You watch your reflection in the refresher mirror and it watches you back. The eyes are the same. Each is an amber orb with a black vertical slit, though in this low light the dark center has expanded so much only a tiny ring of iris surrounds it. The scales around them are dark grey, almost black, though there are stripes of lighter grey here and there, reminding you of the injuries you received during your hatching. They've grown thicker, you think, harder. Eiwhyl's always complaining about finding scales lying around whenever you shed one. You have mixed feelings about them. On one hand, it means you have a stronger body, one that is better able to defend you. On the other hand it means your sense of touch is diminished, forcing you to have to rely more on your snout and tongue to determine the texture of things. It also makes petting you less effective, though by now the gesture itself is enough to elicit pleasant feelings. And your wings, while they have grown thicker and sturdier too, are still uncovered by scales and available for petting (as long as they are careful with the sensitive parts). And then there are those tiny nubs that have sprouted at the top of your head. Eiwhyl says they're horns, somewhat like hers but stronger. You don't know what to make of them. Maybe when they're larger-
The lights turn on and the door slides open.
"Gah! What in the world?! Haven't I told you a hundred times to turn on the light when you're in the refresher?!"It's more like 5 times but you know better than to correct her. With a quick apology you dash out of the refresher and out of range of her scolding.
...
You eject the datacard and toss it into the small pile you've amassed. This story is annoying. The dragons in it are stupid and do nothing but sleep and eat all day. The human portrayed as the "hero" of the story is nothing but a sneaky thief, fighting unfairly, stealing treasure. The last story you read was particularly enraging, the dragon rushing out of its lair to eat a piece of meat like a dumb animal, only to step on a mine hidden beneath the sand and explode. You're nothing like those things. Maybe the humans do this to make themselves look better. Yes, this entire datacard is probably filled with self-aggrandizing lies.
You check the other cards to make sure they're all there. The medical manual was the first one you bought from Eiwhyl, which turned out to be a big mistake. Half the words of each sentence are unknown and every question answered asks a hundred more. With Eiwhyl asleep there wasn't much you could do with it other than mindless memorization devoid of understanding.
The second purchase was slightly more useful, a dictionary filled with short definitions for various words. On its own it's very boring and not worthy of reading, but it's a useful aid when reading other things. Instead of having to ask Eiwhyl all the time, you can now look up a word and find out what it means. Unfortunately that's not very quick. Even more frustratingly it sometimes leads you to chasing the meaning down spiderwebs of links, oftentimes ending up in self-referential loops or words without definition. Many times you end up using the context to determine the meaning of an unknown word as it is more convenient, even though it might not always lead you to the correct results.
Your third purchase only cost you the price of the datacard itself, as it was merely a compilation of the information Eiwhyl had gathered on you so far. You found some interesting things mentioned in there. A huge biped dragon that used to dig for shiny rocks beneath the frozen wastes of its world, with scales so thick blasters and vibroblades were useless against it and with a breath of fire that could vaporize all it touched and yet the humans of that world were able to hunt those mighty beasts to extinction. Mythical dragons with long, worm-like bodies that could fly like the human machines can (even being able to reach the stars) appeared in many stories as wise men, wizards, quest givers or mentors but there are no factual information about them. Rumors of a dragon-like creature being used instead of spaceships by a group of pirates. A tiny wingless dragon whose scream is so powerful it can stun or even kill humans, supposedly the twisted creation of some dark magician of ages past. A species of ethereal dragons flying majestically through the fires of the stars and how some were trying to capture them for profit. All interesting but ultimately not that useful to you right now.
Eiwhyl has started paying you more but has also required payment for anything you ask from her (another way she's very much unlike Ali). That includes the ever-increasing quantities of food you've been consuming as of late, which helps explain how little your pile of credits has increased these past weeks. You could just go back to eating synthfood to cut back on costs, but something about real food is more filling. It makes you feel better, more powerful. You especially enjoy it whenever you catch a live meal while exploring the tunnels. The only exception is a large hooded cloak Eiwhyl gave to you as a gift, without you asking for or needing to pay for it. It's nothing special, but it's large enough to wear comfortably despite your wings and tail and helps conceal most of your features.
You let the mattress fall, covering the datacards, and arrange the blanket over it. You then insert the encrypted datacard in your datapad. You always keep it close, just in case.
