Chapter 61: Chapter 50 Epilogue

The rustle accompanied my steps as I walked deeper into the woods, surrounded by birds singing. Despite being here only once, I knew exactly where I had to go. While the river proved to be a good way to orient myself, I could also see the old scars of the impact. The trees grew back but a crater was easy to identify if one knew when they were looking for.

And in the centre of it, within a clearing in the forest, lied my shuttle. Buried deep into the ground.

Erf was really 'lucky' when he found it, the recent rain had caused a landslide, uncovering the cache of the past. At the right time and the right place. It was almost like fate, if either of these things didn’t happen then Erf would go on to live his life unchanged. And the shuttle would remain buried for centuries, just as it was previously.

And I would never come into existence.

“Are you really sure you want to go that way?” Albin suddenly asked behind me.

“Yes,” I turned around to see my companion frowning, “Why?”

“That place… There is something wrong with it.”

“Do you feel danger?” I glanced back at the looming darkness of the entrance with a dry branch covering it haphazardly.

Granted there was very little to hide, aside from the partially covered entrance everything else was still covered by earth and mud.

I tried my best to listen to my senses, trying to spot the possibility of a radiation leak. It wasn’t something that was likely to happen, however — the shuttle used a fusion drive as the main power source. But the nanite storage was powered with gammavoltaics and these would be rather nasty if the shielding was somehow damaged.

Granted, if something did indeed break the casing, it would be unlikely that the rest of the shuttle would have survived in the process too. Gamma rays carried a lot of energy and were a blessing for set-and-forget applications, but no one would use them personally if they weren’t absolutely fool-proof. Even caveman-proof. Radioactive materials were useful but they also demanded respect.

A bigger concern would be biological contamination. There were sterility protocols for landing on populated planets, but I wasn’t sure how well these were executed during the lithobraking manoeuvres. When the earth-like rock is flying at you at the few kilometres-per-second you aren’t as likely to make sure all surfaces and the air was sufficiently sanitized.

“…Not exactly,” Albin's voice interrupted my musings about how likely my first visit could have started an epidemic. “Just the overall sense of wrongness like a hole that leads to nowhere.”

“Huh,” I scratched my head, “Well can’t really say I am surprised, after all, it was made without knowledge of Flow, to begin with. Humanity has never discovered it except for here somehow. It makes me wonder if the Flow is a local phenomenon.”

Humanity wasn’t that widespread. With the ability to harvest an entire stellar system for energy and resources, the main drive for expansion wasn’t dictated by the lack of space, food, or materials but by the difference in ideologies. This is what caused the Scattering and the emergence of the First Colonies once the fusion technology allowed us to send ships across the vastness of space. Or the second burst of expansion when we managed to stabilize the first wormhole connection.

Yet we still occupied just a minuscule fraction of our own galaxy or outright insignificant part of the observable universe. And space still held many mysteries unknown to us. Flow was likely just one of them.

He shook his horns, “Flow is everywhere and does not belong to objects as taste and colour do. It moves through all things, this one included. What differs is the…ripples it causes in the river of Fate. Just like murks possess a certain unpredictability in them this is somewhat similar, but on a scale I have never seen before.”

His gaze, the twin owlish orbs of blue, suddenly shifted from the entrance to me, “Wait, you aren’t surprised? So you know what this could be? What is it!?”

“A shipwreck.” I rolled my eyes when Albin glanced at the river peeking through the trees. And pointed my thumb up, “Not for water, however.”

“You mean it flies?” He asked excitedly.

“Not anymore it doesn’t. And even before I would hardly call it flying, more like missing the ground,” After all most of the ships spent orbiting something else.

With a loud rustle, the tail quickly followed the descending wermage. The previous caution now forgotten. I shook my head and followed in turn. Albin might be extremely curious now but I didn’t want him to hurt himself on something absolutely mundane, or break something that was still useful.

He stopped just as sharply as he moved. Standing still at the entrance. “I expected it to be bigger for a ship.”

