Author’s Corner: I can’t think of anything to put here today, so I’m just going to tell you that I can’t think of anything to put here today, so I’m just going to tell you that I can’t think of anything to put here today, so I’m just going to tell you to stop looking at this part and read the chapter already.

Over the course of the next few days, I decided to go ahead and awaken the psychic potential of a few key members of the crew. Specifically, the senior officers. Each of them was given the same warnings by Celeste, to make sure not to overuse their powers, and each one had to agree before I would do the ‘operation’ to give them an ability. To my surprise, there was one person who completely did not show any signs of a psychic ability, even after I modified his aura to release his latent potential.

“What does this mean?” Ackbar sits up, asking after the failed surgery.

Celeste simply shrugged her shoulders, still holding the device that was meant to scan and identify his ability. “Not everyone has the potential to become a psychic. The lower the ability of the race, the more like that is to happen. I’d say with elves… at least a third of them should have no psychic ability at all. The fact that the others all had them were surprising enough, and I was beginning to think that my data had been wrong.”

I nodded slightly, curious. “What about humans?”

“Only one percent or so of humans would have no psychic potential. As for the Ha’vosh… I doubt there is any that do not have it. After all, it is a natural trait for them.” The Deus Ex explained with a light shrug.

Ackbar, however, was simply listening to this. “Suppose this means I will not be gaining an ability then. No matter.” He stood up and promptly left the room.”

Looking back at Celeste, I couldn’t help but ask. “How has the work with the new ship and device been going?”

Celeste frowned lightly after I mentioned that. It had been a couple days yet, so the next clone body for Sharon should be nearly completed. I had also acquired a Ha’vosh body and studied it. Though, the cause of death seemed to be from a long blade or claw. What was weird was, when I asked them to check, there were no monster readings near where the Ha’vosh was taken from. Though, I suppose that there could be a Ha’vosh serial killer or something like that.

Either way, I had managed to properly acquire the aura from the dead body, and then had it sent back down where we found it. I could only hope that there wouldn’t be any diplomatic problems, and that the disappearance would not be discovered.

“The ship is going well. Its systems are all compatible with what I know of Earth technology. However, since it was crewed by only the captain, it did not qualify for the regular upgrades that the Ariadne has been getting. This puts it well behind our standards, and with it being too big for our hangar bay it has practically no value to us.”

“As for the telepathic inhibitor… That one is more difficult. I was able to design a prototype, but it has to be placed on the one using the power, not the target. Aside from that, any of the plans I have been able to come up with have either been all or nothing.”

Listening to Celeste’s explanation, I nodded my head. “Alright. Have someone get in a clone body. I’m going to see if my telepathy is weak enough as a Ha’vosh to talk to them.”

Celeste nodded, and soon one of the engineers walked into the medbay. “Officer Ariol reporting, sir.” The elf spoke, giving us a salute. We could see her already plugged into the clone controllers, so it was likely that she chose to stay in it most of the time to reduce the possible risks of her position.

“Thank you for volunteering for this, Ariol.” I smiled to the woman, who simply nodded in return. I had spoken to this individual a few times so far, and knew that she was committed to the mission of helping people, and that she had almost no sense of humor.

Closing my eyes, I began the shift into a Ha’vosh. Thankfully, this time I made sure that everything I was wearing had the adaptive enchantment, so my clothes weren’t being violently ripped off. At the same time, Celeste began ushering everyone else out of the medbay, to ensure that I didn’t accidentally send a telepathic signal to someone I didn’t mean to.

When I opened my eyes, Ariol looked so much smaller. The brunette elf was already somewhat petite, but the increased size from this body made her seem even more so. “Okay… now how to do this. Sorry if it gets you killed.” I spoke verbally, not at all surprised to find that I was able to do so. After all, the Ha’vosh we had encountered previously was able to imitate speech, so it was just that they did not have a verbal language… yet.

“Understood, Captain.” Ariol spoke, still with determination. I was surprised to find this kind of personality as an engineer, rather than a security personnel. She seems much more like a fighter. However, in her own words, ‘My skills with a wrench are superior to my skills with a weapon, so I chose the most effective position.’

Focusing, I tried to concentrate on Ariol, projecting some psychic power to her. Hello, can you hear me?

I waited for a few moments, and got no response. I debated condensing the psychic power to increase the effect, but that was just as likely to surround her head with a Toybox portal. So, I simply tried thinking louder. There was a slight twitch in Ariol’s eyes, but she still did not say anything.

“Is something wrong, officer?”

Hearing my question, she looked up at me. “I believe that I received your ‘signal’, but I was unable to hear anything.”

I thought about that, and nodded again. “Perhaps there is a trick to it, or elf minds are just bad at receiving telepathy in the first place.” Or I might just be an insanely rare Ha’vosh without telepathy. Either way, this was not a very successful experiment. I’d have to save this as a last resort if Celeste’s device did not work.

