Chapter 33 - Nothing but the Blues - The Unforgettables: A ZeroYear litRPG

  Petra is lying in a hospital bed. She wakes up with her two adolescent children by her side, their hands tightly squeezing hers, weaving around the fragile forest of catheters. She is filled with fear as she remembers the conversation with the doctors about the severity of her situation. Still, she says, "Don't worry, everything will be alright. In a few months, we'll be back home." But her dream-soaked fragment of memory is interrupted by an intermittent sound beside her; it is a medical apparatus, but not for her.

  Petra gets up from her corner with a start. Despite the tight space, her training allowed her mind to soothe and her body to relax deeply. She begins to stretch as she realizes from the sensors' readings that Silas is already out of danger.

  "Good news, Liora! Silas is waking up!" With a relieved face, Petra says through the mental connection.

  "You're already awake, Petra? I'm on my way!" Liora replies, appearing beside Petra instantly, still in terrible condition from the time she was left unconscious in a dirty corner. She continues, now speaking directly, "Are you OK, Petra? Did you sleep right here?"

  "I'm much better than I thought. I couldn't sleep and ended up dozing off here," Petra says, now observing her friend more closely. "Even though you never sleep, it seems to me that you need a good rest."

  Liora brings a hand to her head and closes her eyes, her fingers lost in the snarled maze of hair, heavy with years of neglect. "You bet! I'm a mess. I couldn't even concentrate enough to read what my copy recorded on my comlink properly…"

  "Wanna help with that? You can send me the material. Maybe it would be better for you to take a break from it, Liora, to let your emotions subside," Petra offers.

  "The files are huge. I think it would take you a while, and you'd get tired. Adarian's life was a bore," Liora grumbles.

  "Come on! Let me see those files. I don't think it'll be much different from what I already do with the sensors," Petra smiles.

  "You're absolutely right, I was almost forgetting that," Liora replies, remembering Petra's mental training and sharing with her the files, "and I have other things to worry about right now," she says, looking straight at one of Laetilia's cats that was hidden inside a box hidden in another corner, apparently sleeping.

  "It will be pretty fast! Well, I didn’t even bother with that cat there, but what's the problem?" Petra retorts while processing the files, not quite sure what's going on.

  "As you just said, oioi doesn't sleep, and I don't know what Laetilia is doing in her room now, but communications seem to be off," Liora says, approaching the cat and activating her ocular sensors, confirming that it is indeed a normal copy and is purring deeply. She raises a confused eyebrow and speaks loudly right next to the cat, "Hey, you! What do you think you're doing?"

  The cat squints at Liora as if it were really sleepy. "My name is Kaskas," it says, opening its mouth in a long yawn. "Can't you see I'm sleeping! I'm watching over Silas... Oh, look at that! It seems he's waking up now!" Kaskas says, noticing that the medibot has finished its recovery cycle.

  "You really weren't listening to anything? Why did you turn off your sensors?" Liora asks with curiosity.

  "Every day is the same yucky. Laetilia meditates all night instead of playing, and we have nothing to do. We set our sensors to a minimum, get the games from the humans' database, and the three of us play as a group," Kaskas replies, as it begins to cat-stretch.

  "Meditating all night?" Liora is surprised.

  "She learned that recently, but she'll be done soon, I think. Or do you want me to go call her now?" the cat asks.

  "Strange, but let's wait," Liora concludes, turning now to Silas, who is already moving but still has his eyes closed. "Well, he's stable, but full of heavy painkillers."

  "I only remember hearing the ship crash with Silas inside and Adarian talking a bunch of nonsense," Petra comments, but before she can continue, Silas begins to speak, with some difficulty and slowly.

  "Good to hear you, Petra… Liora…," says Silas, concern etched across his face.

  "It's okay, Silas, we're all okay!" Petra replies, now carefully holding Silas's hand.

  "I think it was Laetilia… Adarian is coming! We have to get out of here," Silas murmurs, fighting to open his eyes, and remembering what happened to him right before he lost consciousness due to his injuries.

  "It was her, and she's resting in her room now. We're okay, Silas, and we already left that place with our ship!" Liora says, trying to reassure her friend.

  Silas breaks into a smile of relief and finally manages to lift his head. When he sees Petra and Liora, his eyes, still adjusting, fill with joy. Just then, Frank hurries into the room, still wearing an old, wrinkled shirt he uses as pajamas.

