how… useful are they? Against a tier five monster, I don’t see how five midget sentries will help much.”
“You’re right; they aren’t much use on their own. Those bloodwood crossbows pack a punch but not enough to handle a wave of strong monsters. No, the main point is they give us covering fire and distraction. With just the two of us, we’d struggle against a few monsters but throw in a few sentries plinking away with powerful crossbows; they can either help take down a pinned monster quickly or slow an advance.”
“Where did you even get the idea?” Apostolos questioned suddenly.
“Here.” Rory poked his head. “You could say it was a… bloody good idea.”
Waiting several seconds for the joke to land, Rory finally coughed into his fist.
Even my apprentice is a critic. This is why I don’t make jokes.
“Alright, fine,” Rory said, unable to take the silence of his failed joke any longer. “With this, I think we can handle the waves. In the worst-case scenario, if it looks like too much, we can abandon the ten-wave plan and go straight for five waves or something. The game plan is straightforward. We hide behind the walls and make pincushions of any monsters. If anything breaks through, I’ll hold them back, and you go for the emergency option. I’d rather forego rewards than die.”
“Big Bertha?”
“Yes, Big Bertha,” Rory said.
Big Bertha was the name of the newest railgun he’d made. While railguns were effectively banned, that didn’t mean Rory didn’t bother ever making them anymore. Once a year, he went and either updated the last version or made a new one entirely. Big Bertha was the latest iteration, a railgun made from Crimson Steel with the most advanced rune formations. Firepower-wise, it wasn’t much different than the older models; there was a limit to the upscaling of natural science reactions, which his railguns were still primarily taking advantage of. While it wasn’t a direct upgrade regarding firepower, it was far more efficient regarding fire rate, heat dispersion, durability, and energy efficiency.
But there was a reason Big Bertha was there only in case of emergency. Rory still feared that if Big Bertha were ever brought into active use, it would only be a matter of time until the monsters that appeared stopped being comparable tiers to theirs, instead being closer to tier eight or even tier nine.
While Aelia probably can’t actively toss out tier eights and nines on her own -based on absolutely zero reasoning- Eon isn’t limited by a single planet’s energy reserves. Creating and releasing high-tier monsters is probably child’s play for it.
“Once we clear all ten waves, what then?” Apostolos questioned, breaking Rory’s mindful reverie.
“Well, as I’ve said, we will complete the energy grid and integrate it into the settlement. At that point, I hope you and I will reach a breakthrough, tiers six and five. From there, the plan is to clear the rest of the second floor of the Maw.”
“Then?”
“So many questions.” Rory sighed. “After that, no idea. While the grid will have been integrated into our settlement, it will still take a while to accumulate vast amounts of energy, so we don’t want to tap into it immediately. I’ll probably be looking at around seventy years until my next tier-up, so you’ll catch up to me then. We will continue building up the settlement and hopefully clear through the Maw. There isn’t much of an endgame plan outside of that in the short term. Tiers seven and eight will probably become more interesting, as that’s my estimate of when encounters with the other founders will become possible. The other question is Aelia herself. The main issue she has, and by extension, we have, is that she isn’t in a state of energy equilibrium; she expends far more energy than she earns from the planet’s affairs. That means she can’t spare the energy to bring in other sentients. Once she does reach that point, I reckon she will begin bringing in people en masse.”
“Meaning?”
“Our lives will become far busier, so we should have a well-established foundation by that point.”
“And you know this all because…?”
“Aelia told me herself years ago. Or she implied I should say.”
“I still find it hard to believe that the World Spirit herself once interacted with you routinely.”
“Routinely might be overselling it, but yes, once she wasn’t an uncommon sight or voice to hear from,” Rory said, a slightly weary smile as he remembered that first year on the planet. “But I digress. We know the game plan, we’ve got our helpers, and we’ve got a goal.”
“So, now what?”
“Now?” Rory contemplated for a moment. “We relax for the day, then I summon the first wave tomorrow.”
----------------------------------------
“You ready?” Rory called over his shoulder, watching Apostolos.