“It is not designed to travel far or often,” I spoke as I walked around him and entered the shuttle, “Think of it as a litter to move from one manor to the other.”

A strange feeling came onto me as I looked at the painfully familiar walls. This was a tiny glimpse of my past, and it wasn’t the best part of it when it was in pristine form. This wasn’t a pleasure craft but the emergency shuttle with an apt ambience. A single chamber, designed for maximum efficiency, looked spartan at best and the added touch of my own skeleton lying in the corner didn’t help either.

Despite it looking as beautiful as a rusty tin can, it had performed its task exemplary. Which was the defining point of such technology. While the living tech was more pleasant-looking by default and could tackle many tasks and grow into larger roles, the technology made of metal, plastics, and fullerenes shone at handling a single task to the best of its ability. Well, maybe a series of tasks.

And that is why our tree bioships were alive, for they could heal the damage caused by micrometeoroids or grow into a required shape without the need to visit an orbital shipyard. Yet, when it came to the build-and-forget occasional-use shuttles, a hunk of metal was much less wasteful.

“And the bones on the floor?”

“Mine,” I casually answered as my fingers pulled out the nuclear battery from the receptacle that kept my nanites in the suspended animation. A bit less than three-quarters of fissile material left. Eyeballing the amount of energy it was using all this time gave me an estimate between five and twenty centuries until Erf had walked inside these doors.

“What do you mean yours?” Came a surprised response.

I shrugged, trying to pry out rusted storage lids. “As in my previous self, you know. ‘Hero of the past’ and similar tripes. The Navigator, whose memories have merged with the murk slave passing by to gather water. That is where I was made, Albin. A murk daimon that is a mix of both yet neither one of them.”

I wasn’t really surprised at things literally crumbling in my hands. Most of the equipment would be in a similar state of decay. Apart from items that simply weren’t allowed to fail. Just like the battery I already stashed into a bag I brought for this exact reason. But I didn’t stop searching.

Events like mine or even worse ones were obviously planned for — the nanite storage could lie dormant for a few thousand years until the battery would decay past the set threshold. If I crashed on a barren planet or in a desolate area for example. Then the nanites would attempt the final shot by trying to recreate a semblance of me. With whatever available minerals were nearby and using the leftover juice of the battery.

I don’t think anyone had ever intentionally tried that. Even on the planets with easily available water and carbon, this resulted in slimy and grotesque forms that took years to solidify into something resembling a human body. It was hard to say how the psyche could survive something like that, even the psyche of a navigator. But it was a planned possibility.

“Erf. Daimonas aren’t made. They are born. They come out of their mother’s womb aware of the world around them. They do not act like babes but as heavy drunks slowly retaking control of their legs from wine. Talking within weeks of being born, and reading without learning the letters.”

“And their mothers’?” I stopped trying to break into another box, “Have they eaten any glowing fruits during pregnancy?”

Nanites wouldn’t target the pregnant mother, but they would incorporate themselves into the future child. Quite a few navigators chose to be reborn that way. Some even gave birth to themselves just before dying.

“No, Erf. Dominas had been fruitlessly searching for the reason how daimonas are born, with many trying to succeed by eating certain fruits or drinking potions. Something like a glowing fruit would have been noticed centuries ago.” He sighed and scratched his head, “Once again you continue to surprise me, Erf. I am wrong for once. You aren’t a daimon.”

The box slammed into the floor, shattering into chunks.

“Damn it,” I groaned, “Yet another place I don’t belong to. So? What does that make me then? Or, more importantly, what do you think of me now?”

I didn’t know how much scrutiny I avoided with Albin and Aikerim assuming I was a daimon, but I could guess it was a lot. The fact that I was truly alone on this world was somewhat bitter, but not something that would really change my immediate future. It just meant more responsibility on my shoulders.

The real question now was whether I also got their good graces from that title as well.

Because one of these wermages stood right in front of me.

My chest tingled as the scales slowly expanded outward once again.