  "Silas!" Frank yells, running towards the ebex, who is still plugged into the life support. He shakes his friend's shoulder while saying, "I thought we were going to die! It seems Laetilia managed to get us out of this mess!"

  Silas listens attentively and replies with a smile, still under the effect of the heavy sedatives. He says, "I just need a long shower and a strong coffee, but maybe not in that order. Was Adarian really defeated? What happened?"

  "We don't know all the details yet," Liora answers, already perplexed. "Because right after waking up, we get the ship running to get out of that place. According to my daughter, someone or something named Matrioska killed him, but nowhere in my records is there anything even remotely like that. I left my comlink recording everything before I was shut down."

  "There's nothing at all. I've already gone through the entire log twice. Adarian was visited on four occasions by his former Alpha colleagues, and it always ended in a fight to the death. They came trying to retrieve the weapon Adarian stole from his master," Petra adds, to Liora's surprise. "But the comlink log is like a stationary window inside Adarian's ship room that summarizes in a few lines what happened each day. He lived absolutely alone the whole time. Of the few communications he answered on the ship, they were of him exchanging insults and threats with Mose about his mission. Apparently, Biggus's son was assassinated, and then things got complicated in Metropolis."

  "What in the world? Whatever, I guess that the only one who stayed awake all this time was Laetilia. I saw the days passing, but my mind was so lethargic that, to me, it all seemed like a delirium of surreal images," Silas reflects, closing his eyes to try to remember anything, but without success.

  "There’s a lot we need to sort out about Laetilia. But since she’s still resting, how about we do what Silas suggested: grab a shower, then some coffee? I even brought one of those culinary cubes from the Dojo up to my room. Last night I was so exhausted I just passed out right here. And, well, this ship’s air still feels heavy," says Petra, now observing her own hand with a questioning look.

  "I slept fast, but couldn't turn off my mind either. Is there a problem with your hand, Petra?" asks Frank, not noticing much.

  "Not really, the color is a bit different. I don't know what it is. Everything seems kind of dark in here. Liora, is the ship's lighting weaker?" Petra asks.

  "Actually, based on the energy consumed, it should be stronger, but many of the ship's internal walls, which were light-colored and reflexive, are now pale red," says Liora, activating her visual sensors for a few moments, but unable to identify anything that explains why the light is dimmer.

  "Hmmmm. Laetilia sleeping? The ship's walls are red?" observes Silas, now unsure whether he’s awake or trapped in a dream.

  "We don't know either, Silas," Liora replies. "About the ship, we found it buried in snow and partially restored, but in a strange way. The only thing we could do was overload the self-repair with energy cells to get away from Cernutos, because the Golems are on our tail again, and this time at a much higher speed."

  Silas carefully observes his surroundings. Broken parts lie in heaps all over the deck; through gaps in the wreckage, the remaining wall panels show a deep, pulsing red. "But what is this?" he says, already getting up and removing his life support connectors.

  "Let's take it easy, Silas. One thing at a time. We need to be well to decide what to do," Petra comments.

  They all agree and proceed up the makeshift stairs to the upper floor, as the elevator is still inoperable. On the way up, they are forced to push Silas into his room, who, with every step, contemplates the ship's new, live-red paint. Impressed by what might have occurred, raising hypotheses, the ebex's curious mind is back.

  Silas takes a shower for less than a minute, ignoring the pain in his body and forgetting his own recommendation about the coffee. He slips on one of his protective lab coats, which is in better condition than he is, and goes immediately to the bridge to read the sensors.

  Frank and Petra get ready quickly and come back down, meeting in the middle of the corridor. Petra has her hair still wet, wrapped in a towel around her head, and is wearing a brand-new training suit, while Frank wears stylish blue jeans under a worn-out combat kimono; they proudly smile at each other as both share the thought of continuing their usual training that afternoon. As they pass the open entrance to the bridge, they notice that Silas is completely immersed in his equipment. Frank comments: "Ah! I see you're feeling better, Silas. I'll get the coffee ready and bring it here for us to have on the bridge in 15 minutes, okay?" Silas smiles and nods positively while using voice terminals to speed up the process. His mind is super active, a sublime pleasure after the time he spent in that temporal prison.

