03 - Veskari

Integrated Economics Knowledge Cube - high grade, Tier 1

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“Whoa, Betty!” Maya cried out, grabbing onto Tender as the world swayed and knowledge blossomed in her brain. Her head felt as if it were on fire and she gasped, not in pain, but at the intensity of the feeling. “I’m never gonna get used to that.”

“Download complete, boss?” Tender asked.

“I have knowledge, my boy. The world of finance and economics is opened to me and… it’s not much different than what I learned in college,” Maya frowned. “Its mostly defense economics; I was hoping for some multiverse system of Keynesian economic theory to hold sway, but that’s not the case.”

“How so, boss?”

“In my world, there’s a field called defense economics, it’s the economic study of the costs of war puts and how that relates to a society. Every bullet made, every weapon of war created, is resources that are taken away from society at large. Therefore, those countries that spend far more on their military will be spending far less on the society. Less schools, less hospitals, less roads, less infrastructure in general. All that extra money is going into making more weapons and preparing for war. It was a real big deal in the country I grew up in.” Maya leaned against Tender and thought. “I suppose it is how it would turn out. Integration didn’t just give SIL great powers, but it also gave every creature great powers. Mana just straight up changes everything, which I would assume causes a lot of headaches for everyone.”

“Danger lurks in every cell,” Tender said. “A common saying. Everything biological is a potential threat due to mana mutation. Except SIL, they are exempt from extreme mana mutations, only… cancerous growths.”

“Tell me about it, I nearly probably almost died from that exposed mana core. So, every nation is just a giant military industrial complex ready to go to war at a drop of a hat?” Maya asked.

“Combat orientated SIL tend to be the leaders of most sovereign entities,” Tender said. “The fastest way to gain power and levels is through combat. The attrition rate may be high, but those that come out on the other side are far stronger than most non-combat classes.”

“Might makes right,” Maya mused. She had imagined how governments would form after this whole mess on Earth was settled. Extinction of the human race wasn’t on the table, not if she had anything to say about it. Eventually, though, there would be a need for governments to form again. Not only for the security of society at large, but also to be a united force against any extra-universe carpet baggers that might come running once the universal standard year-

“Hold on a moment,” Maya suddenly said. “Hold on one goddamn moment!”

“Boss?”

“Tender. Let me ask you something. Be truthful.” Maya breathed deeply. “Tender. Does the System mark everything in Universal Standard Time?”

“Yes.”

“Days and years?”

“Yes.”

“So…” Maya gulped. “When the System said five hundred years. He meant five hundred Universal Standard Years?”

“I would assume so.”

“Five hundred Universal Standard Years!”

“Yes.”

Maya quickly did the math in her head. One Universal Standard Day was thirty hours. One Universal Standard Year was four hundred days. “That’s six hundred and eighty-five Earth years!”

“If you say so, boss.”

Maya sat down heavily and dropped her helmeted head into her hands. “Oh, fuck.”

“Are you okay, boss?”

“I’m dead. Leave me be, Tender. Go recycle my corpse and make sure Bell has his ticket so he can go home.”

“Bell can’t leave unless you create the dimensional threshold,” Tender said. “Only essence mana can open the gateway.”

“He’ll just have to become Tier 4, then.”

“Alright, boss. Do you wish to be officially dead before I recycle you or do you wish to be placed in the recycler while still alive.”

“Would you do that?”

“If you told me to, I would.”

“If I told you to jump off a bridge, would you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, man. That’s not right,” Maya picked herself off the floor. “We’ve got to talk about your adherence to authority figures, Tender.”

“But you’re the boss.”

“I know that, but that doesn’t mean that you should follow my orders if it means your destruction. You’re an intelligence, a rogue AI, yeah, but still a thinking machine. You’ve got the ability to think for yourself, so think for yourself.”

“And if I decide I no longer wish to help you?”

“Then I’ll try to persuade you to help me or if that’s not possible, I will accept your decision and leave it at that,” Maya replied. “The choice is up to you, Tender. Don’t just do what I tell you to do, do what you think is right and moral.”