Albin scoffed, “When you stirred my curiosity for the first time, I thought of you as an odd murk, perhaps blessed by a generous teacher at most. The idea that I might be looking at the first murk daimon just made you more fascinating at that time.

“And so an idea that someone other than a daimon could exist and yet connected with our past somehow?” His tail swiped the broken shards off the panel, revealing the numbers underneath, “While I commend you for raising your guard up as soon as you were uncertain of my actions, you had forgotten that I am a historian as well! And now I have found myself inside a relic of the past and someone who is personally familiar with all these things. I mean what is this thing?”

I glanced at the remnants of the flexible pipe in his hand, “Vacuum hose for relieving oneself, it sucks the waste away from you.” Shuttles didn’t generate their own gravity as such quite a few activities needed certain assistance.

“Right,” He dropped it on the ground and wiped his hands off, “Why don’t you tell me about this shipwreck, and of your people. This is why you brought me here in the first place, is it not? We aren’t in a rush anymore.”

I sighed and sat down on the floor, carefully brushing aside the desiccated bones. And retrieving the optical implant from the crushed pieces of my skull. I took my time, slowly gathering my thoughts and putting aside the uneasiness of today’s events. But things kept going forward.

Fortunately, right now, I had the best thing I could ask for. Time. My relationship with my family was in limbo, but they were safe. My status was even more out of this world, but I didn’t have to escape from an angry wermage for being a daimon impostor.

Now I could set these worries aside and tackle them one at a time. And right now I had a listener that tried to settle on the floor in front of me. A listener who moved political mountains to get my family for me, all just to listen to my stories.

It wasn't like I would discover anything that would trump the non-daimon revelation anyway. Even the batteries weren’t critical. Yes, they were convenient as hell but this was nothing in the grand scale of things. I could power quite a lot of tools with them early on but they were batteries and thus non-rechargeable. Fully sealed and with no way to leak or refuel. Clean and long-lasting. And I will run them dry in months if I try to hook it to anything on the industrial scale.

“You said that Flow is everywhere? Well, there is another property that is just as global. Energy.” I pulled out the dull cylinder from the rubble on the floor, “I won’t try to explain everything in detail for we will be sitting here for years. But there are three concepts anyone would be familiar with. Work, power, and energy. Work is a great place to start since it is everywhere and probably more common than you even imagine. A person that carries a sack of wheat performs work, so does a horse that drags the cart or a wermage summoning the wineskin. At least I assume it is, there are some shenanigans involved. But at the same time, the river nearby performs work too despite not being alive. It can drag ships or it can turn waterwheels for mills and water hammers in the smithies.

“Anything can perform work, alive or dead — because what work actually is, in the most basic form, is the exchange of energy from one object to another via application of force. There are many forms of energy in the world. Energy from food that you use to make your body move, or the energy of water as the earth pulls it down from the mountains.”

All languages tended to call their planet that, or some other variation of soil or ground.

“Reason why I said that is that humanity, until now, had never encountered Flow before. We didn’t have wers and wermages to fight the predators, but we also didn’t have Forests and Things in them either. So we took another road. We learnt to harness the energy of the world around us and use it to do the work in our stead. And we progressed quite far ahead. This-,” I waved container in my hands, “Is a battery, it stores energy in a moderately easy to use form. Just like a long-lasting ration for a caravan.”

“What can it be used for?” He took the battery that I offered and carefully looked it around. “Rather heavy for its size.”

“Nothing. Right now it is nothing more than a parchmentweight. It needs special tools that could receive its energy and use it to do the work themselves. Tools that I am unlikely to find here, that I will have to make myself with time. What makes it so useful is how much energy it contains.

“We have spent millennia perfecting our craft, learning to make better things and use them to make even greater ones. This hunk of metal…” I did a quick calculation in my head. Just as the other battery this one had been made a long time ago. So some fuel had undergone nuclear decay. Nevertheless, there was still plenty of juice inside, “Can provide an equal amount of energy of at least a million horses running for one day.”

An eyebrow rose, “That is a rather boastful thing to say.” Albin smirked.

