Erzebet Forest, Novus Ordo, Date Unknown. Local Marker Unknown: Time Unknown
I have decided to start a regimen, after yesterday's… Incident, it was clear I needed more information. After the game recognized my understanding of my race it gave me Sanguine as my subspecies, labeled my abilities as traits, and gave me the reason behind the night buff, and, to my chagrin, lowered the buff to times two. Interestingly though, my speed did not seem to change, like before I had a limiter on me, and now I could only go this fast. All that meant though, was I could get faster! Another downside was I also got a debuff during the day, halfing my traits and abilities.
This was my last night for the night in reality. The first thing I needed to do was push my balance, it was something I put on the burner, but I was actually excited. I've spent ten years incapable of balance, this was finally a chance for me to test it out. I spent two minutes trying to climb the tree different ways, and finally settled on an awkward “rope climb”. After reaching the first thick six inch branch I swung up on the branch. I got my feet under me and slowly tried to stand. I expected it to be difficult, therefore, when I tried to compensate for nothing, I lost my balance and started to fall. I focused and the world slowed, it was barely noticeable, but it was enough. I quickly and precisely caught myself, then slowly stood again.
Tentatively taking steps, it took all my concentration not to bug out. The balancing part actually came easy, it was the fear, not of falling, but of doing the unknown, like walking into a dark cave. Getting more comfortable with time, my steps become confident. I smile slowly crept across my jaw, I was finally at the same level as everyone else, well at least in balance. I started sprinting across branches, leaping and climbing higher. When I climbed another twenty yards up I noticed the reason theses trees stayed standing. The branches had grown together, connecting each tree to its neighbors. The beaches were wider now, the same width as the trunk at eight inches.
They were like pathways which I, of course, used to get to the top. An hour later I came to the top, panting, with plus two to speed and endurance, and plus ten in climbing. There were three moons in the sky, and trillions of stars, beauty did a disservice to the sight. As much as I wanted to continue to look at the sight, I knew I needed to train. I'm a vampire, which means I'll have to meet them to gain more information, and if vampires were anything like the legends, then I needed to be stronger.
With a deep sigh and looked down to start my descent and I froze, the realization struck me like lightning, the branches were aligned with reason, and it's shape… Was a spider’s web.
“Will you walk into my parlour?”
I shuddered, that other spider was nice enough, but the size of the “web” meant something. Either there was one monstrous spider, or worse, and more likely, thousands, hundreds of thousands, of, relatively, smaller spiders. It was beautiful, but it held danger. “To ask me is in vain,” I said aloud, “for who goes up your winding stair, can ne’er come down again.”
*Tring*
--Codex found! (2/???)--
-The Spider and the Fly, you have found a Codex ability, Trap detection. This skill can be earned by lesser means, but a Codex will grant you more experience, and a more powerful version of the ability. Trap detection: 25.
--Trap detection is now at Tier 5, apprentice. You can now detect most traps up to 25 feet away, and novice traps through walls.--
Suddenly a few blue dots appeared in my vision, but for a split second I swore I saw the entire forest shine with the same ghost blue.
The chill up my spine was more like a freight lift packed with Semtex, threatening to explode into full blown panic. With a deep breath I reigned myself in. I needed to get down, fast. I focused, then listened, I crouched and put my ear to the trunk.
I heard thousands of little thuds, nothing seemed to be in a hurry, but I was wary nonetheless. I started down the same way I came up, I did not trip any alarms coming up, as the saying goes ‘if it ain't broke.’ The going down was easy, that was until halfway I started to hear other spiders, unfortunately they were behind me and they forced me deeper into the forest.
It took me twenty minutes to get to the lowest branches in the lattice. Signs of Arachari became increasingly apparent, silky white fibers covering the trees. I paused, stood completely still, I had several senses, I wanted to use them. First I touched one of the silk fibers, one that didn't have the soft blue hue, indicating a trap. It felt like my omnicomp when I get a message, the image of tiny spiders running around inside the frame made me laugh. Unfortunately, I was still in contact with the silk. The vibrations ceased, for a moment, then resumed. This time the vibrations were in sync, it even seemed to make sound.