“Almost.” The young man said, shrugging on a thick cuirass made of leather and wood. After getting the cuirass on, the young man slung a shield onto his back alongside a spear. Secondary gear handled, he quickly scrambled up a perched ladder opposite the gate from Rory as he pulled free his bow a moment later.
“How about now?” Rory asked again.
“Yeah, good to go.”
Rory did a pat down of himself. He wore blood weave, unlike the thicker armor of his apprentice, and he had his trusty bow, but there was nothing else on him other than his arrows. Of the prepared arrows, most were standard arrows tipped with crimson steel arrowheads. A few, though, had some extra oomph to them, such as explosive arrowheads or other fun little tricks.
Yeah, I’m ready.
Opening his interface with just a few taps, Rory summoned the wave. The cooldown timer had long ago lapsed, given that it had been nearly a year since the last time they’d attempted even a single wave.
Let’s do this.
Waiting with bated breath, it wasn’t long before something finally appeared. It appeared first as a lithe spotted monster, roughly the size of a lion, with massive incisors protruding from its upper and lower jaw. Bony spines ran down either side of its head from snout to neck, each several inches long.
Saber Fang Jaguar
Level: 54
A denizen of the deep jungles, the Saber Fang Jaguar can crush rock and metal between its jaws.
“Alright, let ‘er rip!” Rory shouted as his bow twanged out with impressive speed. The Saber Fang Jaguar reacted instantly, dodging the arrow with the reflexes of a… cat. While the monster may have avoided Rory’s opening shot, that said nothing for the sudden buzz of six arrows that followed a moment after, Apostolos leading the newly made sentries in firing on the beast. It said something about the agility of the beast, which managed to weave out of the way of several of the bolts even as fast as they fired from their crossbows. Still, in the end, it couldn’t remain entirely unscathed as two crossbow bolts slammed into the side of its skull, one ripping through its eye and the other piercing its jaw.
Not bad.
Already firing another arrow, the now partially blinded monster took an arrow straight to the chest as blood suddenly began pouring out.
“Laceration arrow?” Apostolos questioned from across the gate divide.
“Bingo,” Rory confirmed. While crimson steel was largely devoid of the properties of the bloodwood trees that were used in creating their coke catalyst, they did seem to have retained a degree of blood-thinning effect. It wasn’t much on its own, but when the arrows were fashioned into broadheads alongside blood-letting runes, it could cause quite a nasty compound effect.
The Saber Fang Jaguar wasn’t a tier-five for no reason, though. Blood leaked like a faucet, and even half blinded, the monster still charged the wall, looking to tear it apart and kill those responsible for wounding it. Rory gave a low whistle, always impressed at the difference between tier four and five monsters, a substantial power divide.
“Still not gonna let ya,” Rory muttered. Racing forward, the jaguar was met by three arrows slamming into it at once as Rory winced, a minor headache from the light usage of Blood Legacy.
Dropping to the ground, the monster attempted to claw forward before stilling.
“That wasn’t too bad,” Apostolos said after several seconds passed.
“Yeah, because that’s not a durability-focused monster. Monsters like that are best handled through surprises that they aren’t prepared to react to or by cornering them. Otherwise, they can dodge nearly anything you toss at them. Also, not all monsters are made equally, you know that. Finally, it’s attacking our defensive position; I wouldn’t want to stumble upon one outside these walls.”
“Preparation over valor, got it.”
Rory smiled, glad his apprentice took in what he said so quickly. Even as a tier five, Rory tried to avoid conflict with tier five monsters when he could, but that didn’t mean he never did.
That was different for Apostolos, though. Aside from the rare occasions Rory had instigated one-off waves over the years, Apostolos had been kept far away from where tier-five monsters could be found. Even when they ventured into the Maw, Rory did not allow Apostolos to go into any areas he hadn’t cleared, and not before he was given the okay to explore.
It helped that the second floor of the Maw was massive in comparison to the first floor, an entire ecosystem filled with mostly tier-four monsters. However, there had been a few tier fives in areas with large ore deposits or other valuable goodies, for example. Rory ensured Apostolos was kept clear of such areas for his safety. Aside from the few tier fives that could be found, it otherwise had been an excellent training ground for Apostolos, with the heavy guidance of Rory.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
If I’m tasked with taking care of the kid, I’ll be damned if I don’t do my best job of it.
