Let Eiwhyl know when she wakes what we learned last night-- most importantly, that we don't need the fire of other creatures to spark our own. She'll like that.
Oh now that I think of it... be sure at some point to spend some quality time with Eiwhyl in general. We've a dragon-juice bottle to crack open, after all!
As you are waiting for your food to warm up, Eiwhyl walks in. You approach her and rub your head on her side. You're used to her not petting you back most of the time, but this time she seems downright annoyed.
"Oh, what, feeling guilty for blowing me off yesterday?"Ah. Yes. That. In your exhaustion you forgot all about that.
"Sorry."She continues on her way, as if she hadn't heard you.
"I was very tired." you continue explaining while following her.
She pours herself a glass of water and continues paying no attention to you.
"I managed to use magic."Eiwhyl chokes, spits out the water and begins coughing.
"You what?""I managed to generate inner fire by burning myself. Like you said I did when I flew back here.""Why would you do that?""Because Ali said killing is bad. I wanted to see how easy it would be to use magic without killing."That gives her pause.
"Oh."For a few seconds it looks like she's uncertain about what emotion she should have. She eventually settles on anger.
"That still doesn't make it okay. Next time at least tell me before you go and do something like that."It's your turn to stay silent. The silence is broken by the beeping of the food-warming machine letting you know that its work is done. It's not that you don't know what you want to say, it's more that you don't know what the best way to say it is, the way that will get her to be less angry.
"You would had said no.""I would had told you to stay here!" she responds, somehow even more annoyed than before.
"Not everything can be found here.""I can-""And here are valuable things, things I care about. I don't want to hurt you if I make a mistake."She has nothing to say in response to that.
"And... how did it go?" she asks after a few seconds of silence.
"I couldn't control it. It hurt a lot." "Of course it did, you dummy.""I thought maybe I could use the heat from hot drinks, convert it into my fire."She snorts and smiles, as if you tried to do something everyone else knows is stupid. It's your turn to be annoyed.
"You're the one that said you don't know how this works! Trying-""Alright, alright! You're right." she says, showing you her palms in an appeasing gesture, though it takes a few more seconds for her smile to fade. You swish your tail to show your annoyance and look away.
"Look...""Where?""No. 'Look.' It's a figure of speech.""Oh. What does it mean?""It means 'Listen'.""That's weird. Why not just say 'Listen' then?""Because..."She spends a second looking for an answer but then waves her hand dismissively.
"Loo- Listen. I understand why you did what you did. You had the right idea, even if you didn't go about it in the best way possible. I only ask that you let me know before you try something like that again. I can't do my job if you don't tell me everything. Do you understand?""Yes.""Good."A few seconds of awkward silence follow. Thankfully, after a while the food-warming machine beeps once again to remind you of the food waiting inside it, giving you an excuse to walk away. You go back to preparing your food (a habit you've picked up since you started living here) and Eiwhyl goes back to her work.
As you work, you continue thinking about what you should do. Hmm... You'll have time to focus on the future another day. You decide that today you should focus on the present instead. On Eiwhyl. She's always working hard, hardly ever rests. And she's been working even harder for you, despite the fact that she has no obligation to do so. You should help her rest. A few days of rest will do her good. You can take care of most things until then, only bother her with things you can't figure out on your own.
...
It took some convincing to get Eiwhyl to give you another shift. It didn't take long to figure out why. On the first day she kept following you around, double checking everything you did. It got annoying very quickly. On the second day she went through two datapads and had to force herself to stop for fear of running out of reading material. On the third day she reorganized the entire storage room. You had to relearn where everything is. On the fourth day you managed to convince her to go outside and actually stay there for a while, instead of the short supply runs she makes from time to time. You don't know what she did out there but after she got back she actually went to sleep until the next morning, which was a relief. You were starting to think she was incapable of relaxing.
This proved a successful tactic, the next few days she went on several short shopping trips, the trips and her fussing over her new purchases being enough to keep her busy. But then she must have run out of things to purchase, so it was back to trying to find things to do. You know she didn't run out of credits, you've caught glimpses of how many she keeps in that vaultbox of hers whenever she needs to pay for new medical equipment. You suggested she should buy a holovision but she says she doesn't like watching it (what madness!). You suggested she should go visit Ali and play with her, that's always enjoyable for you, but she refused again (though not with the same passion she refused the holovision, you might be able to make her go with a bit more convincing).
In the end, you have to admit that she wants... well, it's not exactly that she
wants to work all the time, you think it's more that she
needs something to occupy herself with and there's only certain things she's willing (or able) to do. Sitting around doing nothing seems maddening for her. You don't understand but you can relate. You've felt the overpowering urge to do something too, when you were trapped in Ali's apartment, though probably for different reasons.
Whatever the cause, just having more free time does not necessarily equate to more rest for her. Until you can think of something else, you're probably better off just letting her work like she did and only give her occasional brakes when she looks like she needs it. You wonder why she even let you do that in the first place, if she knew it was going to make her feel like that. Hmm. Or maybe she didn't?