Spiders use different patterns or songs to tell certain things, and the Portia Labiata spider uses those same “tunes” to attract other spiders to the edge of their webs. If I had to guess, I tripped an alarm, though the alarm sounded alot like “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” I stifle another laugh, which became fear when the dire reality dawned on me. They knew someone was in their home, and they were searching. I had to press on, I could not go back the way came, in case I ran into investigative patrols. With a heavy sigh, I press onward, now every branch has webbing on it, and I keep time to the song. Keeping track of the vibrations through my bare feet.
Around the fiftieth “Down came the rain,” the vibrations stopped. I lurched precariously on my left toes, I had never been so thankful for balance as this moment. The vibrations came back with the same constant hum it had before I laughed. I gently sit down on the branch to calm my nerves. I look up and blanch, every web above me had a blue hue to it. The only routes I have were the way I came the way ahead and the ground. Ahh, the ground! I facepalmed, I could have avoided this whole thing!
Trying to find my way down, I saw movement in the distance, about thirty yards away there was a girl in a pond, swimming. No she was not naked, that only happens in the vids, no-one goes skinny dipping alone anyway. She had a shamrock bikini, and though strapless it efficiently covered her bosom. The girl had dark hair, pitch even. She obviously was unafraid of being in this forest, so naturally I assumed she could help me. I got down from my perch sliding down a trunk and landing softly on the dirt. While still cautious I announced myself. “Hello, miss, could you help me? I seem to have lost my way.” I say with a smile. Turns gracefully in my direction.
“Are we spying on me.” She says coyly, in ancient greek I might add. Why do women always assume men are spies.
“We are not spies, at least I am not, if I was I would not have announced myself. And what reason could one have to spy on oneself?” I said in my own coy manner, also in ancient greek.
“Aren’t you clever, well obviously not clever enough, to get lost in your own forest.” As I was taking steps closer, her face came into detail, the had four eyes on her forehead, much like Trigon, from those pre space, picture stories. And one on each side of her head, two inches above and behind of her ears. I had a feeling she was a lot more at home in this forest than I was.
Since running probably was not the best idea, I decided to play this one out. “My forest it may be,” I said… What? It probably is not a lie, It’s called Erzebet forest after all. “But I was not reared here.”
She frowned, “Sapien!” She growled. “How dare you, this place belongs to the Arachne!”
“Woah easy, first, I thought you were Arachari?” This was an educated guess based on my wiki knowledge on Arachne.
“Yes, that is what we are known as, just as you Sapiens are known as Human.” She scoffed at me, actually scoffed, as if I was some impertinent two year old holding her hostage.
“Second, I am not Sapien, I am Sanguine.” At that admission a pulse ran through my body, normally I would take time to study it, but I had more pressing concerns, like staying alive.
The girl suddenly gave a frightened look, confused, I looked behind me, half expecting to see a ferocious monster. “W-why are you this far south?”
Ignoring her fear I pondered her statement, I had come east, which meant vampires were up north, I now had a direction. Unfortunately it seems I will have to get a lot stronger before I arrive there, it seems that we will have… Conflicting points of view. “Calm down, I mean you know harm.” My statement did not seem to assuage her trepid behavior, so I asked her a question. “Why are you afraid?”
This got the intended result and she visibly relaxed, “You really don’t know?” I stepped forward so she could see me and nodded. “Most, in fact almost all Vampires are nice, in fact they are quite enjoyable, but there is a small contingent of old and powerful Vampires that are cruel, and full of hate. No they don't hate, they are just cruel. And the nice Vampires have no reason to be underneath the palace.”
It noticed that it was a little brighter than it was, “Can I ask you a favour?” I said beseechingly. Her fearful look returned, quickly I added, “If I can prove to you that I am friendly?”
At this she came out of the water, full of grace, as if she were floating, not walking on eight legs. To call it walking would be an insult, maybe traipsing, or promenading would be better.
I got a look at her lower half, she wore a chartreuse swimming skirt over her human pelvis, her thorax was small about twice the size of a rugby ball. It was odd, to me, who had never seen it before, but it was not ugly. She was beautiful, I must have said the thought out loud because she immediately turned red. She turned around and sat on the river bank, I came over beside her. I had this overwhelming urge to touch her thorax, which I acted on. It was overwhelming, It felt like slightly tougher human skin, I scratched it and she shivered. I bashfully retreated until she shook her head. “Don’t stop.”
So I didn’t, instead I told her, “I will prove to you I mean no harm.” Her beat red face nodded, I continued, “I come from far away, a place that, while it has its faults is amazing in its own right. There I work on a farm, and occasionally fly through space.”