There was only one area that even Rory hadn’t checked out, a foreboding sense of power emanating from it that Rory had instantly clued in on as being the floor boss, probably a tier-six if the first floor’s tier-five boss was anything to base it on.
Dismissing the thoughts of the second floor of the Maw, Rory waited patiently for the following monsters to appear. Thankfully, it wasn’t much longer until they did; this time, three pythons appeared, each around thirty feet long. While the snakes looked normal aside from their large size, one thing did stand out: Their tails ended in what looked like a glowing berry, of all things, one of the odder adornments you’d expect to see on a snake.
Adolescent Angler Python
Level: 52
Still yet to reach maturity, the Adolescent Angler Python relies on luring prey with its tails before constricting and swallowing it whole. In their younger years, they tend to group for safety.
“Climbers,” Rory called out. It didn’t take a genius to know that pythons could climb up trees, and with their sheer size, they could rear up and reach them from their elevated position behind the wall.
Monsters like this were perhaps the type Rory disliked the most, as he still hadn’t found a good way to keep them off his walls.
“Aim for the eyes; those scales will be tough for you to break through,” Rory said, aiming for the nearest pythons. Releasing an arrow, it barely missed, plinking off the hard scales of the lead python.
God damn it.
Changing plans, Rory switched what arrow he was grabbing for. Its shaft was covered in spiderweb-like vines, and even the arrowhead had a similar appearance. Aiming for only a moment, the arrow whizzed through the air before planting itself in the ground between the three pythons. A heartbeat later, the arrow exploded as ghostly-looking vines shot outward, lashing around the snakes and tangling them together.
“It’s only going to hold for ten or so seconds!” Rory announced, once more channeling Blood Legacy as the weak headache began to throb. In an instant, the next arrow ripped through the skull of one of the snakes as it made the mistake of trying to tear apart the vines with its mouth.
Apostolos once more led the sentries in firing on the entrapped pythons, the small barrage of arrows mostly glancing off their scales, except for one that slammed through the eyelid of the nearest of the still-living pythons, the monster dropping like a puppet with its strings cut.
It must have been a lucky shot to pierce the brain without hitting the skull.
The vines holding down the tangled pythons snapped, releasing the last of the three adolescent snakes. Raising his fist, Rory signaled for Apostolos to hold fire. With only one of the three pythons alive, Rory felt comfortable taking a moment to gauge the best response. The remaining python seemed to stare at its fallen brethren before it reared up as a crest flared from its head.
Right, it’s a bit pissed off. I can work with that.
Reaching for another special arrow, Rory purposely fired it in front of the enraged snake’s face. Unable to resist its instincts, the enraged monster lashed out, snatching the arrow from midair.
Before the arrow exploded within its mouth. The oversized snake, now without a head, collapsed a moment later.
“Some monsters are… less intelligent and can react predictably. A pissed-off adolescent, for example, is likely to lash out just like that.” Rory took the moment as a teaching experience. “Biting down on an explosive is a rather bad idea, as it encloses the entirety of the explosive force within their mouth. Leading to results like that. On the contrary, the jaguar you saw earlier would have never done something so foolish, more guile than these snakes.”
Rory lectured, aware his head was beginning to hurt with growing intensity. That was the other reason he didn’t enjoy dealing with tier-five monsters. Killing them often required leaning heavily on Blood Legacy, an exhausting Akashic effect of his bow.
I can handle more, just as long as no high-tier-fives appear.
Doing just that, three more stages of monsters were dealt with. The third stage of monsters had eight level fifty monsters, six-legged salamanders that charged out from the tree line. Still, being salamanders, they were weak to the heat of an explosive arrow, the monsters slowing massively as the moisture was sapped from their slimy hide. The fourth stage was another jaguar, except this one was level fifty-five. It had taken nearly three times as many arrows to put down for good, emphasizing how much of a difference a single level could make for monsters. The fifth and final stage was four level fifty-three three-armed monkeys that, rather than charge their wall, instead flung acid poo at them, leading to a somewhat elongated game of heads up. It took two hours before the four monkeys were finally dead; their annoying tactic of ducking behind trees after each poo fling had dragged the entire encounter out far too long, as neither side was burning through resources in the slow, drawn-out exchange.
