The warning to watch my head hadn’t been an idle one. Digging into my skull, the lip of the entryway came earlier than I expected. Honestly, a warning about the grabby oil would’ve been more helpful. Considering her sense of humor, I gave it equal odds she’d foregone one for a laugh.
The other option was that she was still following whatever weird rules had her bringing me out to shove in a doorway of sludge in the first place. With the oil-like substance pushing me forward, it only took three steps to emerge once I stopped fighting it. Not that I could tell where I’d emerged. There was no light to speak of, not at first.
Even as I summoned my mana into a ball, little red lights along the floor flickered to life.
Turning back, I pressed against the grabby oil. It rose up to match my fingers. The surface was soft, but it wasn’t going to let me pass out through it. Considering the lack of options, I followed the strip lighting down the dark hallway. Was my own fault, in a way. Could’ve given her strange questions more attention. In a way, she’d mentioned bringing me away.
“If you were kidnapped from your home, who would you want to know first?”
Continuing forward, I tried to go through the rest of her questions, a task which was considerably easier now that I’d had some sleep. After a few paces I reached a set of spiral stairs leading down, a thin red ribbon of light hanging in the air. “Not the sort of red tape I was expecting to deal with.”
A quick wave of my hand confirmed the ribbon of light was simply an artifact of the light strips running along the side of the hall. I started down the stairs. By the time I made it five steps down, a low hum sounded from above me. A second later, the lights came on, blinding me even with Eagle Eyes and my improved vitality.
By the time I blinked the blur away, the lights had reset to a more reasonable level. The red guidelights had faded away. In their place was a more general illumination from what was apparently a transparent wall. The spiral stairs weren’t just for descent. They were taking me past exhibits. As I made my way down, I was surrounded by cages that held every monster I’d ever heard of locked in place. As if they were in stasis. Every one of them had text next to them, words I only knew from our study of the ancient ruins we’d taken up residence in.
At least at first. One of the displays was in a different language, one I recognized as being even more ancient.
English.
I stopped, staring at the words.
Colloquilal name: Corragaunt.
Type: Disposable shock troop of the biosculpting ravenous horde.
Intelligence: Minimal.
Hivemind connection: minimal unless a control unit is present.
There was a lot more to the tag, just like the rest. Breakdowns of its strengths and weaknesses. I couldn’t help but note there wasn’t anything about their mana affinities or resistances.
My eyes moved to the creature itself. It looked like a wolf that had it’s skin replaced with matte-purple scales. In place of eyes were a pair of dark patches, though its ears were the same shape.
Was glad I hadn’t come across anything like it since I’d arrived on Ro’an. At the rate I was going, I doubted my luck would hold.
I continued inspecting every display as I descended. While the information might be outdated, I had a suspicion there’d come a day when we had to fight most of the creatures held here.
Was hoping it wasn’t that specific day, though I wouldn’t have been surprised.
With my slow pace, it took me half an hour to reach the bottom of the stairs. Another oily doorway was waiting. This time I did successfully duck as it pulled me through.
This time I emerged into an already lit chamber. One that felt like a cross between a bedroom and a labratory.
Along the sides were four pods, each with a person inside. Next to them were numerous sets of clothes and even picture frames. Lizardfolk, humans, and dragons all had a representative. As did a being composed purely of light.
Tresla’s people.
I’d scanned the others, but this one drew my full attention.
Colloquilal name: Will-o-wisp.
Type: Light-based lifeform.
Intelligence: Fully sapient. Citizen species.
Hivemind susceptability: Highly resistant in their natural state or when bound to a superior physical sapient. Incredibly vulnerable if alone.
Not much I didn’t know already. Will-o-wisp seemed kinda innacurate, at least for Tresla.
“Does… becoming a citizen require me to take a test on these later?” I found myself asking, looking around the room. “Or should I be waking them up?”
I wasn’t even sure if they were real people. Honestly, it felt more like a musuem. Even so, there were control consoles next to the pods. Less than a minute of investigating the interface had it switched to English.
Flipping through, I discovered they weren’t museum pieces. However, they weren’t far off. They’d all been dead for… if I was doing the math correctly, over thirty thousand years. And they’d been in stasis for over ten thousand years before that.
The crazy thing was that the readouts said both the stasis pods and their occupants were in pristine condition. The occupants had voluntarily chosen to end their lives, all within a single decade of each other. Further investigation revealed they’d been living in a virtual world. Together.
