When Eilif next awoke he was in a small room, laying on a padded bench that seemed to be attached to the wall. A quick look around showed him a white room, the only features of which were the bench, a basin with attached spigot, and a much larger basin with a hole in the top that he assumed was for relieving himself. Finally, one corner was walled off with some form of transparent substance, creating a box with two knobs on the wall and a pipe hanging down from above.

Looking down at himself, his clothes were all one piece, also in white. Rolling up the sleeve he found that someone had stitched and bandaged the wounds on his arm, and gentle probing of his face revealed someone had done the same there. His eye was similarly covered by the bandages, but by the way it felt when he probed it, the socket was now empty. Given the lack of pain, he assumed he’d been given something.

Eilif looked up as unintelligible syllables seemed to emanate from the ceiling. He was certain it was a language, as they had a cadence and rhythm to them, however the words were entirely without meaning to the youth. Shaking his head, Eilif was about to simply ignore the noise, when he recalled the shard he’d slotted just before passing out. With a brief bit of hesitation he activated Knowledge of Languages, and he felt a sixth of his stored energy leave him.

The words… were still mostly gibberish. However, they now were identifiable as words, not just meaningless syllables strung together. He activated the power again and once more the distinctions became clearer. With the third activation he suddenly found himself in possession of a few words, such as ‘you’, ‘I’, ‘yes’, and ‘no’. After several seconds of what seemed to be the same phrases repeated over and over again the voice from the ceiling stopped.

After a few minutes of waiting for anything else to happen, Eilif looked around the cell again. Nothing had changed, and that meant there was nothing to occupy his time except his own thoughts and the slowly growing pain of his wounds. It appeared whatever they had given him was beginning to wear off. With a resigned sigh, he laid back down on the bench and tried to go back to sleep.

The next few days passed in slow, torturous agony for Eilif. While they did feed him on a timely schedule, they neglected to give him anything for the ongoing pain of his wounds or as entertainment. Within the first day he’d explored the limits of his cell. The wash basin and the chamber pot were as he expected, although their ability to fill with water on demand was an unlooked-for luxury. Further, the transparent box in the corner proved to be similar in that it could simulate a downpour of rain. Eilif had quickly figured out that its intended use was to wash oneself.

After that short exploration there had been nothing to take his mind off either the pain, or his thoughts of the last few days. As he sat in the silence, he constantly found his mind wandering to the disastrous first day, replaying the events over and over again. Each time thinking of something he could have done different, some tactic he might have employed. It mattered not that most scenarios required skills or tools he didn’t have, all that mattered was that there must have been something he could have done differently.

The voice in the ceiling spoke exactly three times daily, each time preceded a slot in the door opening and a metal tray of food being slid through. The food was edible, but strange. Bread that was snowy white, cured meats sliced thin, a strange cheese-like substance that had a smooth, almost artificial texture. The tastes were different as well, mostly unpalatable, but whether that was because the food was bad, or simply alien he couldn’t tell.

Each time the voice spoke he used Knowledge of Languages all six times, and each time he came that much closer to understanding what was being said. Eilif had considered at first that maybe he should save his energy and try to fight his way out. However, a memory of the people in black had stayed his hand. Even if he did manage to get out the door, he’d be empty of starlight after his third blast. It was better to wait and hope his captors could be reasoned with. By the third day he could run together a simple sentence and he strung broken words together to make a short plea.

“Speak more,” was all he said.

There were perhaps ten minutes of silence, and he began to think that maybe the ceiling voice hadn’t heard him, then it began speaking again. As the sometimes-garbled, sometimes-clear words washed over him Eilif sat back and started listening intently, glad to have anything that would take him out of his own head. Better, with each passing hour he gained enough starlight to use Knowledge of Languages three times

By the end of the fourth day his comprehension had improved by leaps and bounds. No longer was he listening to a stream of partial gibberish. Instead, he found he was listening to some sort of story about a man named Westly, a princess named Buttercup, and an evil ruler named Humperdinck. Unfortunately, there seemed to be only about two and a half hours of content to the story, which was replaying on a loop. Worse, it didn’t even end well, which felt like a huge letdown.