Once it was clear that no more monsters were coming, Rory prompted the next wave to begin counting down without accepting any rewards. Sliding down the ladder where he was perched, Rory took stock of the camp. Other than a few unfortunate holes that had been burnt through some things from the acid poo, everything was well accounted for.
“That wasn’t too bad,” Apostolos said, approaching where Rory stood.
“Yeah, those snakes worried me, though. I probably need to make something to deal with stuff like that.”
“Another long project?” Apostolos questioned.
“No, it shouldn’t take me more than an afternoon or two. I’m thinking some heavy-duty armor-piercing javelin-type weapon.”
“Oh, can I help?”
“Sure.” Rory shrugged. “How about we give ourselves three days, then tackle the next wave early? I don’t feel like waiting ten weeks if we don’t have to.”
“You’re the boss, boss.” Apostolos saluted, earning a raised eyebrow from Rory.
“I’m surprised you know about saluting.”
At the mention, Apostolos frowned, lowering his hand and looking at it like it belonged to someone else.
“Huh. I don’t know why I did that. Just felt… right?”
Rory shrugged, deflecting the subject.
“Well, either way, job well done. Thankfully, nothing too concerning appeared; they were all pretty standard monsters. No strong variants among them.”
“How will we know it’s a stronger variant?” Apostolos questioned.
“Trust me, you’ll know,” Rory confirmed without actually explaining.
“If you say so.” Apostolos shrugged. “So, what do we need for these new weapons?”
“We’re going to make oversized arrows, basically. I need you to go and gather some bloodwood branches from storage. Once you’ve got some, you’ll fashion them into extra-large arrow shafts, roughly five feet long and about as thick as my arm. While you do that, I’ll work on some javelin heads with some of our remaining crimson steel, but I’ll probably need to whip up another batch. Also, while you’re at it, go collect some vines. I have an idea, but we’ll need some strong rope first.”
Apostolos gave Rory a quick thumbs-up before jogging off toward the back of their camp, where Rory had constructed a small storage shed a few years back. Letting the kid handle things independently -he didn’t need Rory looking over his shoulder for such a simple task- Rory quickly stored his gear away. Once that was handled, he made his way to their forge, tossing on a thick leather apron and goggles he’d designed for working in the intense heat.
It’s a good thing we still have some bloodwood coal left; that way, I don’t have to do too much preparation.
Firing up the forge, Rory began pumping some bellows, stoking the flames so they burned with increasing intensity. Once the fire burned sufficiently hot, Rory shoveled in the coal and enriched iron gravel. Once the enriched iron gravel and coal had all been transferred in, Rory once more manned the bellows.
Only another two thousand degrees to go.
Mentally preparing himself, Rory began to pump the bellows as the heat climbed. Perhaps due to the latent Pneuma that existed everywhere, fires could be stoked to far hotter heats on Aelia than was possible on Earth without specific fuel or machines. Nearly ten minutes of tedious bellow pumping later, Rory stopped and checked on the contents of the forge.
Perfect.
Inside, the metal gravel had melted down and drained into a ceramic-looking container beneath where the ground-up metal ore had been placed. Grabbing a pair of metal tongs, Rory carefully retrieved the ceramic vase and began to pour it into some ingot molds. Examining the molds briefly, Rory frowned, a small sigh escaping.
Going to need to replace those. I really need to take the time to make a more permanent mold for when I’m working with ingot casting.
It wasn’t a pressing concern, just another thing to add to the never-ending laundry list of tasks to handle at some point. Pouring the molten metal into the ingot molds, Rory let them air cool for a minute before plunging the entire thing into a liquid basin. Unlike water, no steam erupted as Rory pulled the cooled ingot molds out a moment later.
Ingots prepared, he quickly dumped them from their molds, once more taking stock of the cracks forming in the molds. Eyeing the ingots for a few seconds, Rory activated Eyes of the Dokkalfar-kin up to the second stage -the skill was almost always kept active up to the first stage for its cognition-boosting effect out of combat- as he gauged which ingot was best for his immediate purposes.