Items gained: 93 credits,
warm blanket,
large hooded cloak,
Datacard with human medical information,
Datacard with human language dictionary,
Datacard with dragon info compilation,
Datacard with story about hunter of dragonsEiwhyl says Graad was part of the Crosstalk gang. A long time ago it started out as a group of thieves and slicers but now they do much more. Eiwhyl is forced to do business with them because they're able to cheaply produce drugs, a fact they've used to greatly increase their power during the plagues that sweep the lower city from time to time. In exchange they force her to provide them with supplies they are unable to procure on their own and occasionally treat some of their members for free.
Nowadays most criminal activity and many businesses in the area are under their control or at least approval. They have uncontested control of the surrounding levels of the city-tower and they claim the entirety of the residential tower Eiwhyl's Clinic and Ali's Apartmentis are in.
You're not too pleased with their claim of this area. Maybe you can't defeat all of them right now, but you could start pushing them out of the residential tower, making it too difficult for them to stay here. How hard could it be? They can't have that many people, can they?
Or maybe you should focus on a direct attack, a way to display your dominance? Their leader, a Quor'sav called Kriwirre, spends much of his time in that large club you saw that one time you went out with Ali, the club Graad was responsible for running. If you attack that place and kill their leader, then surely they will see you are the strongest and see that you deserve to be their leader.
But... there's still much you don't know. As much as you hate to admit it, you're probably not strong enough to succeed yet. Perhaps you should focus on becoming stronger first. Who knows? Maybe they'll do something stupid in the meantime and their allies in the Security Force will betray them, then that problem will take care of itself. Eiwhyl says they're supposed to be enemies, but those hidden allies help maintain the peace between the two.
...
Your shift is over now, but you're not that tired. There's still time to go out and explore. You have several promising destinations in mind:
Eiwhyl has let you know of a slicer, Regulus Chord, that might be able to slice through the encryption in Graad's datacard. However she is neither willing nor able to handle this for you. You will have to meet with him and negotiate a price yourself if you want to have the files and find out more about Graad and his gang.
Eiwhyl warned you not to trust the man. He is not someone she knows personally, so she cannot vouch for him. She advises you to not let him keep the datacard nor let him leave your sight and only pay him once the job is done. Her contact said he's trustworthy, but that doesn't change the fact that he's a criminal and could get greedy.
He is known to frequent a bar in the lower levels. If you want to meet with him, that would be the best place to start. Bars are places where a large number of people congregate to drink and smoke and shout and dance, a place filled with loud noises and confusing scents. A good place to hide in plain sight... or to set up an ambush.
One day you decided to watch a droid, trying to understand more about their existence. The little thing did its work, replacing the wires one of those jumping creatures had chewed and then went away. You followed it back, through dark old passages, until at last you came upon a very interesting level.
It's very much like the city streets on the levels above, a large expanse of artificial structures lit by dim, intermittent lights. Unlike the levels of the tower you are used to, this level is not exposed to the outside, the entire area is walled off. There are no stores here, no bright flashing signs, no hovercars. There is a light curtain of white mist covering everything, steam you think, mixed with something else. The temperature is comfortably warm, perhaps hot for a human. In the distance, through the mist, you can see blinking red lights and occasionally an explosion of orange light, some distant flame. In contrast to the busy streets above, very few people can be seen walking around, always going somewhere in a hurry or thoughtfully poking the various machines. There are as many droids as people here or maybe more, walking, hovering or rolling besides their masters or working on various things. This seems to be something like the heart of the tower or at least all nearby levels of the tower. Everything leads here, all the maintenance tunnels, all the pipes, all the wires, all the droids.
The little droid kept going until it reached another structure, some sort of hive for droids of its kind. You tried to make your way inside, but even though it and its kind were able to roll in and out without issue, you were quite rudely stopped by a semi-transparent glowing blue wall that stung your snout and made it tingle. Despite your best efforts you weren't able to enter the little droid's hive (you even tried riding a droid through it to no avail) so instead you decided to explore this level to see what else it had to offer.
As you explored, jumping and gliding from pipe to girder to antenna, you came across an area that was eerily quiet, where no paths led, where no little droids flew, where even the constant thumping of machines was muted and distant. You paused in your route as there were no more places to jump to, as if the architecture of this place itself was shying away from some unknown danger, creating a bubble of emptiness around it. And then with a gust of wind, the mist cleared and you saw it. It was only for a couple of seconds, but there could be no doubt. It was a spaceship, one of those machines capable of reaching the stars. From a hole in the floor arose a long, box-like metal body, ending in a line of three oversized engines, making it look very much like a T that had fallen down. It looked huge, at least 10 times as large as Ali's Apartment. You think you caught a glimpse of some light near the engine section, but the mist came back before you could figure out what it is.