  Liora, however, takes longer, as she swaps some of her current parts for the oldest nailia version that survived all that time, because it was safe in Petra's universe. She put on long, dark blue metallic hair that she hadn't worn since her freshman days at engineering college. This makes her feel better as soon as she sees her reflection in the mirror, as if she had kicked the unpleasant memories of Adarian into a corner.

  Before Liora goes down to the bridge, Laetilia contacts her mentally, her voice urgent: "Mom! Mom! I have a problem here, I need to borrow some parts. The ones I'm using are dented or are old suma, and they haven't had decent maintenance in years. In fact, I repaired them myself using scrap. They usually work, but I look like a dead skeleton without my travel cloak. And I don't need to look like a ghost to scare everyone even more. I don't want the others to see me like this."

  "Of course, but I don't know if I can help much because I'm also out of compatible general-purpose parts. Well, I have a pile of never-worn gala parts here, but if you train in them, they'll break very fast. Then you'll really look like a skeleton," Liora reflects.

  "Ah, maybe... No, better just forget it, I'm already on my way down to talk to everyone," Laetilia whimpers.

  "No, no!" Liora realizes. She had thought of asking several things first, but she sensed her daughter was conflicted and didn't want anyone to see her in that state, so she continued: "Do this: I'll leave my room and tell everyone you'll be down in 15 minutes. Come in here and see what you can put together. You could have asked me yesterday. But please, don't use the parts I just took off, okay?"

  "Thanks, Mom, I'm on my way to your room now!" Laetilia replies as Liora leaves her room and descends to join Silas on the bridge, while Petra and Frank are preparing the coffee on the messed-up deck.

  "Laetilia will be down here to talk to us soon. Everything alright, Silas?" Liora announces, already positioning herself at the pilot controls.

  Silas notices Liora's old design and smiles. "This brings me back to sweet times. Look, I found a new weird memory area on this ship that was regenerated into a brain-like structure, and there's some hot stuff inside, probably from before the cataclysm. I will need your help here, Liora," he says, and proceeds to give a series of instructions that Liora executes at super-speed.

  The curious cats join Silas in his exploration. At the same time, Frank and Petra serve a full Harlem-style breakfast, complete with plenty of shrimp and grits, fried chicken accompanied by fluffy waffles, and scrambled eggs seasoned with various tasty and colorful spices, something that manages to divert Silas's attention a bit.

  "Wow! But this looks fabulous!" says the ebex, as he smells the spices mixing with the coffee. He adds, "I've discovered some interesting things about this ship. The full analysis will take a while, though."

  "Ah, so you already know why the ship seems alive now?" Frank asks Silas, and when he notices that Liora is also doing better, he chuckles, softly, with a certain lightness of spirit.

  "Ha, ha! I have no idea!" Silas replies excitedly. "But there's something I dig from the ship's new memory. For example, this ship came out of the cataclysm unscathed, as if nothing had happened to it, but its crew wasn't so lucky; they all disappeared during the event."

  Petra and Frank look at each other, and Frank comments, already sitting in one of the chairs in front of the coffee spread across the bridge, "Disappeared... Why does that not sound like hot stuff to me?"

  "It will sound better when we know what happened so that we can avoid the same fate," Silas concludes, just as Laetilia’s footsteps cut through the silence, sharp heels clicks, ringing out as she slowly descends the stairs. When she appears at the entrance to the bridge, her presence has such an impact that everyone falls silent, overwhelmed, as if beholding a goddess.

  "Sorry for the delay, everyone. I'm still getting used to these fine regalia." Laetilia is wearing the luxury parts. They are pieces coated in a black, smooth material with a reflective texture, like a mirror, but soft as fabric, sinking slightly to the touch, and perfectly replicating the human physique. It wraps most of her legs and arms like a second skin, covering her completely up to the neck. Over the black, shimmering base, she is wearing another layer of light, semi-transparent silk clothes, with extremely elaborate white lace adorning the pieces and adding volume to the curves of her silhouette. Also adorning her long black hair is a lace veil, which holds an elaborate and voluminous updo, as large as a cape, that reaches her waist, concealing some of the volume she carries on her back. Of her old parts, she had only kept her face, but now, with heavy makeup, it was completely restored to its original state, corrected for the damage from the ship's crash.