“Which is still true, if not even larger. Granted it is not designed to provide this much energy that quickly - it is not powerful enough after all. And doing so would probably melt everything around here anyway. But If I had a metal ‘horse’ that could use this battery - it would drag our cart at gallop speeds for the next three thousand years.”

He glanced at the cylinder, flabbergasted, “From your description one could say it is an artefact in and of itself.”

“Because it is.” I shrugged, “The difference is that this artefact is made by a civilization without knowledge of Flow. That’s all. And that is exactly why I am here.”

I looked around, “I don’t think that many things are still intact after centuries of neglect, but I want to find anything that is remotely usable or even fixable.”

“Like a weapon?”

“No,” I shook my head and got up, resuming my search, “Any high-powered tool wouldn’t last this long. And even if it were I would be afraid to use it for it would be just as likely to explode in my hands.”

“That sounds akin to balls of fire. Quite a few young wermages had burned their eyebrows off while mastering that spell.”

“Most things that have high energy are like that — quite often control is paramount not to kill yourself. Hmm… yet more rusted trash, there should be a compartment that is specifically designed for extreme-term storage somewhere.”

“What about over there?” Albin pointed at the reinforced wall at the end of the chamber.

“Funny that you asked, that is where the fusion drive is. And I am nowhere ready to tackle that anytime soon. I need to come back with quite an arsenal of tools and materials so that I won’t damage it further.” It might even be in a decent shape, especially if the inert atmosphere was still intact.

“What does it do?” He frowned, staring down at that wall as it offended him somehow.

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“It provides energy, just like these batteries. The difference is that if one battery is akin to a food ration for the caravan, the fusion drive is the land of Emanai itself that keeps bringing more food each year. The shuttle’s own little piece of the sun.”

“You mean there is a sun behind that wall?!” He took a step away.

“Oh no, it is very much cold and not working at all right now. It is not something that could start by itself. You are acting surprisingly cautious, however.”

“I feel it,” Albin clarified. “Just as I’ve felt it outside but here it is even stronger. You have that feel about you too. A distinct flavour unlike the other murks I’ve met over the years. But here it is overpowering.”

“Well, put your worries at rest. It is inert and has no agency on its own.” I glanced at him, “I hope you aren’t thinking anything untoward about it?”

I could eventually build one myself. But I had no desire to do so if I had the chance to get this one working. Especially since it would take me quite some time to get to that level of technology.

“Honestly, I don’t know what to think yet.” Albin kept staring at the wall, “Did your country die just as you are predicting mine will?”

I blinked, “I don’t believe mine is dead at all, or even in decline so far. The civilizations I’ve used as examples had been predecessors of our predecessors and are long gone by now. And they are well-known among many of my kind.”

“But where are your people then?” He finally glanced my way.

“Not here.” I smiled and spread my arms, “I am a traveller, Albin. An explorer. It is what I love the most. And this shipwreck is just a piece that is left of my actual ship. My people are just far far away. Your people too, I believe. For we all came from one place. Probably even founded around the same time.”

I sighed and looked at the ceiling, “But you had found Flow and, in turn, lost the knowledge of your ancestors. Sending you on a path that no one had imagined was possible.”

“You know, a historian in me is giddy. But the general and the Speaker are wary.” Albin picked up his tail and brushed the dust from his scales, “If your words are true about the artefacts of yours, and if their knowledge is comparable to yours… How likely is it that they will arrive tomorrow at our borders?”

“Honestly? I do not know. I know for sure that murks are the descendants of humans, and wer and wermages are very closely related too. It is not something that could occur by itself realistically otherwise. That means that they had arrived here already. And gave birth to the countries that you know today. That is one.

“Then I came.” I pointed at the skeleton, “By myself and without seeking this place specifically, but aware that there is a chance that I might find another lost colony — this is unfortunately common, but most are lost intentionally as they sought independence and seclusion. That is two.

“Some say that there are only three numbers in mathematics. Zero, one, and infinity. In that regard, a third arrival is not a matter of if but when.”