Waking up on the fifth day he checked and found that once again his bandages had been changed. It seemed that whenever he went to sleep they had some way of keeping him out. This was disconcerting, but no more so than being trapped in a room with no way out. After breakfast the story resumed right where it had left off last night, and Eilif let out a weary sight. Still, he was almost certain he had a working grasp of the language now, there was very little in the story he couldn’t understand or puzzle out. Perhaps, then, it was time to see what his captors wanted?

Moving to the center of the room, Eilif looked up at the place from which the ceiling spoke. “What do you want?” He asked wearily.

Almost immediately the narration ceased and the room fell silent. Then, after perhaps fifteen minutes a new voice spoke. “Return to your cot, sit, and prepare to comply with security personnel. We’ll be transferring you shortly.”

Hesitantly, Eilif returned to the bench he slept on. Calling it a cot was a bit of a stretch, but he wasn’t in a mood to argue. No sooner had he sat than the door of his cell slid open, revealing three black clad people. This time they didn’t have the visors, revealing them to be two men and a woman, all human. Two of them leveled tiny boxes at Eilif, and the third approached slowly with a set of thin manacles. After reaching the halfway point in the room, the lead man threw the manacles on to the bench next to Eilif.

“Put those on,” he said, “and don’t try any of that flashy magic crap.”

Slowly and carefully Eilif closed the manacles around his own wrists, he then held them up to show his compliance.

“Good, I’ll be leading, you’ll be following, and my associates will be following you. Try anything and you’re dead. Got it?” the man asked forcefully.

“Yes,” Eilif replied, his voice passive even as he stood from the bench. The two boxes smoothly followed him.

The man exited the cell and Eilif followed. They then continued down a series of corridors until they reached another door. Once more the door slid aside, this time to reveal a much more spacious room filled with curious devices and implements on carts, all set against the walls. The floor was, like everywhere else, smooth stone, but where in the corridor and his cell it was unblemished, here there were drains set into it, mostly around the uncomfortable looking chair in the middle of the room. The far wall of the room was made entirely of glass, and Eilif could see that beyond it was another room containing seats for dozens of people, many of which were already filled with a variety of humans, all of which wore long white coats with little badges attached to them.

Humans weren’t a rare sight on Soria, in fact Eilif himself was human. However, humans were just one of dozens of races that populated the world. Despite their superficial differences, such as eye, hair, and skin color, the people beyond the glass were to a person, human. There were no Catkin nor Orcs, nor kobolds, or even the dreaded elves. Just normal, everyday humans.

Eilif sent a nervous glance to the man who’d led him here, only to receive a stony look in return. The man gestured for him to enter the room, so he did.

“Sit in the operating chair,” the man said without preamble.

Eilif did as instructed. The man moved forward and un-cuffed Eilif, then strapped him into the chair, making sure the restraints were too tight for slippage.

“W-why do you have a chair for restraining people?” Eilif asked, almost scared of the answer.

“Because some people need to be restrained. Obviously,” came a cultured voice from the doorway.

Eilif, who could no longer turn his head due to the restraints, had to wait several moments for the new woman to come into view. She was tall, well dressed, and wore pair of small spectacles along with the ubiquitous white coat and a pair of gloves made of some thin, white material. The badge on her breast said ‘J. Whitehaven’. As he watched, she walked over to one of the trays and picked up a tube with a sharp, long needle on one end. Grabbing up a small vial of some kind she used the needle to extract a clear fluid, then tapped the tube several times. Then, seeming satisfied, she moved back to Eilif.

“Just a little something to help with the pain of your wounds,” she said as she pushed up his left sleeve, swabbed his forearm, and then stabbed him with the needle.