  “Land sakes alive, Laetilia. You look like an angel got lost and decided to stay for the wedding!” Petra exclaims as soon as she sees her.

  "Well, the manual says they're parts for dancing at night. It's actually the sturdiest thing I could find, but it's still quite fragile. As for the clothes on top, I just thought they matched," Laetilia says, while Liora brings a hand to the side of her chin, not yet sure how much she approves of her daughter's choices. It certainly looks beautiful, but it seems very strange and exaggerated.

  "It looks great, Laetilia!" Frank comments. "So, we've prepared breakfast, but I guess you two will just be watching. Don't oioi have any kind of cuisine?" Frank asks, as Petra looks up and away, as if remembering some weird deja vu.

  "There are devices that emulate tasty flavors for the energy cells we consume, but they're kind of borderline. I'll have to try one day when we go back to civilization," Laetilia laughs, and continues, "But there are also more interesting options in the human parts kits, like real taste devices, but none of those came in the sets my mom brought. A pity, because this looks like very colorful food," Laetilia replies as she approaches the plates and gets odor readings. She notices that Silas is not yet fully recovered, but is already completely absorbed in some matter, with dozens of data terminals connected, while holding a sturdy mug of coffee in his hand, forgotten and getting cold.

  Despite being engrossed, Silas also notices Laetilia's curious gaze. He says, "I'll put oioi taste devices on the development list. I am fine! About the things I'm doing here, I managed to get into this ship's new memory." After a brief pause, he continues, "Correction, maybe it's better to call it old memory, because it's over 10,000 years old. I'm still in the process of understanding what happened to this ship, but first, it would be good to know what happened to the world while we were out."

  "Er, I see... Where do I begin?" Laetilia asks, walking past the improvised tables on the bridge as she positions herself in front of everyone, with the newly restored window of the ship showing the lights of the Big Bang in the background, as her mind digs years into the past to find the last time she was there, amazed with a simulation, but this time, it′s for real.

  "Well, we obviously have a lot to thank you for, but can you start by telling us what happened to Adarian and why the Golems sped up so much? I think those are the biggest threats right now, right?" comments Frank.

  "Right! The Golems, I think they are a threat, but I have no idea why they went into turbo mode. It was completely unexpected. So let's take it one step at a time," Laetilia thinks for a few moments. "Alright, let me start from the day I knew about the Golems' improvements. I finished the basics and was set on traveling to Cernutos with over a month to spare ahead, to get as much training time as possible before, because I would only have one chance to make this work. However, the Golems accelerated immensely, and suddenly I found out I had two days, maybe less, to do something on my own."

  "So you came without much preparation. By the way, what are you training for, exactly? Is it that experimental power?" Petra remembers.

  "No, no… Yes, actually!" Laetilia gets flustered. "I mean, that experimental part too, but I was referring to the training in the knightly arts."

  Silas and Liora get goosebumps and look at each other with wide-eyed surprise, but they prefer to just listen for now. Liora slips her hand from her chin and starts scratching the back of her neck.

  "Well, so, I had managed to preserve our bike, Silas, but that was until yesterday only, because I ran into some creepy giant spiders on the Cernutos way and thought it best to flee from them with my cats, so the bike was left behind," Laetilia laments.

  "Yeah, we ran into those spiders, too. I wonder what happened to Amanda. I hope she's okay and made it back to her city," Frank comments, apprehensive.

  "About Amanda, I can't say for sure. I heard about a suma named Amanda a few years ago during the revolution and before the spirits network went off, but I think that one was a might warrior, so maybe not the same person," Laetilia reflects.

  "When Amanda taught me about magic, she told me that if anything happened to her here in Gate, she would be promptly revived by the sumas in her city. On the other hand, I never received any message from her. And that silence is worrying me deeply. But there's nothing we can do for her from here. We have to focus on what we can solve. What about Adarian?" Petra asks Laetilia, as the others meet her gaze with grim nods.

  "Well, after the spiders, I headed towards the tower as fast as I could, and on the way, I stumbled upon our fallen ship. I found Silas and did my best to break his time-prison without killing him in the process, but I had no certainty it would work. I got very lucky; that part must have been the experimental power," Laetilia recalls.

