“Wait, what?”
“It is true, friend. There is only the war to consider, nothing else. It is paramount to all who have become part of the system.”
I didn't know what to say. That sounded horrific, far too narrow minded. I looked down at my regrowing arm and thought about how much less amazing it seemed to me. I was lost in the thought of the awful practices of both sides of this war, one that entraps living people in their own mind without a way to escape, and the other that enslaves a species.
“Are there no good sides?”
Doiracr responded heavily, “That is a matter of much debate, my friend. It is not as though the Council keeps us enslaved forever. We, the species, serve 10,000 generations of battle, and our people are freed from the burden of fighting. On the other side, the Nymerian worms grant a most interesting benefit: they do not force all of an assimilated species to fight in the war. Only taking and perfecting the best and brightest, they allow the rest to grow under their chosen hero's aegis for as long as they live. Of course, should they fall, so too will that planet.”
I shook my head, laughing at the hopelessness of it all. There really wasn't a good side. The only thing you could choose was the lesser of two evils. Looking back up, I noticed the rest of the Zisse had left. I figured it'd be a good idea not to die at this point, but I was heartbroken that for us to win, the Zisse would have to lose.
“How bad is it, if you fail a second time?”
Doiracr made an odd clucking noise in the back of his throat. Maybe laughter? Then he responded, “We shall simply fade from existence before your very eyes. I have seen it happen when we were first taken into the system. It is harrowing to all involved, and doubly so for those of the species that were already deemed worthy. They must watch as all their family dies, and the ones to take their place are devoid of all their learnings, their culture. They alone uphold their people's history, a burden that is far too heavy for those involved.”
“Well ... fuck.”
Doiracr roared at that, the odd clucking noise now came out full force from his throat. “Aptly put, Ascendant.”
“Ascendant?”
“Ah, yes. One who has already been chosen before the beginning of the end, they would be more likely to ascend into safety, and thus we call them Ascendants. After all, they have been given power early, and taught to use it.”
“The simulation tutorial? Yeah, that thing isn't so great,” I said, grimacing.
“Ah, but the benefits must be fantastic, I am sure. I know you have at least two skills from it,” he insisted.
“...nope.”
“Oh-ho! Three or four, then? No one has claimed five in over two entire universes, and six cannot be done.”
“Uhhh, well, it didn't actually train me.”
“Ah, come now, of course it did! Perhaps you are unaware of the actual skills. You know how to see your status, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then that is where your skills are at. Perhaps your status is quite large. Do you see all of it?”
“...I'm pretty sure I do. How can I tell?” I asked, curious if I was missing out on some things.
“Simple, my friend. The first thing you would see is your designation. The last thing you would see are your focus attributes. Everything else must be in between them.” Doiracr said.
“Oh,” I responded, disappointed.
“Ah ha! I knew you couldn't see the whole thing! Come now, share with me your skills and I shall share with you likewise, that our peoples comfort each other in the cold sea of life.”
“Well, uh, that's kind of the thing, bud. I could actually already see the my entire status.”
“You are certain you have no skills? How can this be? You went through the personal training, no?”
“...not exactly,” I admitted.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it started with testing, right?”
“Yes, often you are tested to perfectly calibrate the training.”
“Well, I couldn't do a part of the test, and it wouldn't let me move on, so ...”
“Even though you had failed, you were not permitted to continue past it? This hasn't happened before.” “Well that's annoying. I failed that part twice and it didn't - ”
“Wait, twice?”
“...yeah, it reset me both times and - ”
“My friend, you did not fail.”
“What?”
“If you had been reset five times, you would have failed. And you say you were reset only twice.”
“...yes.”
“How long was the training for?”
“A week?” At least, I think it was a week.
“... and you only made two attempts?”
“... listen, it's not that simple.”
“Explain, then.”
“Well, I told it that I couldn't do it, right? But the system said I had to, and I didn't know that I just had to fail a certain number of times. Plus, it kept pissing me off and it basically trapped me, so I kinda started insulting the system.”
“You insulted the system for a week straight?” Doiracr asked, almost impressed. He was definitely disappointed in me, sadly.
“Well, no, I may have also spent some time singing and making bad jokes.”
“Singing and making bad jokes,” he asked, as though to confirm I wasn't insane.
“Yes.”
“You spent a week of training time insulting the system, singing, and making bad jokes, instead of training.”
I sent a small prayer of apology to Watchmaker for asking him the same questions three times and for basically stealing his response. “Just because you asked me three times doesn't mean my answer will change, you know.”
Doiracr simply said, “You have no idea the things you have squandered. Still, the focus gives you great power, especially if you can fully harness and control it. Come, we must make do with what we have.” He stood just outside the door, waiting for me. I got out of bed, walking over to him.