This doesn't make any sense. All evidence point to this section of the tower being built in a way that avoids that ship. But why would the Builders, who had the power to create such gigantic towers, leave a spaceship here? Did they leave it here intentionally? Was it beneath their notice or beyond their power? Either way, it could contain things you've never seen before, great treasures and even greater knowledge. But it might also contain dangers unlike anything you've ever faced before.
The sound of blaster fire echoed through the maintenance tunnels. Shouting. Curiosity and Fear struggle within you for a few moments. In the end Curiosity wins and you cautiously approach the area. Through a vent you see two bipeds ready to fight each other, hands hovering next to the pistols on their belt. There is tense silence, as if they're waiting for something. Then a shout. Before your heart can beat once the blasters are drawn and a shot echoes through the tunnels. The one that was too slow falls to the floor and convulses. The one left standing cheers and a good part of the small crowd surrounding the two cheers with him. Credits exchange hands, some of them making their way to the winner. The winner offers his hand to the loser, but he grunts something at him and limps out of the ring. How weird. You decide to stay and watch, wanting to know more.
After a while the ring changes configuration and two new combatants enter. Two of those furry creatures with the giant mouths that stalk the tunnels, currently stuck in cages. They look... unwell. Sick? Crazed? Scared? Starving? You can't tell for sure. The people that brought the creatures in rattle the cages and poke the creatures with shock prods, making them even more agitated, to the delight of the crowd. Members of the crowd engage in furious discussion, credits exchange hands until a signal is given and the murmurs die down. Then a shout and the cages are open. With no other place to go the creatures are forced to face each other. They fight. One of the creatures is clearly inferior, clearly the one that will die if this fight continues. It understands that it is so and tries to retreat to its cage. But instead of safety, what awaits it there is a painful sting of electricity. With no other choice the two face again and the inferior is overpowered and killed, causing the crowd to cheer. The fate of the winner is not much better, it is guided by shock prods back to its cage where it is locked. The one holding the cage however does make a decent amount of credits by the look of things.
...
You've watched them for a while. There are several fights each night, some between bipeds wielding non-lethal ranged or melee weapons, some between animals, some between droids. There are credits in this, both for the crowd (if they can make the right choice) and for the participants themselves, who from what you understand get a cut of the profit. Perhaps you should try negotiating with whoever is in charge to let you fight. You doubt you'll be able to use the biped weapons as well as these people can, however fighting with veterans like them would certainly be great practice. If you can get them to let you fight against the animals or the droids however, you'll certainly be able to overpower them and make some quick credits, though something about fighting them like this instead of hunting them in the wild feels wrong. You'll also be risking injury, but as long as you don't do too badly Eiwhyl should be able to heal you. What gives you pause is that you'll be exposing yourself, your fighting style and your abilities. This crowd may be small, but people talk and word spreads. Fear can be good, it can act as an armor, making those who would wish to hurt you think twice before attempting to do so, but it can also rob you of the element of surprise and leave you facing an opponent that's much better prepared for you.
As you were exploring the tunnels, you came across the corpse of a female human, pale and unmoving, her eyes staring into the void. You found her close to one of the tunnels leading to the garbage pit. She didn't have the appearance of those without home that sleep in the tunnels, she looked for all intents and purposes as an unremarkable human. You slowly approached the dead human, trying to decide whether or not she would make a good meal, when you noticed something strange. There was another scent there. Not a human scent. Something else. And also blood and other bodily fluids. Following the scent you found two holes in her skull, hidden beneath blood-crusted hair. She didn't die. She was killed. Whatever killed her must have done so by damaging and somehow removing the brain. You can also see bruises near her neck and shoulders, probably made by whatever attacked her.
The idea of another hunter in this area fills some primal part of you with rage. You tolerate the lesser hunters of this area, they merely hunt vermin and show you proper fear and respect. Even the powerful ones, the ones you would think twice before facing, the ones like the garbage pit monster, subsist themselves with trash and the occasional vermin. For this one to dare that which you do not... Then there's the logical part of your brain that says that if these deaths continue they are likely to draw more attention to the maintenance tunnels, increasing their Notoriety, making it harder for you to use them.