This will do.
With little difference in quality between the several ingots he’d just produced, Rory grabbed the one that had elicited a faint twitch from his eye. Shunting the skill back to stage one release, Rory grabbed a hammer and tongs as he reapproached his forge, cooling it to only heat the crimson steel to be pliable but not molten. Thrusting the ingot in, Rory let it reach an even brighter shade of red, a pleasant cherry color, before removing it and holding it in place over an anvil he’d also made several years back.
And now for the fun part.
You’d think that in a magical game-like universe, all you had to do was tap a piece of red-hot metal a few times with a hammer, and it would automatically transform.
You’d be wrong.
Beginning the laborious effort of shaping the metal, two hours passed in a blur, the ingot gradually transforming into an oversized arrowhead, shaped so that while it would easily pierce into a body, it would anchor itself within afterward and become extremely difficult to remove.
Thanks to a skill he had picked up near his very beginning, he could craft things like this without a mentor to teach him; Maker’s Arsenal innately blessed him with a significant degree of essential weapon crafting knowledge. From there, it was just a matter of taking that innate basic knowledge and experimenting with it, pushing his knowledge of crafting through good old-fashioned trial and error. The anchor-arrow was just one such result of experimenting with his crafting knowledge. Once the first anchor arrowhead was made, Rory grabbed another ingot, setting to work on a second, then a third. By the time he finished his fourth oversized arrowhead, night had fallen, and he could see someone sitting by their firepit.
Ahh, he must have finished with the javelin shafts a while ago. Not exactly a complicated work of craftsmanship.
Suddenly feeling the ache in his arms, Rory gathered up the anchor arrowheads and sat across the campfire from Apostolos.
“How did it go on your end?” Rory prompted, feeling like it was his responsibility as the adult.
“I got eight different headless spears made. I also added some fletching on their sides to aid in flight stability.”
“Good call.” Rory nodded. “And the vines?”
“Got a good deal of coils stored in the shed. You plan on working with them tomorrow?”
“Bingo,” Rory confirmed. “As for you, you can attach the anchor heads to the javelins. Think you can manage that?”
“Unless increasing the size somehow made it a huge puzzle compared to adding the arrowheads to headless arrows, I can manage that.” Apostolos snorted. “It probably won’t take me that long. Anything else you want me to do?”
“Yeah, try to patch up the damaged parts of the camp where some of that acid poo landed.”
Apostolos crinkled his nose, a hint of disgust on his face.
“You’ll survive. Hell, it will build character.” Rory chuckled.
“If you say so,” Apostolos said with an exasperated sigh, the dramatic energy only a teenager could muster.
The two were silent for a while after staring into the fire before Apostolos suddenly spoke up.
“What was it like… before?” Apostolos waved all around.
“Before what?” Rory questioned, faking ignorance.
“I’m not a kid anymore. I understand that certain things don’t make sense when you clearly shift the subject as if you’re hiding something. It was easy to ignore as a kid. Still, sometimes you make these references that, on the one hand, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Yet, on the other hand, it feels like it’s not a complete unknown. Like I have this vague sense of familiarity. So, will you ever spill the beans about what you always avoid talking about, or will we continue pretending I’m still twelve?”
Rory frowned, staring into the fire. It was one thing to hide the reality of what came before; it was another to face the challenge of one day explaining it to the kid. It was something Rory had made a habit of avoiding the potential subject of. He had been afraid that Apostolos, no more than a kid, wouldn’t be able to deal with such mental stresses.
But he’s not a kid anymore, not really. Also, maybe I was just avoiding the conversation for my own sake. If there is one thing we’ve gained from being a part of this universe, it’s mental fortitude, which is far beyond what all but a rare few Earthlings possess.
Even with that thought, Rory continued staring into the fire in silence for another thirty seconds, fiddling with his thumbs before finally sighing, his shoulders sagging.
“It’s… A strange tale. Long ago, none of this-” It was Rory’s turn to vaguely wave all around them. “-existed.”