  "Good thing you trained in that kind of stuff, Laetilia!" Silas laughs, now more relaxed, already doubting the talking about knights, but Liora remains tense.

  "So, when I finished putting you on life support, I was sure Adarian was already coming straight for me, and I had to improvise a response. Since I don't have many defenses, I bet everything on an all-out attack," Laetilia gets excited.

  "Good idea! I'd do the same! But did it work?" Frank is impressed. Petra crosses her arms, not quite believing the story.

  "Of course not!" Laetilia starts laughing. "Adarian is very strong. I barely managed to stay alive when he started attacking me back."

  Everyone is perplexed. Petra uncrosses her arms, now believing the story more, but they all remain quiet, listening.

  Laetilia continues, "He came with everything he had: mental domination, that damned protective aura, super speed, and I don't even know what else. He reacted that way because he's afraid of knights, and he doesn't know I'm still a beginner. The fear made him even more dangerous, but I managed to notice that he had become obsessed with his weapon, and that was his downfall."

  "But how was it possible to defeat him? When he hit me with that thing a few times, I couldn't get back up. It was a terrible pain," Petra remembers.

  "Adarian used his sword without any idea of what it really was. And from what I've learned, that sword is what's left of someone very powerful who lived in a distant past, many multiverses ago. It was supposed to be in the Underworld, and I don't know how it ended up on the surface of Gate. That's why its state here was unstable, even more so when you use that kind of thing without having been able to communicate with the artifact itself beforehand. After all, the sword never stopped being rational. It's more or less like a limited version of the King of the Mountain and his people," Laetilia ponders, with some uncertainty.

  "And how did you know that? If not even Adarian himself knew," Liora asks apprehensively.

  "Well, at the end of my training, I learned some advanced stuff about artifacts, and it was in a dire situation. But what matters is that his sword is gone for good; if it weren't, Petra and Frank would still be frozen or in a lot of pain," Laetilia answers quickly.

  Liora interrupts, "A dire situation, is it?"

  "Beni was far away, in Metropolis, and knowing that I was going after you and Seneca alone, he remotely asked me to do something a bit dangerous, and I accepted. Now, thinking about it, if it hadn't been for that, maybe I wouldn't have been able to defeat Adarian," Laetilia ponders.

  "Beni? I've heard that name before," comments Frank, trying to remember something.

  "Yes, Frank, in Rocatrista last time. He was one of the knights that Biggus's son was hunting, the chaos guy," Petra remembers.

  "That's him. I learned the art of the knights from him, and I used his secret technique to blow up Adarian's sword. It was a big bet; good thing it worked out," Laetilia smiles.

  "What? You blew up Adarian's sword and him with it?" Frank asks, while Silas starts to look apprehensive again.

  "Er... Not exactly. As soon as his weapon is gone, Adarian gets really furious and loses all control, becoming even stronger. So I had to use Ka... Ka... Kargh!" Laetilia clenches her teeth, but it′s too late. She takes a step back, already feeling what's coming.

  Frank lifts his elbows and throws his arms forward in perplexity, as if asking what on earth happened then.

  Before Frank could speak anything more, the brightness in the room began to decrease rapidly. An overwhelming feeling of strangeness and fear takes hold of everyone. Liora immediately activates her eye sensors, while Silas takes readings and mentally passes the results to Petra. However, they don't identify what's happening, except that photons are literally disappearing out of nowhere. Everyone gets up from their chairs, and both humans feel all the hair on their bodies stand on end like never before.

  Laetilia observes the tension spreading through the room. With a soft sigh, she says, "I was trying to avoid this. Calm down, everyone, nothing's going to happen. It's just that the power of the knights has these effects. In my case, it's very subtle because, as I said, I'm a beginner."

  "So, this strange feeling we're having is because of that, and this is the weak effect?" Petra becomes even more scared, trying to calm down, but the darkness deepens exponentially, turning the entire environment a bluish, dark hue. The colors of the hearty breakfast are almost gone, and even the smell has been muffled.

  Laetilia responds hastily, "Until a few moments ago, it was just me, but it happens that I'm carrying an artifact from the same age as Adarian's weapon, and the presence of this artifact is thousands of times greater than mine. When Frank asked me about what happened, this artifact, which is called Kalis, woke up. The lights will be like this for a while, but please, try to control yourselves. Kalis isn't like Adarian's weapon; she won't do anything and will soon go back to sleep."