The contents of the tube quickly emptied into his arm as she depressed the plunger. At first there was a burning sensation, but it quickly dissipated. Whitehaven turned and put the needle down on the tray from whence it’d came. She then moved a rolling stool in front of Eilif and sat down, crossing one leg over the other and then resting her hands upon it.

“Now,” she said, “why don’t we start with something easy. For instance, What’s your name?”

“Eilif,” he replied, watching her warily through his one remaining eye.

“A good start. Now, Eilif, why don’t you tell us what you were doing in the forest all alone?” She asked.

Eilif looked away, the dull burn of shame slowly creeping up on him once more. How could he tell her that he was running away, that he was a coward who had fled once the going got too tough? The silence stretched on for a long moment. The woman frowned slightly.

“Were you scouting maybe? Getting the lay of the land? Were you separated from your group?” the woman began as she watched him carefully, then she shook her head. “No, you don’t have any weapons, and some of that blood was clearly not your own… Was your group defeated? No, but something is there isn’t there,” she continued, clearly having seen something in Eilif’s face. “A… a survivor of an attack? Ah, that’s it, there it is. You’re the survivor of an attack, and you ran,” she said finally, and Eilif’s face was clearly all the confirmation she needed.

“What attacked you?” she asked next, almost gently.

Eilif considered his reply, he didn’t have a direct word translation, so he decided to describe the creature instead. “Giant flying reptile, four legs, giant wings, needle breath weapon,” he said succinctly.

Whitehaven took a few seconds to parse that, then lifted her hand to a device attached to one ear, as if she was securing it. “My colleagues suggest the word, ‘dragon’, does that sound right?” she asked.

With the sound of the word the context of its meaning instantly snapped into focus and Eilif found himself nodding. “A dragon,” he confirmed.

“A dragon killed your… group?” she asked.

“Our village,” Eilif said, his single eye stinging even as his throat began to ache.

Whitehaven nodded. “Can you tell me how many people were in your village Eilif?”

Eilif looked at the woman with momentary resistance. What did he owe this woman who held him captive and strapped him to a chair just to ask questions? But as he looked at her that resistance crumbled. What did it matter what he told her? There was no one to harm by answering her questions. Besides, weren’t they sent as guides for people of this world? Perhaps he could still be some use to the gods. “There were one hundred and nineteen others,” he said quietly. “All volunteers to teach your people.”

Whitehaven seemed taken aback and he could see several of the seated people speaking to each other. “What do you mean when you say they volunteered to teach us?” she asked.

“Your people have no knowledge of the stars or starlight. The integration is to bring starlight to your world, and we volunteered to leave our homes and teach you how to use it, and about the gods that govern it,” Eilif explained.

“And there were no other reasons to come to our world?” She asked skeptically.

Eilif looked away, feeling guilty and ashamed. He’d been more interested in the battles to come, the glory that could be had, and the constellations that could be won. “No,” he admitted softly. “Integrations mean that there are new monsters to face, new dungeons to be found, new shards to be collected, and great deeds to be performed.”

The woman picked up a slim, black rectangle from a nearby try and tapped on it several times. “There’s a lot to unpack there, Eilif. But why don’t we start at the beginning. What is ‘starlight’.”

“Starlight is the energy of the stars, it flows along the contours of a world creating streams, rivers, and lakes with their own currents and eddies. Starlight is used to fuel magic items and devices, and can use to fuel the gifts given to people by their shards and constellations,” Eilif expounded, grateful he hadn’t been asked what group he fell into.

“Interesting. Why didn’t we have this energy before the ‘integration’?” Whitehaven inquired.

“Because your world wasn’t shaped right. It has to have certain features of terrain to properly collect starlight,” Eilif said, grateful that he’d actually paid attention to the introductory lessons.

“Can you tell me what those features are?” the woman asked.

“Large shallow basins surrounded on all sides by mountains with connections to high valleys where the starlight can collect and then flow out of,” he rattled off the answer.

Whitehaven nodded her head as she tapped the black box again. “How does the size of the basin effect collection of starlight?”