“Well, yeah, everything must have started from something.”
“Not quite what I mean,” Rory said, shaking his head. “This universe didn’t exist, and another universe did. That’s where I come from. Where we come from.”
“We? Why don’t I have any memory of it?”
“You do, but your mind has rationalized those memories, so you don’t even realize they’re out of place. You’ve logically noticed some irregularities, but your mind hasn’t grasped that some of your memories couldn’t make sense in this universe. For example, what’s your favorite food?”
“Cheeseburgers,” Apostolos answered instantly.
“And how exactly would you know that? The few times we’ve had cheeseburgers, do you remember how much work we had to do to make them? It took us nearly two months to gather everything for a single burger.”
Apostolos opened his mouth before frowning and closing it a moment later. “You’re right. I just never noticed anything wrong with that.”
“Exactly my point. So, to get back to the start of the story. Long ago, we belonged to a different universe, filled with intelligent alien life. We humans were the minority. We existed on a single planet; we were outnumbered to the tune of millions to one.”
“And?”
“Well, a big ass space war broke out or had been going on for some time. It turns out that humanity on our little old planet was considered to have evolved to the absolute, or near absolute, limit on which intelligent life could develop for a planet’s gravity. We were far more robust than basically any other life out there. So, we got recruited -well, some humans, not me- to be the pilots of some weird ass experimental spaceships that they sent out to do battle with the bad guys of the space war.”
“Okay, then what happened?” Apostolos asked, intrigued. “And how does that lead to us all alone here?”
“Oh, that’s simple. The bad guys won. They pressed the big red ‘Do Not Press’ button and the universe ended. Except, apparently, they didn’t quite know the full details of what they were doing, so rather than propelling themselves to some higher dimension or whatever sort of whack nuttery they were looking to do, they caused all the countless dimensions to come crashing down, as everything was forcibly imploded into a singularity event.”
“Oh. So, how did we get here?”
“Patience.” Rory reminded. “We got here because the closest dimension to us was a dimension made entirely of the energy of every thought and idea that had ever been had. When the dimensions collapsed, all intelligent life, or a large amount, I don’t know the full scale, was basically subsumed into the energy of this thought dimension, where we were preserved. Don’t ask me how that even works; this was explained to me by some alien professor I met while I was in the in-between place.”
“In between place?”
“Limbo, paradox, I don’t know, call it what you want, but it’s where intelligent life was preserved. After that, the singularity, composed of countless dimensions forcibly fusing, exploded outward, creating a new universe with exponentially greater energy and potential for growth. That universe would be this universe.”
“Then?”
“Oh, the normal boring stuff that happens when a universe is formed, gas clouds, stars, supernovas, planets are formed, etc. Except in this new universe, the planets could form consciousness.”
“You mean like Aelia?”
“That’s exactly what I’m referring to,” Rory confirmed. “She formed consciousness, then began to slowly advance her Ascension, growing, but unlike her fellow planet peers, she noticed something within the energy soup of the universe. That something was the thought signature of intelligent life, or that’s how she explained it to me. Doing whatever World Spirit fuckery she can do, she plucked several of us free from that soup. And here we are.”
“So why do you have active memories of it, and I don’t?”
“I’m assuming it has to do with Eon. We were brought here before Eon existed, and the rest of the ‘founders’ are all considered ‘proto’ variants of their species. For whatever reason, we get to keep our memories. When you lot -the second generation- was brought in, Eon could mold you right from the get-go to fit into this universe. You arrived as A1, whereas we arrived as A0.”
“But intelligent life can’t be A0.”
“Yeah, well, many of these ‘rules’ you know were still being made. I wouldn’t recommend the experience of going from A0 to A1; hurts like a bitch. Anyway, now we’re here, trying to help Aelia advance until she feels ready to bring more life here en masse. So yeah, that’s the history I’ve never explained. Obviously, you knew Aelia could bring people here, but now you know from where and why.”
Apostolos was silent for several seconds, an apprehensive feeling beginning to fester within Rory before, at last, Apostolos spoke again.
“So…. Burgers? Those were a thing in the old universe.”
Rory could only sigh, shaking his head.
Teenagers.