She looked at me curiously, “Where else would you fly but through space, I would imagine flying through dirt would be quite difficult!” She said with a laugh, the ruby started to fade.
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“You misunderstand, I meant through the stars!” I replied with my own smile.
“You're a Traveler! Just like me! But that's impossible, there are no Vampire Travelers.”
“I was not originally a Vampire, or maybe I was, sort of, anyway, I started my journey here Human, but along the way was turned.”
Shocked she asked “you were bitten?”
“What,? No! I, sort of, chose to be one, like you chose to be an Arachari.”
“I did not choose to be anything, Arachne is what I am.” She berated while standing.
“Wait, you mean, you are like this in reality too, how, where?”
She was mollified by my question, and its sincerity, so she sat, and inclined her head to her thorax. With a smile I resumed my petting. “We call the planet Rachnai” The Wiki flashed through my head, at first I thought it was info on the planet, but it turned out to be a fictitious race, in a pre-space game about space, huh, how ‘bout that. I returned to a slightly miffed face. I gave an apologetic glance, she continued. “We were banished to this world, by the human goddess Athena, after Mother Arachne, tried to show the Humans the corrupt nature of Zeus. We tried to go back to your world using a Gate Key. A single use Item to transport a Thousand Arachari back to your realm, somehow we miscalculated, and we were put on a forest planet. We spent our lives learning, trying to get back to this realm, so we could bring everyone back. Turns out we can't, not without a Gate.”
I tried to wrap my head around what she told me, Zeus real? That had to be fake, but she says she lives in our realm. “Humans are not the same, tell your people to let go of your hatred, we would readily accept your kind.”
“We don't hate Humans, not anymore, not really, 5000 years is a long time to hold a grudge, but what makes you certain?”
“We accepted the Fae, and the Unicorns, we have made contact with a race called the Dashad, in fact my best friend is one! I’m actually surprised we have not run into each other before if we are both space faring.”
“Our only presence in the void are mining ships and planetary defense. We do not explore.”
It was now definitely sunrise as it was now bright enough I could see the color of her eyes, they were golden, with a tinge of purple speckled around the pupil. I sped thing up, “Miss… I’m sorry I still do not know your name, I am Vadak here, but James Rex Outside, a nobody, from nowhere.”
“I am Armia Aracne, here and Outside, Princess of the Arachar.”
“Well, my lady, I will find your race, in the meantime I have to go, could you possibly, for the next while, feed me some blood and keep a leaf over me, and only the leaf, don't put me in a cave, while I am asleep. I have to leave for a while, it would be nice if you could do that for me.”
She gave me a horrid look, but then relaxed, “Fine but only for a month, in here, and I won't have to feed you anything, but you will be famished when you come back.”
“Thanks.” I gave her a hug, something she clearly was not used to, then I stood. “Oh wait, do you have something to write with?” She nodded and stood up went to a nearby tree and pulled something out of a brown backpack. It was a piece of charcoal. I focused, and the world slowed, just enough that if someone said the spanish word “pero”, which means “but” it would sound like “perro” which means “dog”. And I started to draw, It was a rough sketch of the milky way galaxy. “I live here,” I pointed to the very edge of the drawing, “about where are you?”
She pointed close to the center, Inside our TDZ, or Temporal Danger Zone, suddenly I knew why we had not found them. The TDZ was a wide circle around the center of the Milky Way. It’s an Imaginary boundary that is a no-fly-zone, at or above light speed. It was created to keep people from accidentally getting sucked into the black hole at the center, or flying through it in hyperspace. The real line of danger was actually a thousand parsecs inside the TDZ but, there is a reason why elevators are built to hold twice their specified safety weight.
“Last thing have your communications people start broadcasting a message on the UV spectrum, short pulse, long pulse, long pulse, long pulse, and a one second pause, short, long, one second, long, long, one second, short, one second, short, short, short, then wait two and a half seconds and repeat.” I wrote the dots and dashes on the leaf for her.
The sun was starting to peek over the horizon and I had to log out. I gave Armia another hug, which she was still uncomfortable with, ducked under the leaf and logged out.
--Terminating sequence--
Outer Ring, Sector six, Greenton, Auctus, February 15, 449 UE. Sabol Residence: 200hrs A.M.S.T.