  "Where did you find that thing?" asks Liora, quite afraid.

  "Beni asked me to take Kalis to Seneca; obviously, he didn't take it with him to Metropolis. He also said that sooner or later, someone would come for Kalis. Beni recommended that I always keep the sword in a safe place, preferably with me, but to avoid using it since it draws more eyes than you want," concludes Laetilia, the only one in the room whose hands aren't trembling.

  "You… you used that… whatever that is. Against Adarian?" Asks Frank, choking, almost having to use his willpower trick just to find the courage.

  Laetilia looks up and says, "Maybe it's better if you see what it is directly, because otherwise, every time we talk about this, it may be the same creepy vibe." She reveals the small sword that, until then, had been perfectly hidden in her outfit, blending seamlessly with the elaborate lace on her back. She carefully unsheathes Kalis and places it on the table in front of everyone. A wavy, completely black blade, whose darkness seems to seep into the entire room. Everyone stares at the sword for moments that seem forever, hearing the sound of silence in their minds, the beeps of the terminals on the bridge seem lower and bassier, and the unconscious fear doesn't seem to diminish at all. No one dares to get close or say anything.

  Laetilia turns to Frank after a while and continues, "Against Adarian, I tried to use it, but I couldn't even touch him because he was a very good fighter, and he was very afraid of this thing here."

  "Yeah! I can totally see why..." Petra tries to soften the mood.

  "Well, in the end, after his weapon exploded, he disarmed me and tried to use Kalis to kill me, but since he was corrupted by a pact, it did not work as he expected. The same mistake as Kuj..." Laetilia lets slip too fast again, a tiny chuckle escaping her lips.

  The new information takes almost a whole minute to sink in. Silas is the first to venture, "Okay, let's see if I grab this correctly. This Beni guy, who taught you the art of the knights, killed Biggus's son with that sword right there in front of us?"

  Liora waves her arms at super-speed and lets out a loud, cathartic laugh. She grabs her own jaw with her hand, ceasing the sound, and shakes her head with her eyes closed, in a mixture of powerful feelings that overcomes the fear she had been feeling until now because of the sword.

  Silas looks at Liora with concern, but before he can say anything, Liora says, still with her eyes closed, "I'm sorry, everyone." After a brief pause to compose herself, she continues, "So, this means that besides the Golems, we'll now have Biggus direct after us."

  The darkness begins to subside as Laetilia responds, "No idea about Biggus, since I heard that he disappeared a few years ago. People got tired of him and started a revolution in Metropolis. Kuj's disappearance caused Biggus to lose his footing just before the sham election he had planned to win. He didn't even make it past the primaries, and in the midst of the election, he attempted to halt the process. From there on, things escalated, and I didn't get any more reliable information. I know that, at least until I left Beni's camp, we didn't notice anyone hunting us, but you never know."

  "That sounds like good news, doesn't it, everyone? Biggus is gone, and Adarian was killed by Kalis. Does it kill everyone who makes those pacts?" asks Frank.

  "No, Frank, it hardly kills anything unless you try to use it like a normal sword. Its connection to this world is tenuous; for it to work for something like that, it would have to be reforged in Tempus, I guess." Laetilia thinks for a moment and begins to explain, "However, if it touches a corrupted one, it gives that person a chance to abandon their pact. If that same person chooses not to, the sword merely restores their empathetic awareness to extreme levels and places them in the position of all their victims since they made the pact. This generally creates a pain even greater than Adarian's old Shadow Omen, but it depends on what each person has done throughout their life."

  Everyone remains silent, just imagining what happened. Laetilia concludes: "The real outcome was that both Kuj and Adarian must have made many people suffer throughout their lives, and when Kalis touched them, they were put in their victims' shoes. Neither of them could withstand such suffering and abandoned their pacts."

  "But then how did they get defeated?" Petra asks, having cooled down and smelling the breakfast aroma once again.

  Laetilia paces back and forth as she remembers. "Well, in Kuj's case, right after he abandoned his pact, a colossal energy tower appeared, which exploded and took him and almost the entire Northern region with it, with the explosion reaching the North gates of Metropolis. With Adarian, a mini-tower appeared and also exploded, right next to the Cernutos tower, which was barely scratched. However, it was enough to kill him. He just told me before he died that some 'Matrioska' would come after him for breaking pacts, as it's considered treason among the Alphas."