“I…,” Eilif hesitated, he didn’t remember this part, if it had even been explained. “I don’t know,” he said finally.

“I see,” the woman replied, sounding ever so slightly disappointed. “Can you tell me how to use starlight?”

“Everyone gathers starlight based on their shards. A level one shard gathers an infinitesimal amount of power every hour, each shard level doubles the amount of power gathered. So, a level two shard would allow you to gather a negligible amount of power, and a level three shard would let you gather a minor amount of power, and so on. It can also be used by some magic items, but most have to be powered by the user.” Eilif explained.

Whitehaven paused in her tapping, her fingers seeming to hesitate. “What do you mean by ‘infinitesimal’, ‘negligible’, and ‘minor’? What do those represent?”

“That’s the scale of power; infinitesimal, negligible, minor, weak, mild, moderate, strong, intense, potent, substantial, extreme, supreme, ultimate,” he said. “Each is twice as strong as the previous rank.”

The woman slowly tapped into her device, a mild look of exasperation on her face. “And these aren’t quantified any other way? No numbers or other indicators of strength?”

Eilif’s brow furrowed in confusion. “No, what else would we need?” he asked, his eyes straying to the glass once more. Several of the people on the other side looked annoyed and a few were glaring at him as if he’d given them a personal insult. “Why do they look so upset?”

Whitehaven just shook her head and looked vaguely displeased. “We are used to working with precise numbers, the lack of detail is… foreign, to us.” Explanation done, Whitehaven asked her next question. “How does one use shards?”

“You touch a shard and then you will it into a constellation,” he said with a slightly distracted air, more precises numbers? What would you need such a thing for? “Each constellation has an order of nodes and you can only slot shards that are of equal to or lower in level than the shard that precedes it. So, for instance, if you have a level one shard in node one you can’t slot a level two shard in node two. But if you have a level three shard in node one, you can slot a level two shard in node two.”

“How do shards gain levels; do you find them that way?” Whitehaven continued her questioning, either not noticing his distraction or not caring.

Eilif refocused on the woman and her questions. “No, you have to combine like shards together to increase their level. To make a level two shard you need two shards of the same type both at level one, and to make a level three shard you need two level two shards of the same type.”

“So if I have two electricity shards of level one, how would I combine them to make a level two electricity shard?” Whitehaven prompted.

“You hold the shards together and will them to merge,” Eilif expounded.

“Can merged shards be split again?” the woman inquired.

“No,” Eilif said.

While Whitehaven tapped on her rectangle, Eilif looked around the small portion of the room he could see without turning his head. It mostly consisted of the window, a small expanse of grey wall, and the few carts with various devices that he’d seen earlier. “What’s this place for?” he asked.

“This chamber is usually used in cases where we can’t have a subject move while we perform delicate work, yet also need them to remain awake for the procedure,” Whitehaven said absently.

“What kind of work?” Eilif inquired.

“Attachment of cybernetics mostly, getting the nerves to line up correctly with the implants is difficult if the recipient isn’t aware enough to test the connections,” she replied.

It took Eilif perhaps half a minute to digest the word ‘cybernetics’. He hadn’t heard it yet, and so there was a wealth of context that came along with it. To understand ‘cybernetics’ he had to also understand ‘machinery’, which meant he needed to know what ‘mechanical’ was. It was a strange sensation, knowing things he’d never actually learned. It appeared that Knowledge of Languages gave him basic information in an unconscious manner.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t comparable to an actual education, he still didn’t understand how machines worked, or even what most machines were. He did however now recognize the concept of complicated devices that did things his society couldn’t replicate without magic.

“Alright, tell me about constellations,” Whitehaven prompted moments later.