“And when they come? Could we repel them?” He spoke quietly.

“Cast the orb of truth, Albin.” I said in a similar tone, and when the familiar glow illuminated our faces I looked him straight into his eyes, “No, you will not. There are many colonies out there and the pre-Scattering countries are just as powerful. So there is no way for me to say who will find you first and how they will react to your societies and powers.

“Most will be very interested in Flow. And most likely they will acquire this ability themselves or take plenty of wermages otherwise. Many will be outraged by your societies and will try to change you as well, or even incorporate you into their borders. And if some find you as a threat that is best to be removed? You will simply cease to exist. I am sorry Albin, but this world won't stay the same forever. I am already causing ripples in it and I am just a single murk with a blindfold on my eyes and hands tied behind my back.”

“How sure are you if you have never seen me in battle? Or other war mages for that matter?” Albin asked.

“Because it is once again the difference in scale. Even if they decide to do something stupid like meet you in an open field, how many murks can you kill before you will grow tired? Remember they have no Forests to keep their numbers small, and all the tools, I am planning to introduce, to never worry about food and even work. Some of them spend their entire lives fucking and making children. For every warrior that you have, they will bring an army… an arm of their own. Each day. For centuries. And they won’t even notice the losses. It doesn’t matter how deadly you are, the depletion and exhaustion will get you.”

I sighed, “For all the gloom I’ve said know that these are the worst possible outcomes, and most likely not going to happen for a few centuries at least. The lack of technology is keeping you obscured as you aren’t generating any radio signals loud enough that other colonies might notice as a sign of civilization. The prosperity of Emanai is still more pressing concern than a few hundred thousand Erfs arriving here and uplifting your entire population in a matter of a generation or two.”

“No wonder I have such a weird feeling about all of this,” Albin murmured, scratching his tail. “I guess if you fix this ‘drive’ it will speed up some of these events?”

“Your magic is bullshit,” I grumbled, “Drive itself won’t be noticeable but it will definitely allow some things to happen sooner simply because of how easy and inexpensive it would make them.”

“Is that your plan? To call for another ship to pick you up, or build a new one to return home?”

“No,” I shook my head, unsurprised that the orb confirming it as truth, “Maybe if I was in my past life I would have. But I am Erf now. And this is my world now too. I might still be a Navigator, but I have wives waiting for me in Samat. My family is here too, and I am unwilling to risk them, and others I hold dear, by inviting yet another party here. Someone who is as likely to make me disappear too.”

“A noble plan!” Albin beamed, “Grow strong my dear friend, for you will need it. But first…”

He reached inside his clothes and pulled out the familiar orb alight in glowing runes.

And placed it on the receptacle that once held the containment fruit.

“Don’t think I am the only one who can sense these ripples, Erf,” he spoke to my silent question. “With our trip almost over, we no longer need the protection of the Sphere. Let it keep this place safe and hidden to the Sparks of others.”

“Are you sure about this?” I asked. As far as I could tell by Aikerim’s reaction this orb was a very big deal. And he was treating it like a marble. It was a good thing that neither of the Kiymetl ladies was with us here right now — they would have an aneurysm for sure.

“That is the most exciting part in all of this,” He grinned, “For the first time, I am not! Yet I feel it is something worth taking a risk. You should also keep your status hidden, or at least don’t talk about it to anyone you don’t trust in full. Let them assume. More of them think of you as a potential daimon — safer you will be in the turbulent times ahead.”

“I don’t particularly like your predictions, Albin,” I grumbled, “Especially since I can’t find this damn storage box.”

The werdrake hand stretched out, pointing at an ordinary panel that I previously assumed to be solid. “Try that one.”

“I don’t think…” The panel opened with a groan, “Well, I will be damned. Remind me to find out in the future who designed this shuttle. And properly kick his butt. How did you know about it?”

“Same feeling but fainter. Even weaker than you.”

“Remind me to learn about Flow too, this is pure bullshit.”