  "I'm starting to love that Kalis. So Adarian was only brave when it was convenient for him. A few moments seeing the world through his victims' eyes, and he preferred death, the bastard!" Liora adds, with a spark in her voice. "Beni asked you to take this sword to Seneca? Perhaps it's a good idea for Frank to look into this in Rocatrista. I wonder how they are..."

  Frank jumps in, charmed by the idea: "I was thinking about that, and I intend to check on Rocatrista soon, but something came to my mind. Adarian said something right before I passed out, about Seneca's son, didn't he?"

  Liora nods affirmatively, asking, "I was distant when Adarian said that, but I do remember. Something about Jufeis, any ideas?"

  Laetilia, still wandering around the room, now lit once again, begins to speak: "During my training, Beni mentioned something about that. Seneca had a son here in Gate. I just know that this son ended up becoming an Alpha, but no idea about Jufeis."

  “Amanda told me about Jufeis being a species with controversial origins linked with the first Alphas. She didn't know much, so I asked Ramirez in a message, but I am not sure if he answered me since the network is down. Anyway, if Seneca's son truly became an Alpha, this could be a big mess,” says Petra, remembering the conversation with her teacher just before the spiders.

  They all look at each other and sit back down, except for Laetilia, who remains standing, but is now still. Silas begins to speak: "Yes, this could be a problem. We'll have a lot to discuss with Seneca when we find him, and now it doesn't seem like it will be an easy conversation."

  "Look, I don't think Seneca knows anything about Matrioska, nor can Beni explain exactly what happened. He never imagined what would happen when Kuj took Kalis," Laetilia reflects.

  "Wait a minute, Laetilia, what is the current relationship between Beni and Seneca?" Petra asks, now concerned.

  Laetilia responds bluntly, "They haven't spoken in years, but Beni isn't the most communicative person in the world, quite the contrary. He told me he made a huge mistake and decided to abandon his training to try to fix it, all before the cataclysm."

  "Before? So, the son became an Alpha a long time ago? Because if Seneca knows nothing about this Matrioska, and if he tries to use Kalis to save his son, things could go very wrong," Petra concludes.

  "About when his son joined the Alphas, I don't know for sure, but I agree. I imagine Beni′s idea is for Seneca to learn something from the sword, because he is a knight of the first house," Laetilia explains.

  Frank tilts his head, asking: "The first house knights learns things from artifacts?"

  "More or less. They specialize in teaching and learning various techniques, and some of these can come from intelligent artifacts. For example, the opportunity to undo pacts would be something new," Laetilia reflects, and concludes, "In any case, to prevent Seneca's son from exploding, we need to understand this Matrioska first."

  "Okay, but Beni didn't know about Matrioska? How exactly did Kuj die in the end?" Petra insists, troubled.

  Laetilia leans against the ship's window, gesturing constantly as she remembers her early conversations with Beni: "Well, Kuj came after him, knowing it would be easy, because it's public knowledge that Beni was a failed apprentice. And that is exactly what happened; Beni was down in seconds. Kuj's henchmen then started torturing him. They had slipped that it would be used in some campaign thing, and in the end, Kuj took Kalis from Beni and intended to use it for the final blow to create propaganda, recording this as an overwhelming victory over the knights. From then on, it was complete chaos. I could only imagine, because everyone there was an Alpha. Beni was left forgotten on the ground, unconscious, and only woke up to the lights of the energy tower about to explode, with Kuj's entire entourage writhing on the floor in pain, except for Kuj, who, according to Beni, was kneeling and in a panic; he must have been the first to abandon his pact. There was only enough time for Beni to improvise some protection that saved him from the first impact, lucky for him, but he was bounced into the air by the aftershocks, fell hard, and was left unconscious, right in the middle of the main crater. And he was going to die right there, for sure."

  Frank refreshes some memory and says, "But Beni survived, right? Laetilia, remember the last time I went to Rocatrista? Chester mentioned that Kuj was after Beni. He was right, but there were more knights in the region nearby."

  "I never knew about any other knights, Frank..." Laetilia promptly answers, but is interrupted by Liora.