“Constellations are gifts from the gods, you gain one constellation at your age of majority, around eighteen summers for humans. Everyone gets one of the three birth constellations; The Sword, The Stave, or The Anvil. You can also get constellations for doing things and performing great deeds. Everyone gets a constellation commemorating their first monster kill, and you can earn some basic constellations by doing things like correctly stating the hour based on the position of the sun, correctly identifying the phase of the moon without reference material, or showing basic proficiency with a weapon,” Eilif informed her, however he could see several people in the audience rolling their eyes as he spoke of the gods.

“And how do you know what constellations you have?” The woman inquired.

“You simply convey your intent to see your constellations to the gods,” Eilif explained.

For a brief moment Whitehaven looked skeptical, but her face smoothed back out almost immediately. The people in the gallery didn’t bother to hide their scoffs and disbelieving looks. “You said that everyone gets one of the three birth constellations. What makes them different, other than their shapes?” Whitehaven continued.

Eilif gave that question a longer moment of thought, and realized he hadn’t explained about types or rarities. He tried to shake his head at his own foolishness, but the strap continued to restrain him. “There are three types of constellations, martial, magical, and utility. The Sword is a martial constellation, The Stave is magical, and The Anvil is utility. Martial constellations revolve around physical aspects, empowering items, creating physical objects, and empowering yourself. Magical is all about projecting power, shaping the world, or otherwise doing things beyond the physical realm. Utility is about enhancing the physical with the magical as well as providing useful effects and benefits,” Eilif paused and licked his lips. “Could I have some water?”

“Of course, how thoughtless of me,” Whitehaven said, then tapped that strange black device. “It’ll be here shortly. While we wait why don’t you tell me what you meant by ‘basic’.”

Eilif tried to nod, but once again was reminded of the restraint. “Okay,” he said instead. “There are four ranks of constellation; basic, uncommon, rare, and legendary. Basic constellations confer no benefits to shards put in them, but they also don’t confer detriments. Shards in a rarer type of constellation grow more powerful and efficient, or less powerful and less efficient, depending on how well they synergize with the constellation. For instance an uncommon lightning based constellation will make a lightning attuned shard twice as powerful and cost half the energy, but an earth shard in the same constellation will cost twice as much energy and be half as powerful.”

He paused and moistened his lips again before continuing. “Rarity also plays into the constellation cooldown. Whenever you take a shard out of a node the node destabilizes for a duration based on the rarity. One second for a basic, one minute for an uncommon, one hour for a rare, and one day for a legendary. If you take all the shards out, the entire constellation destabilizes for an amount of time equal to the number of nodes, the same thing happens when you unbind a constellation.”

“When you say ‘unbind’, what does that mean?

“To use a constellation, it has to be bound to a bodily location, like your hands, head, eyes, and so on,” Eilif explained. “You can get as specific as you want, or as broad as you want, but no two constellations can overlap. So if you bind a constellation to your hands, you can’t then bind another constellation to say, specifically your left hand.”

Eilif paused, gathering his thoughts before he continued. “Some shards will change their effects based on where they’re bound, or how specific the binding is, too specific can be just as bad as too broad and you should try out different locations when you have the time. This matters most for constellations of higher rarity, most basic constellations won’t have too much trouble no matter where you bind them.”

Whitehaven nodded as she tapped the device again, she then looked up at the sound of the door. Putting down the pad she stood up and walked out of Eilif’s view. A moment later she returned with a clear glass full of water with a straw sitting in it. She moved closer to Eilif and held it up for him while he took several gulps. After the glass was empty she set it down on a nearby tray and picked her black rectangle up again.

“Is there anything else we need to know about constellations?” she asked.

Eilif considered the question carefully before he replied replied. “You can combine constellations, but if the constellations don’t match well you can end up with a worse constellation, then you have to split it again. You only have a short time to do so though, the longer you wait the harder it is, and the more sick it makes you.”

Whitehaven nodded and tapped her device again. “Now,” she said, “when you mentioned ‘new dungeons’ earlier, what did you mean?”