A tiny container filled with a preservative liquid. And within it were seeds. And something that looked like a white date fruit. The grin split my face.

Jackpot.

“Looks like you had found what were you looking for,” Albin smirked.

“A lot of our technology is alive,” I gingerly took out the seeds and pushed them under my tunic. Past my tunic into the small pouch I made inside my own stomach. These were actually precious. “A long time ago, instead of forging, carving, or sculpting our tools, we learnt to grow them instead. We started with selective breeding and then transitioned to making them from scratch. Each one of these seeds could grow into a bio-printer of a gestation vat, depending on how large I will let it grow. And it will in turn produce many things that one can find only in plants or animals. Like golden spider silk, beautiful to look at and modified to be extremely strong, Enough to stop an arrow with one layer.”

“Do you really want her daughter in your sadaq?” Albin shook his head. “Because that is how you get her daughter in your sadaq.”

“Shut up.” My elation could not be interrupted.

“And this is Harald.” I showed him the date.

“Harold? Sounds like a name. Does it grow into a pet? Or is that how humans reproduce?” Came an instant quip.

“Har har. Very funny. It is a name, but it doesn’t grow into anything,” I couldn’t help myself but stop and ponder. This was the final step. The containment fruit gave me the memories and a few abilities necessary for survival. The nanites were too busy and limited in number to offer anything else. This one finalized the process so to say. Not only it had the necessary materials to increase my nanite count, but it also had specialized ones for a much bigger purpose.

I gulped and took a shuddering breath. It was too late to stop now. I knew that I needed strength. The real strength that separated a Navigator from an augmented human. My family needed that strength.

“It is named for the king of old. Harald Blåtand ‘Bluetooth’.” It tasted like a piece of chalk. “For his ability to unite Danish tribes into one kingdom. Just as it will unite me.”

I could feel my body revving up, like the sluggish cog that was given its first taste of oil. Pushing my body to the maximum efficiency.

And I didn’t care about any of it.

A tiny flicker in the back of my conscious mind caused a tear to roll down my cheek. My Tree was here and it was alive. Just as the shuttle, my ship crash-landed somewhere on this planet. Unlike the shuttle, she sprouted roots and was patiently waiting for me all this time.

Lif. My Tree-ship and the AI companion.

The gentle caress of the dendrites on my thoughts, not intrusive in any means but always omnipresent.

I closed my eyes and smiled. I was finally whole.

“If it was that delicious you could have at least shared some. Especially since you guzzled most of my expensive wine,” The Annoyance groused in the background.

“It is an acquired taste, Albin. You wouldn’t like it. It is the taste of home,” I spoke with my eyes closed, “By the way, how easy it is to explore the Forest?”

“Deadly. Even wermages don't set out for no reason. Especially alone or in a small group. Trust me Erf until you can prove you can survive there for more than a day no one will let you out there. Not even with an arm of bodyguards.”

“Prove you say?” I smirked, “Punch me.”

“I think that fruit was a bit too ripe, Erf.”

“Go on don’t be a wimp,” I patted my chest, “I know what I am talking about.”

It was probably the euphoria of the connection established once again, but I felt invulnerable at that very moment. And I was also eager to see the actual strength of a wermage punch.

The air flew out of my lungs as the metaphorical sledgehammer smashed into my torso. Sending me flying straight through the shuttle doors and deep into the dirt.

An exquisite taste of loam and silt with a tinge of clay. For the true mud connoisseurs.

Resilience aside, there was a slight difference in inertia apparently.

“Well, I will be damned Erf. Consider me surprised once again.” Albin walked out of the shuttle only to see me getting up as if nothing happened. “How?”

I chuckled as I ripped my tunic open. Revealing the second skin that had been forming since that fateful stab a few days ago. The scales already started to cover the extreme shear-thickening fluid of the inner layer. Providing the cut protection as the other layer dissipated any impacts across my body. Preventing the blunt trauma but still imparting the momentum. And sending my ass over teakettle as a result.

Note to self — get super grip boots.

“Nanodendrites, Son!”

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