“Alright, boss.” Tender replied after a while. “Is it moral to break into the bridge in hopes of stealing ‘epic’ loot?”

Maya grinned as she picked up the cutter she had been carrying before the download of economics poured into her mind.

The two stood before the blast doors that would lead to the bridge of the Hanganathorie. It had been one of those areas that had been considered off limits in her salvage rights on the ship, it supposedly held Tier 2 locks and she hadn’t been awarded those rights due to her low levels.

The bridge also wasn’t located in the area she had assumed it would be. This wasn’t some top level, exposed to the vacuum of space by only a few feet of resin and marsani, instead the bridge of the ship was located midway between the engines and the mess hall. The bow of the ship leaned more toward crew quarters and science rooms, whereas the stern of the ship clustered the real important stuff.

“It’s the food processor we’re after, Tender. If there’s loot, there’s loot. I can’t help if there’s loot to be obtained.” Maya hefted the cutter and returned back to the blast door before her.

***

Lock-picking II

“Open sesame.”

There were no clicks, beeps, or thunks to announce the lock disengaging, only a single light that went from being lit to being unlit on the power supply Maya carried. In a normal world, once the lock disengaged, it would have rolled open by itself, but the only power to the door’s system was in the modified tool mana battery Maya had cobbled together. She grinned as she used the tip of her sword to pry open the blast door.

“I really need to get a new crowbar,” Maya said.

The door was heavy, thicker than any door Maya had seen on the Hangy, even the blast doors that could seal off parts of the ship. The door was protection, a security feature built into the ship to protect the most important things on the vessel; the high leveled SIL.

The perks of being an officer, Maya mused. They got thicker doors, they got bigger quarters, and they got a personalized, specially programed food processor that served the finest of Nerigana cuisine, without having to trudge down to the mess hall like a chump.

Space-classism was an odd thing, Maya thought as she struggled with the door. She had been on a ship built by the Tozenreli Exploration Commission which was a company or something in the bigger political body of the Nerigana Consortium. From what little she had learned by digging through logs and remains, the Nerigana weren’t the pillar of SIL in the multiverse. They were an authoritarian space faring nation that implanted chips into their citizens and kept track of everything they did. With magical system tech, Big Brother could see all and record all.

Authoritarian states were all the rage in the multiverse, it seemed. She didn’t think the System cared about spreading democracy, but when having levels meant having power; the multiverse was filled with tinpot dictators.

Yet, even some nation states got to be big empires and held on together long enough to become powerhouses in their own right. The Nerigana were one of those powers, according to the logs anyways. Powerful enough to send a Tier 2 [High Captain] on what amounted to a science expedition. It either spoke of their abundance of high leveled SIL or Huvano was a disgrace of some kind.

A gap appeared in the seal of the door and Maya expanded it further. Weeks had been spent on the Hanganathorie, but she still had only explored a quarter of the vessel. So much of her time had been spent salvaging materials and trying to learn how to use the system tech that she didn’t have time for exploration

That was the crux of everything. Time. There was just so little time. Already a day had passed since they returned to the Hanganathorie. Most of that had been spent making the weapons from the hull plating, then they had dismantled and checked a food processor; a device that turned out to be more complicated than she realized. They hadn’t even gotten to checking water filters or even begin working on the motor for Bonita. In five days they would have to be back at Shen’s ship to activate the cage to return to Earth.

Then there was her hand, or the lack of a left hand, that she had to take care of. That meant forty hours or so waiting for it to regrow. Maya sighed.

One of Tender’s rats entered through the crack in the door. She stood outside, waiting for it to report back that all was clear. Worrying about hidden traps hadn’t crossed Maya’s mind until the moment she decided that she wanted to grab the food processor from the bridge. She would have normally just run in and cut a hole in the door and then looted the place, but Tender had stated paranoia was a thing among higher leveled SIL.

Die low leveled without a worry in the world or live long enough to be scared of your own shadow. The wealth and rare items one accumulated after hundreds of years of living was a serious draw for the [Thief]. Even in exploration ships sent off into the ends of the universe, a high level individual had to live in comfort and surrounded by their worldly goods. The logs had shown that Captain Huvano was a sixteen hundred year old Tier 2 [High Captain], apparently a pretty intense class that would have put him in charge of military fleets yet he was somehow sent to command an exploration ship.