You have her smell and also the faint smells of other humans and things embedded in her clothes. This could be enough to find a trail to follow. Perhaps by following her smell you could find the places she frequents and the people she knows and use them to find more clues. Or you could search for the killer's scent directly. Either way could lead you to it. But if that creature is not afraid to kill humans, then it could be really powerful.
There's also the matter of what to do with the body. You weren't certain at the time so you just marked the area around it with your scent in the hopes that their fear of you would keep the scavengers away until you had some time to think about it.
You pace back and forth in the hallway as you think, trying to decide which one you should tackle today. Should you wear that cloak Eiwhyl gave you to make you look more like a biped and stand out less or stay naked to give yourself greater agility? Or maybe you should do something completely different instead? You have found a lot of interesting places during your earlier explorations, after all. And visits to Ali are always fun and help make you miss her less. Last time you went there she transferred a fun story from her datapad to yours about a man named Jack ascending a magical space elevator to steal the treasure of some gigantic pirate. She also gave you some math exercises that were much less fun. What's the point of learning to do all these calculations in your head if your datapad can just do them for you?
Age: some months (wyrmling)
Size: about the size of a human (if bipedal)
Status: fine
Health: fine
Weapons: claws and teeth
Armor: scales
Abilities:
- Short Flight: You can glide in order to survive falls and quickly move great distances. You can even fly upwards for short distances. You can use favorable winds and updrafts to increase your glide time.
- Basic Human Language: You are able to understand many of the most common words of the human language, including some that express more abstract things, though there are still a great many words and expressions that you have yet to learn. You can also read, though it takes you some time to understand the words. You can also speak, though it's sometimes hard for others to understand you.
- Communication: You have a knack for understanding other beings, even those whose language you don't know.
- Basic Nursing: You know the basics of caring for patients and preparing and maintaining equipment used in their care. You can also administer certain simple treatments. However you still lack much of the knowledge necessary for you to be able to determine what said treatment should be.
- Maintenance Tunnels:
- Large Sonic Rifle covered by old torn clothes
- 2 holdout blaster pistols (roughly 20 shots each, effective range 20m, HSB-200)
- Low quality vibroknife (low battery)
- Eiwhyl's Clinic:
- Large hooded cloak
- Warm blanket
- Datacard with human medical information
- Datacard with human language dictionary
- Datacard with dragon info compilation
- Datacard with story about hunter of dragons
- Pack with plastoid tape modifications (equipped on left side)
- Half-used medpac
- 695 credits (7 orange, 12 blue, 4 red, 6 cyan, 3 pink)
- half-used roll of plastoid tape
- flashlight
- small can of droid oil
- small metal toolbox
- Basic Datapad (contains datacard with encrypted files)
- 2 packs of smoke sticks
- keycard with symbol
- Ali's Apartment: A tiny 2 bedroom apartment. The little human Ali lives there with Dad/Jobal and Mom/Ania. Room 327.
- Ali's Apartment Tower: Apartments arranged in a circle. Clean, bright, mostly locked doors, few hiding places. Little traffic during the night.
- Eiwhyl's Clinic (Lair): Sells medpacs and other healing items and provides treatment. Warning: stabby. Room 509.
- Streets: Dirty streets, parked hovercars, shops, building entrances, street vendors, little traffic during the night.
- Maintenance Tunnels: Interconnected tunnels, small and large, going low and high. Connect various streets and buildings. Wires and pipes. Dark, dirty, with old machines constantly rumbling. Scavenger-vermin and hunters-of-vermin.
- Garbage Pit: A large room with mountains of garbage half-submerged in a sea of sludge. More garbage frequently arrives from holes in the ceiling. A monster lurks here, may pull prey underwater.
- Hydroponic Pool: A room with a large pool filled with plants. A ceiling full of bright lamps. A spherical gardener-droid takes care of the plants. Patrolled by hostile gunmen. A corridor leads to other rooms. Storage room. Processing room. Other rooms are unexplored.
- Iyran Grower Shop: A store located deeper into the tower's streets. Operated by a cephalopoid. The grower sells cheap synthetic meat, amongst other things.
Poll
1 (6.7%)
Author
Topic: Surviving in an Alien World [Suggestion Game] (Read 106882 times)