“Dungeons are places that absorb starlight and generate monsters. You almost always find at least one in any given valley, and always near the center of any given basin. They’re considered valuable because when you kill a monster inside a dungeon it has a small chance to generate a shard of the type used by the dungeon,” Eilif explained. “Sometimes, when a dungeon is young, you want to feed it shards, because it might use them to create new monsters, and then you can get a steady stream of that shard by killing monsters.”

“What do you mean by ‘feed it shards’?” Whitehaven asked.

“Any shard dropped in a dungeon and left there will be eaten by the dungeon, it’s how they grow. Usually they get shards when people die to their monsters,” Eilif replied.

The woman stopped tapping her device. “Do people drop their shards when they die?”

Eilif tried to nod again, then sighed in annoyance. “Yes.”

“How often do shards drop when monsters are killed?” Whitehaven inquired.

“One in one thousand on floor one, one in one hundred on floor one hundred,” Eilif replied by rote. He didn’t actually know what exactly that meant for the intervening floors, he had expected someone else would be able to tell him. He wondered if maybe he should have taken those extra math classes after all.

Whitehaven tapped the device in her hands several times while nodding. “What kind of monsters do dungeons usually have?”

“Depends on the shards the dungeons have. Mostly you’ll find purely elemental dungeons in the wild, and those tend to have creatures in tune with their element,” Eilif said.

“What do you mean when you say ‘element’?” the woman asked.

“Well, the standard elements are air, earth, fire, and water. But sometimes you’ll see something like lightning, metal, holy, or other rare elements,” he expounded.

The woman gave an almost derisive snort, but didn’t say anything else, seemingly engrossed by the device in her hands. Several people in the audience were clearly laughing, but Eilif couldn’t actually hear them. What had he said that was so funny? “Was something wrong with my answer?” he asked, uncertainly.

“No, just your terminology. Elements are materials that cannot be broken down further into constituent parts. Things like hydrogen, oxygen, iron, and silver. What you’ve described are energies and generic materials. While technically the term ‘elements’ can be used to describe them, it’d be in a classical sense, that is to say a description related to antiquity,” Whitehaven explained.

Eilif blinked as that say sense of knowing things he didn’t know intruded once more. Elements were specific materials? That wasn’t right… except… in this context it was? That was very confusing. Fortunately, Whitehaven was happy to prevent him from dwelling on it much longer.

“Earlier you mentioned magic items, what are those?” she asked.

Eilif paused to redirect his thoughts before speaking. “Magic items can be pretty much anything, they’re made by sacrificing a constellation and its shards to an object. Some combinations are really common, like The Sun with a light shard to create a sun lamp, or The Moon and a fire shard to create a fire starter,” Eilif explained.

“Mostly you see common magic items, because they’re made with constellations you can learn, and once sacrificed they can be learned again. You almost never see magic items made with hard-to-get constellations, as you’d lose the constellation forever. Sometimes people near death will make a magic item using their rarer constellations, but that’s something they’re going to leave to their children or grandchildren as a legacy,” he finished.

“Couldn’t they just leave their shards instead?” Whitehaven inquired.

“Aside from birth constellations, and the ones you can learn, most people don’t get the same constellations. Constellations are given out for great deeds and sometimes as commemorations for specific moments, it’s almost next to impossible to replicate a constellation someone has from those kinds of circumstances,” Eilif replied.

Whitehaven nodded, and then tapped her device some more. “Well, you’ve given us a lot to think about Eilif. Why don’t we stop here for today, and tomorrow you can tell us about how magic items are made, and how to get the learnable constellations.”

Eilif hesitated, he didn’t actually know how to make magic items, and he only knew how to get the basic three learned constellations. He’d always just assumed that one of his allies would be able to tell him what he needed to know. “I… I don’t know how.” He said, even as Whitehaven stood.

She frowned, but her face quickly smoothed out again. “That’s fine, I’m sure you know plenty of other things we’d like to learn.” She then walked out of his view.

A few moments later the large, black clad man came over, undid the restraints, and then shackled him again. A few minutes after that saw him back in his cell.