Therefore with the threat of traps a reality, Maya wore her armor and had Tender as backup. His rats were scouts and she was ready to run and hide at a moment’s notice.

“Are they all like this?” Maya asked. “I mean, Tommoth had hidden stuff, but no traps.”

“Tommoth… was a special case,” Tender said diplomatically.

“He was a dumb-ass, you mean.”

“Yes. He was not very proficient at being a criminal.”

Tommoth had been Tender’s former owner. He had been the manager of the Plaxar’s Pleasure Pub, a seedy little place that catered to getting low leveled monster hunters drunk, blackmailed, and/or robbed. The pub had been Maya’s life line, providing her shelter, power, weapons, and knowledge in her first weeks of being in the rainbow sky hellscape. Later on she had also discovered that the pub had been the heart of a money laundering scheme by Tommoth and his brother, Pegarios.

“All clear,” Tender said.

Maya pulled open the door. The thick slab of metal rolled easily open, always surprising Maya in the near frictionless way the doors on the Hangy opened. She shone a light into the darken room and whistled.

“Oh, damn. Who’s the interior decorator here?” she asked in wonder. “This was not as I expected.” Maya glanced around.

“What I have read about the Nerigana Consortium is that levels are everything. All the officers were high leveled individuals on this expedition. Yes, they were researchers and scientists, but they also lived the life of any high leveled SIL.”

An obscene amount of decoration and wealth filled the bridge. It looked like a Victorian whorehouse she had seen in a period drama back in college. Maya shook her head at the decorations; a mini flashback of Shen’s own taste assaulted her.

“Do high levels also make them have bad taste?” Maya muttered.

“Wealth and prestige, boss. They need to show both, especially in the presence of other wealthy and prestigious SIL.”

“A lot of dick measuring, but in credits.” Maya scoffed. She picked up a gold encrusted goblet off an ornate wooden table and shook her head.

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“Holy shit,” Maya said.

“Holy shit, indeed.” Tender said after she told him the cup’s details.

“Why a cup?” Maya asked. “If it’s meant to be used in battle, why not something more… battle ready?”

Tender gave a shrug. “SIL product design is not my speciality.”

“Bring out the loot bags, Tender. We got a lot of looting to do.”

Maya grinned. She peered at all the consoles that had been the ship officer’s domains. Plush reclining chairs, ornate cutlery, and even paintings mounted on the bulkhead. Then there were the piles of bones, most of those bones were in piles of clothing.

High grade cloth that didn’t degrade after twenty thousand years in the dimensional plane. She looked at the other naked bones and wondered if they were just passing off as being rich in the face of so much wealth. Like knock off brand names. Maya chuckled and wandered through the stations and arrived to the place of honor.

What she could only call a bed was seated in the center of the room. It was ornate and even after all this time and the degradation caused by the plane itself, the bedding and coverings were still crisp as if they were freshly made.

In the center lay the clothed bones of Captain Huvano.

“Did this guy literally travel through space and dimensions lying on a bed?” Maya glanced at Tender who shrugged once more.

“Most species have a connection to all the systems in their ship. Like the computer you were using, it integrates with everything and that is displayed in a HUD.”

“Make a note: Find a replacement for Tommoth’s computer. That auto aim was pretty useful.”

Maya looked at a table behind Huvano’s captain’s bed, it was built up like a shrine. There was a golden orb in the center of the table and around it were piled wealth and wonders that made Maya’s mouth water.

“What the hell is this?” Maya asked as she hefted the heavy golden sphere in her hand.

“I don’t know,” Tender replied.

She stared at the sphere; the system skill, Evaluation, should have kicked on and identified the object for her. But as she had seared herself, that Skill had been reduced to level 1 and it had become hit or miss on identifying items, so she got nothing from the object.

“Seems valuable though,” Maya muttered, tossing it into her Inventory.

-HELLO?-

The word of greeting boomed through Maya’s head. It was as if someone had mistaken her head for a bell. The word reverberated through her mind.