I stepped away from the pods, gaze flitting between the four beings. Over ten thousand years, the four of them the only real people in their entire world. Tough to imagine.
Tougher to imagine losing a friend I’d known for so long.
My thoughts were heavy as I continued through the chamber. At the far end, I was greeted by the black oil again. Ducking, I made my way through, emerging into something closer to what I’d originally expected. An office with a desk in the middle. Sitting behind the desk was a robotic figure. It had more in common with a crash test dummy than a Forgeborn, its features bland and empty.
A flicker passed over it, and for a fraction of a second, it looked like a smiling man with a bald spot and salt and pepper hair. But only for that fraction of a second.
“Greetings cit-cit-citizen,” the voice said in broken English, its voice sounding like a middle aged gentleman. “As you have come of age, it is time to-to-to complete your adult registration.”
It was strangely soothing, taking a seat across from the janky robot. Compared to whatever I’d seen in the previous two sections, the robot was… normal.
“Cit- citizen, please forgive our lack of paper. Office politics, always getting in the way,” the robot offerred as an excuse. “We-we’ll just collect your details verbally.”
The next few minutes passed with me answering its questions.
“Wh-what is your name?”
“Percival of Aeternia.”
From what I could tell, it had no way of verifying that, yet its hand moved across the desk. Figured it’d make a good test answer.
“Ve-very good. Moving on. Where is your primary place of residence.”
“Cape Aeternia.”
The questions continued in that vein, none of them requiring more than a few short words. Every so often the image would flicker and a piece of paper would appear, my details filling in as it went.
After ten minutes, it leaned back, the image flickering long enough to show a wide grin.
“Congratulations on your registration citizen. As a member of-of-of…” the robot stopped, its head turning to the side repeatedly. Right when I thought it had finally given up the ghost, it continued, its head returning to its original position, “you will find your standard issue pistol, uniform and duty assignment in the next room. Congratulations. Glory to the-the-the…”
The robot raised its arm for several seconds, which I copied, just in case, repeating its words as well. Even the stuttering.
After I’d done so, the wall behind the desk slid open, revealing another small room.
A glance at the robot saw it returning to its original position. So, I stood up and made my way over.
When I stepped inside, I found exactly what it had promised. The first was a small pistol. It looked like it’d been imported from the wild west. Beneath it was a jumpsuit that looked far too loose to be comfortable. Next to them was a clipboard with an assignment written on it in English.
Assessment: Pass
Citizen Class: 5
Name: Percival of Aeternia
Competence: Extremely High
Position: Maintenance - Expert Technician. (Warning, due to a lack of qualified personal, an emergency promotion has been implemented.)
Congratulations! You are now the Head of Maintenance for the worldship Rota One, greatest of the four component worldships in Stellar Engine Beta Corvi.
The letters Ro and On were in a different color than the rest of the message, a bright green instead of the blue that had been used for the rest of the message.
Ro’an. Rota One. I could kinda see it.
I specifically held off on thinking too deeply about the rest, at least for the moment.
Looking at the pistol and jumpsuit, and the fact the room led into nothing, I sighed. It was really making me go all in on this whole thing, wasn’t it?
One plus side to such a bulky jumpsuit was that I was mostly able to stuff my existing clothes inside. Mostly. I did end up having to take off the outer robe. Even as I was changing, I couldn’t help but know the damn flap wasn’t going to stay put when I put my robes back on. Was going to make a spell for that one day.
Ten minutes later, after the room had opened and I’d changed back out of the jumpsuit, I was proven correct.
“Out. Out you damn spot,” I muttered at the flap. Then I paused, squinting. That had been a reference to… something. Something I’d read with my mother before… well, before.
It hadn’t registered at the time that it was about someone going crazy. Somehow, now it was obvious.
“I really need to get out of here.”
With the jumpsuit and pistol shoved in my storage pendant, I took in my latest surroundings. I’d come out in a metalic corridor with no windows and a half dozen doors. Investigating each of them, I discovered most were simple bunks, and one was an equally simple kitchenette. The last was my goal. An elevator with a pair of buttons. Pressing the one with the up arrow, I leaned back against the wall, hoping I was on my way out.
The familiar extra weight of an elevator kicked in, and I found myself feeling like that was the most unbelievable part of the day.
It was a slow ascent, taking at least ten minutes before the elevator slowed.
When it opened, Bahama was leaning against a wall nearby. I stopped, blinking as I realized there were now words floating over her head in text in the same blue that had been on the clipboard.
Bahama - Status Blocked.