...
One night you wake up to find Ali's scent in the examination area. When you ask her about it Eiwhyl lets you know her father brought her in for a check-up that afternoon. That's frustrating. You wish she'd woken you up. It's not like you don't see Ali often, but she's never gotten to see you working. You feel robbed of the pride you'd have felt showing off what you can do to her. And maybe her parents would like you better if they saw you working here.
Eiwhyl said Ali's doing fine, perfectly healthy, though she notes she could use a bit more variety in her food. The two of them talked when they were alone in the examination room, Eiwhyl let her know you're doing fine as well. You ask if she said anything to her father about you but Eiwhyl responds that it's not her place to do so. Hmph. Maybe it should be.
...
On your last day of working two shifts Eiwhyl surprises you by bringing out the bottle of Dragonjuice. It's been a slow day today, the clinic is almost empty, which is probably why she's willing to do so with you. The two of you lie down on the floor of her room, your backs resting on her bed. The drink is... nice. It's not hot, but it has a wonderful taste, enough to mask the tingling sensation it gives you as it goes down your throat. Eiwhyl appears to be enjoying it as well, though she's not drinking as quickly as you are.
...
You remember singing songs together in a language you don't know. Some sort of game where you ask questions and sing and drink, though you don't remember the details. You remember colors. Beautiful colors, all around. Burning brightly inside Eiwhyl. Inside you. Feeling like flying. Like gravity has gone crazy. Then you fall and it ends.
...
You wake up. The pain makes you wish you hadn't. Why must your head hurt so much? You must have drunk more. This can't be all from a single bottle, can it? Every little noise makes it worse. The light too. You feel like you should just crawl in a dark quiet corner and stay there.
What's worse, you get the feeling Eiwhyl's taking pleasure in your misery and the fact that she appears to not be feeling the same pain. When you ask her how that's possible, she says
"It's a secret." while smiling. Ugh. So annoying. You bet she has some sort of wonder-medicine that will remove the pain and she's keeping it from you. But when you ask for something for the pain, she refuses, saying
"you should experience your first time in full" and
"it's a learning experience" and
"just drink a lot of water, you'll be fine". You're not sure if she's being serious or if she's having fun at your expense.
At least you can take comfort in the fact that you finally managed to sleep on Eiwhyl's bed, though you aren't sure if it's because she was unwilling to move you after you passed out or because she was unable to.
Item gained: 100 credits Status gained: hungover Age: some months (wyrmling)
Size: about the size of a human (if bipedal)
Status: hungover
Health: fine
Weapons: claws and teeth
Armor: scales
Abilities:
- Flight: You can glide in order to survive falls and quickly move great distances. You can even fly upwards, though not for very long distances. You can use favorable winds and updrafts to increase your flight 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.
- Magic: You can cause supernatural effects, though doing so consciously and with any level of control is hard. You know of some of the effects you can cause, but there might be more you have yet to discover or unlock. See Magic section for more details.
Inner Fire: Ashes
- Burn Self: Gain a level in hunger or tiredness and in exchange gain a level of Inner Fire.
- Sense Inner Fire: You can sense the inner fire of other beings, allowing you to detect most living things in your surroundings. This also gives you an indication of the danger they could pose and the amount of fire you could gain from consuming them.
Cost: Minor - Cleansing: Direct your inner fire to a part of your body to cleanse a debilitating status effect.
Cost: Low-Medium - Fiery Strength: Direct your inner fire to your muscles and bones, granting you supernatural strength.
Cost: Medium
- 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:
- 576 credits (5 orange, 11 blue, 7 red, 4 grey, 6 cyan, 4 pink)
- 2 packs of smoke sticks
- small can of droid oil
- small metal toolbox
- Warm blanket
- Datacard with human medical information
- Datacard with human language dictionary
- Datacard with dragon info compilation
- Datacard with story about hunter of dragons
- small glass statue of bird
- Pack with plastoid tape modifications (dropped in hallway)
- Large hooded cloak
- Half-used medpac
- Purse with credit-reader:
- 235 credits (2 orange, 6 blue, 1 red, 1 grey)
- 55 slightly burnt credits (1 blue, 1 red, 5 grey)
- half-used roll of plastoid tape
- flashlight
- pack of smoke sticks
- lighter
- keycard with symbol
- 2 stun grenades
- 2 fog? grenades
- 1
grenade - 2 grenade thrower mines
- 1 medpack
- 1 bottle with red liquid and unreadable label
- Basic Datapad (contains datacard with encrypted files)
- 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.
- Upscale Cafe: A small place with tasty but somewhat expensive food and hot drinks. The bartender is nice but the waiter droid is annoying.
- Upscale Streets: A section of the tower mimicking a suburban neighborhood, including a fake sun. Most buildings guarded.
Poll
1 (6.7%)
Author
Topic: Surviving in an Alien World [Suggestion Game] (Read 106627 times)