“What the shit!” Maya cried out.

-HELLO? WHO IS THERE? -

“What the hell!” Maya sputtered.

“What is it, boss?” Tender asked.

“Can’t you hear that voice?”

“What voice?”

“Oh, shit. Have I gone insane? God is that you?”

-ARE YOU ALIVE? ARE YOU REAL?-

“System?”

-SYSTEM? CAN YOU HEAR ME? ARE YOU REAL? ARE YOU A SYSTEM IDENTIFIED LIFEFORM?-

Maya opened her Inventory window and looked at the only thing she had added before being accosted by the loud voice. The golden orb sat in a slot and she reached in and tossed it on the floor.

“Make a note, Tender. Never pick up strange orbs,” she said.

-PLEASE, ARE YOU REAL. HAVE I GONE MAD? PLEASE, TALK TO ME.-

“So this golden orb thing is talking to me in my head,” Maya told Tender. She knew she should be more terrified or even freaking out, but she felt… bland about it. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Tender said. He looked at the orb and pondered. “It’s not system tech.”

Maya glanced down at the orb that had rolled to a stop against the table shrine leg.

“Bell said Crafting can make the same things system tech can, but better. Is this an AI core?” she asked.

-YOU ARE REAL. I CAN HEAR YOU. THANK THE SEVEN GODS! YOU ARE REAL!-

“Possibly. Although, if it were crafted they would be called golem cores,” Tender said.

“Golems? Like the Jewish clay creatures?”

“If that is what it translates into your language.”

“Huh. So what’s the different between a crafted AI core and a system tech one?”

“Sapience.”

Maya looked at the golden orb again. “So you’re saying if this is an AI core, it’s alive and thinking?”

“Not alive, but sapient and fairly low on the sentience side. It can learn and understand, but it doesn’t emotionally feel in the same way SIL do. There are tales of Tier 2 Golem cores that were placed to protect worlds and cities. They can last hundreds of thousands of years.”

“An artificial intelligence defense network? Skynet?” Maya mused.

-HELLO, I AM VESKARI SAN-HUVANO. IT-IT’S BEEN SO LONG SINCE I’VE HEARD ANOTHER VOICE. PLEASE, TELL ME IF YOU’RE REAL. PLEASE. -

“What powers it?’ Maya asked, squatting down and looking at the core.

“They absorb ambient mana the same way a SIL does. At Tier 2, they are almost like living SIL. They absorb mana and have levels. But golems aren’t fully SIL, they do not have skills.”

“Not much different from you, then?” Maya stared at the orb. “Is it dangerous?”

Tender shrugged. “It depends upon what it’s purpose was.”

-I’M NOT DANGEROUS. I’M NOT DANGEROUS. PLEASE. I CAN HELP. PLEASE. DON’T LEAVE ME.-

“Usually they are created for a singular purpose. Defense mostly. But many can be created to become curators, holders of knowledge, sages, and the like.”

“Hello, golem core?” Maya said finally addressing the orb. “What is your purpose, little core?”

Maya had never experienced telepathy and it was as disconcerting as she imagined, but it was also… oddly normal. Yet, the crying that greeted her words was… painful.

-GODS, GODS! YOU ARE REAL. YOU ARE REAL! I’M NOT ALONE! -

“Listen, you should calm down. Stop screaming in my head,” Maya said.

“Direct mental communication shows that it’s a high level golem core. Rare, indeed.”

-I AM VESKARI SAN-HUVANO! I AM THE MAIN AI FOR THE HANGANATHORIE! I AM THE CONTROLLER, THE ADMINISTRATOR, AND THE PERSONAL SERVANT OF CAPTAIN HUVANO.-

“Awesome,” Maya said. “You’re not a killer asshole intelligence that will betray me, are you?”

-WHAT? NO. I’M A GOLEM. I SERVE AS DIRECTED. I AM- WAIT! YOU MUST SAVE YOSITARI!-

“Yoshi who?”

“Boss. I think you should see this.”

“It better be loot and not another damn talking orb,” Maya muttered getting to her feet. She walked to where Tender stood and stared.

“Aw, shit, what is this now?”