Since the experiment was over, I went ahead and changed back to my elf form, and dismissed Ariol. She gave me a brief salute and then went back to her duties. “So…” I mused to myself. “Looks like we need Sharon to convince one of the Ha’vosh to wear the inhibitor before we can establish proper communications…”

The next day, when the clones were ready, that’s exactly what we did. Once again, I was accompanying Sharon as the two of us went down to the Ha’vosh world. Perhaps because we appeared in roughly the same area that we had gone to last time, the large green people seemed surprised by our appearance.

Before any of them had a chance to ‘speak’, Sharon’s voice called out, no doubt empowered by her ability. “Be at ease. We mean no harm. However, your normal method of communication is far too powerful for our bodies to handle.” As she spoke, she pulled the inhibitor, a large circlet looking device, out of her inventory. “This is something our people made in order to weaken your powers enough for us to communicate.”

She held the item out, so that the aliens a bit over fifteen meters away could approach. However, they seemed to be looking at each other and silently conversing. Glancing at that, I couldn’t help but say under my breath, “I really hope this works.”

If we aren’t able to establish communications this time, then we are basically out of options, and will have to give up on this planet. Their deliberation lasted roughly six minutes, before a Ha’vosh wearing a long black cloak came out of the crowd. What you thought that all aliens that didn’t resemble humans would be nudists? No, they all wear clothes, some even having similar styles to Earth fashion.

The black robed Ha’vosh accepted the device, looking it over curiously. Seeing that, Sharon spoke up. “Place it on your head, and it will automatically activate.”

The Ha’vosh shook his head, making me think he was going to decline. However, he did indeed put the circlet device on his head. Maybe nods and head shakes are reversed on this planet? Can the both of you understand me now?

A roaring voice sounded in both mine and Sharon’s heads, making us grab our skulls. “Not so loud.” She says, her eyes closed tight.

Apologies. This time the voice came over more as a whisper. Looks like we have our communications method… though right now it is entirely reliant on how long Sharon can continue using the Wild Voice.

….I just had a great idea that I was now beating myself up over for having not thought of it sooner. Closing my own eyes, I searched my soul for a set of information, and copied it over to my buffer area, then sent it off to this representative Ha’vosh. Thankfully, languages use up only a very small amount of the soul, so I did not experience much of a loss.

The Ha’vosh blinked its four eyes in an uneven rhythm, looking between us. “Can… you… understand?”

New Ability UnlockedShare Language - Soul Arts -★☆

By isolating a language within your aura, you are able to share it with another sentient creature. So long as they are physically capable, they will then be able to speak it as you do.

Sharon turned to look at me. “...Why didn’t you think of doing that before…?”

“Uhm… reasons?” I looked away, unable to provide a good reason. It seemed so obvious now, okay? “Anyways… with this, we can talk, right?” I asked, looking at the Ha’vosh.

“Yes… We can… talk.” He seemed to be putting in great effort to make the words right. Likely, the mouths of the Ha’vosh were typically used for just consuming the necessities, or shouting out warnings. The fact that they did not evolve above the need for vocal chords yet is incredibly lucky for us.

“Good… though, we’d still prefer if you wear the device. That way, you don’t accidentally kill us… again.” I sighed slightly as I remembered the previous, entirely avoidable death. New ship policy when making first contact, immediately share language.

“Agreed. That would be…. Unfortunate?”

“Yes, very unfortunate. Now… to the official greetings.” I cleared my throat before speaking. “We are the crew of the Ariadne, and we come here to--”

“To inform us of the changes… and help us adapt… correct?”

...Was I just mind scanned? Or am I that predictable? Those both seem entirely possible! “Uhm… right… how?” I was beginning to sound like the Ha’vosh with how I talked…

“With language… more information. Ariadne.. Elves.. Humans? Strange…”

Oh great… so I accidentally sent more information than I planned to. “Okay… well… you weren’t supposed to know all that yet, but yeah. There goes the fun of gradual exposition.”

Sharon chuckled lightly, before talking. “Anyways. I’m guessing he didn’t accidentally send everything. And more than likely you have yet to learn how to get classes, right?”

“Information… incomplete. Knowledge there… but not entirely.” The Ha’vosh says with a shake of his head.

“Okay then… we’ll be designing a temple for you guys so that you can change classes. Oh, what is your level right now?”

“Thirty…”

…

I heard that right, right? “Uhm.. thirty…” Wow, their psychic skills must have helped them level quite a lot, even without hunting monsters. “Wow. This’ll make things easier. You know about the monsters right?”

At that, his eyes shot open, all four of them. “The mist walkers.”

“Okay… not exactly what I meant, but are there things in the mist?” I looked out at the thick fog, curiously.

The Ha’vosh shook his head. “The mist… covers the world… when the ‘system’ appeared, it became… dangerous. People… animals… suddenly dead. No sign of attacker… Cannot sense… cannot see. Shapes reported, in the dark… moving, but not there.”

Piecing broken sentences together… compiling information… “So when this all happened, monsters began appearing in this fog, which you can’t detect with your abilities. These creatures are incredibly hostile, and kill anything that they come across.”

“Correct.”

Well, that explains the Ha’vosh we found dead. They can even hide from our ship’s scanners. How the hell are we supposed to find them?! “We can help.. I hope. But first, the temple. It will make it easier to keep out monsters. As for the ones already here… we’ll come up with something.”