It was two in the morning, on most days everyone was up by now. Hell, most people were up at the zero hour, but hey it was Saturday so people slept in. Except Mr. and Mrs. Sabol, and those like them, farmers, who were up by the first hour at the latest.
Alexander Soto was walking up the path to his charge’s house, to inform him of a change in plans, when he heard said charge, calling to him from behind.
“Lex, I was just going to go look for you.” James paused. “I see you found my house.” James held a face that said he was about to die of laughter.
Lex with quizzical yet annoyed expression stated, “yeah, so? And why are we speaking Ancient Greek?” Lex' anoyed look was just for show, James knew that, James also knew how to annoy him, so he deserved the look. This time though, it was hard to keep up the facade. A normally clumsy boy ran like an Olympian sponsored by Atlanta herself, hell, he was even speaking Ancient Greek. He decided to play along, but he was still stumped, and that was a new feeling.
"Thought I'd change it up, “and I guess you really are a conquistador!” And James belted his laughter nearly falling to the floor. "Discovering my house way out here in Sector Six."
With the same perturbed facade, Alex replied, “ha, ha, ha, you're hilarious, because my middle initial and primary surname have the same phonetics as the conquistador Hernando de Soto. I am Russian dammit I have no clue how that name came about.”
“That's an oxymoron.” Dignified James after he recovered.
“Which part?”
“Primary Surname, duh, it's funny how you thought being Russian could be an oxymoron!”
“I see you are having fun picking me apart, it seems fun! How about I give it a try, hmm? James I noticed you did not trip while sprinting like a madman, also you were slightly faster than I thought you were, still well within human bounds but, well?”
James blanched a little, “Really? I didn't notice.” He landed the most unbelievable excuse of all time. Quick to change the subject he said, “anyway, I came to find you, because I wanted to tell you that I am about to become the most popular and most important person in the galaxy, under the High King, of course.”
Alexander became nervous, did he find out? He thought, but he hid it well enough and pressed for Intel. “Really? How do you figure?”
“I found and made contact, with a sentient alien race! I have to tell Captain Ross I will take his job offer, only if we make physical contact with the Arachari the highest priority.”
“The Arachari eh? Why do I get feeling there is catch?”
Lex’ accent was slipping, possibly from the surprise, but more likely, he was still sore from the Spaniard joke. “Your English is terrible.” James tried to dodge the question, but Alex kept giving him a firm look. Reluctantly James added, “they're in the TDZ.”
“Oh, is that all, are you sure there planet I sent inside a star!”
“Jeez Lex, it's not that bad.”
“How far?”
“At least 150 parsecs.”
“Obviously it's outside survey range, otherwise we would know about it, but, and correct me if I'm wrong, you don't have any clue where they are?”
“I have a clue!” James pontificated. He picks up a stick and drew a circle then a smaller one is the central of the larger circle, he then put a dot on the edge of the large circle. If this is the Milky Way, and that dot is us, the smaller circle is the TDZ, and this dot,” he said placing his stick two inches inside of the smaller circle, “is them.”
“You just pointed out a hundred square parsecs, at least. Well, I was concerned how I was going to break to you that you only had till Sunday, the Eagle Spire changed its plans, she dumped her cargo at their first port and are coming back here. Now, it seems you will have to pack.”
Alexander watched James run inside his house, then he did an about face, and walked back down the long drive way. He was going home, he decided he was not going to tell Victor about the boy's plan, he'd let James do that. All he wanted was to be a fly on the wall during the revelation. Just a Alexander reached the end of the the gravel driveway, James darted past him towards the woods in between the school and where he was currently standing. Lex almost missed James' comment about him being a conquistador, he let it slide, he was more curious about where James was going, and why he had yet to fall on his face.
Alexander always found the answer, it was in his blood. But, for the life of him, he could not figure out what was going on with that boy.
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Hey peeps, sorry for the really late release, had family over, had not seen them in a while, and I wanted to spend as much time as I could with them. To make up for it, this is a long chapter. And, if all goes well, I will have another today!. Sorry for any extra errors, could not use word, so I had to eyeball my own errors. See you later!
Mudrost- ^,..,^
Edit: I decided to change the second half of the pond scene. I tried rewriting it four times, it was just too vulgar for my taste, and it seemed fake, so I changed it a bit. Anyway its now still PG-13, at least I think so. Thanks for understanding! ^,..,^