“Good, you do not seem weak or unable. This will help.” He started walking down the halls, which I just realized had very intricate carvings on them. I asked him about it, and he said, “We prepared. Our planet has merged with yours and a few others. Being ready with places of power to transport over gives us the ability to more readily win this competition, or at least create some worthy few to carry our legacy forward.”
“Huh. And your people choose to go through this again?”
“It wasn't much of a choice. The Council is thorough and powerful. They would have killed us off before we could even finish declining, and then they would have re-made us, forced to serve our sentence.”
“... Are the Nymerian worms that bad?”
“Refuse them, and the entire planet is simply razed. They are worse in this instance, though both only have to make good on their threats once every few thousand planets.”
“...few thousand?!”
“Well, you can't really fix stubborn or stupid, can you? Here we are.”
We entered a side room, but that turned out to be an incorrect descriptor. It was more like another hallway, which had a large array of weapons up front, an arena behind that, and an obstacle course running all the way through to the back and then looping around back to the other side of the arena. I was surprised by the place, but I guess it made sense. Although, now that I thought about it, I wondered if they knew what this race was about.
“Hey, do you guys know what the global race is? Or at least, how we are supposed to win it?”
“No. This is unknown to us, as it is to you. Most likely, there will be many hidden conditions to succeed,” he said.
“Or it could just be nepotism,” I replied.
“Or that.”
"So what are we doing here?"
"This is how you will begin repaying us, friend," he said, before gesturing to the obstacle course. Nodding to him, I started on it. It was a simple start, an incline ramp up to the first platform. Then there were multiple, thinner, opposingly angled platforms, with the idea that you would hop from one to the other on each leg. I hopped across them fairly easily, until one flipped under me, sending me into the wall.
I hit it fairly hard just before I realized I was passing out again. Surprisingly, I could tell I wasn't going to fully pass out, instead I just felt like everything was being drained out of me. I finally came to with Doiracr above me, a concerned look on his face. Then the system notification came up:
[Health: 0/1 (Regen 10 per min. {Active})]
[Condition urgen-]
[Condition acceptable]
“Huh,” I said in response, somewhat surprised.
“Are you alright? You were laying there for nearly a minute.”
“Oh yeah, peachy keen.”
“...peachy keen?”
“Sorry, idiom from my people. It's supposed to mean that I'm doing great, but the subtext implies I'm not actually fine.”
“...I do not know if you have answered my question.”
“I'm not hurt from hitting the wall, honest. Just unhappy with my overall situation.”
“And what situation might that be?”
I looked at Doiracr critically, wondering how much I could really trust him. Standing up, I looked around the place and gave it a bit of thought. He and his people had helped me when they didn't really have much reason to and they didn't really seem like assholes. One last thing to check before taking the plunge, I guess.
“Before I answer, I need to know what you want from me. You're training me to do something, and I'm happy to help out to repay the kindness you've shown me, but I need to know what it is you all want.”
“Trust returned for trust?”
“...yeah, basically.”
“You have seen the children we have. They are the only future, quite literally, of my tribe, the Kerel. We are the only ones left of this tribe, when others number in the thousands. We were lucky to
keep this place hidden, but even then it is small compared to the grand halls that the greater tribes will have. Sadly, all our adults are too weak now to fight and claim their own focus. I told you that one must accomplish a great feat to get one, yes? The feat is this, that you must kill a number of monsters, and from them, claim a core. The more cores you have, or the stronger the monster, the better your eventual focus will be. Some are strong enough to propel you forward an entire rank.”
“So, what, you want me to collect the cores?”
“No, the children must collect it themselves. However, as children, they have one advantage over us. If you and I hunted a beast together, then attempted to collect the core, we would gain only an equivalent value for the core, not the core itself. But if the child attempt to collect the core, that is what they are gifted.”
“How many cores do you need to make a focus?”
“Technically, only one would be needed to make a focus. We would like to have roughly six per focus.”
“So I'm helping weaken all the monsters to get the cores? By myself?”
“Not you alone, no. But if you help us get enough cores to provide five of our youth to gain a focus, your life debt will be considered paid, and you would be able to claim yourself kin of the Kerel tribe.”
[New service requested! Pay your life debt to the Kerel tribe.]
[Boon offered: Spell mastery of one of the eight following spells:]
* Ember
* Chill
* Spark
* Gust
* Spider climb
* Healing light
* Mage sense
* Luck touched
“...Doiracr, I've decided to trust you.”
“A most delightful decision, my friend!”
“You asked what situation I'm in. It's complicated, and not all of it is known to me, so please bear with me as I tell you my tale.”