  "One moment! When did this explosion occur, the one you said that reached the North Gate of Metropolis? And where were you at that time?" Liora asks as she pieces together the sequence of events.

  Laetilia brings a hand to her head and says in a casual tone, "Well, I was pretty close to that whole mess, a few days after I reached the Golems. I had taken the airbike up high to go full throttle and shot off towards the North. Suddenly, I saw a colossal energy tower lighting up everything to my left. After a few moments, some kind of portal opened and fired at the tower, making it explode from the top down like a thousand stars going supernova."

  "How did you survive that?" asks Petra.

  "Well, first I panicked, and then what saved me were the physics lessons from Silas that I watched from the archives. I had plenty of time while piloting the ship back in the day," Laetilia replies promptly.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  "Silas used to be a teacher?" Petra is impressed, smiling at Silas.

  Silas responds, remembering what it could be, "I think those are the lectures from my personal archive from when I was studying engineering." Liora smiles and also remembers, nodding in agreement, but before she can say anything, Silas continues, "I appreciate the good memories, but how did those lessons save you?"

  "Well, right after the tower exploded, the upper part of the energy arrived almost immediately with the light, passing well above where I was, but even so, it caused some turbulence in the atmosphere, cause it was extremely powerful. So I thought to myself: in the vacuum upwards, the explosion arrived much faster, and if that already caused this much damage, things are going to heat up down here soon. I have a few seconds to try something…" Laetilia replies, pausing briefly and continuing more calmly, "I waited for the front of the explosion wave to pass over my head, and as soon as an opening appeared, I surfed the turbulence at full throttle straight up, using my energy beams to accelerate at the end. I was very fortunate to find an updraft that would project me as far out of the atmosphere as possible. I nearly went into orbit. Almost out of air up there, I saw the other part of the explosion pass by below me, while I recalculated a vector to make my re-entry slowly. Although the bike isn't fully designed for that, it has enough aerodynamics to prevent it from burning up completely. As soon as the air started to return, I managed to fire up the engines at maximum and decelerate. I mean, almost. I still had to exhaust my energy beams to mitigate the beginning of the re-entry, but in the end, it worked," concludes Laetilia, slightly emulating Silas's way of speaking.

  "Wow, I'm glad that helped in some way! But I think the probability of that working out is almost nil," comments Silas.

  "Sure, but other things helped. The atmosphere around me was on fire, and if I hadn't trained a bit with Petra's power, it would have ended quite different. And to accelerate the airbike with me, I had to combine my mother's speed with a bit of training in Frank's power of strength, not to mention the years of piloting I ended up learning on our journey," Laetilia reflects.

  Liora smiles, letting almost all the tension go as she sinks back into the chair, and asks, "Ah, what a relief! Glad it all went okay. So, what’s next?"

  "Well, I got curious and went to see what the hell had exploded. It was less than an hour's journey from where I made my re-entry. I turned on the sensors and found a crater with a guy dying in the middle of it, and Kalis tossed nearby. It was Beni. I went there and tried the suma life support on him, but it gave me 'indeterminate physiology,' so I had to kludge a solution. It worked, but it took him a little while to wake up. I took Kalis, put him on the bike, and got out of there quickly," Laetilia concludes.

  "I see, so that's how it was? And Beni, is he a solid guy after all?" asks Liora.

  "Definitely, he's very altruistic, but the 'chaos being' part makes everything more complicated. Anyway, it took him a long time to teach me about knights because he was very afraid of what could happen. I only learned the basics from him, having to figure things out on my own. But that's a long story; we can talk about it later, Mom," Laetilia says, showing a bit of fatigue.

  "Well, good thing the breakfast was hearty because it almost served as lunch. Let's cool our heads. Afterward, I'd like to know if I can learn this knight stuff from you," suggests Frank, getting up from his chair.

  "Frank…" Petra groans, placing a hand on her forehead.

  "Hmm, I had never thought about that, but I don't see why you couldn't train!" Laetilia responds, excited by the idea.

  Silas interrupts, "Well, everyone, we can think about that calmly later. The idea of training this so-called art of the knights seems like madness to me, but that was the Metropolis baloney that was pushed down our throats the whole time." Silas clears his voice as he reconnects some of the terminals beside him. He continues to speak, "As I was saying, I have some information about this ship, but a large part of the material is in something similar to the ancestral language Amanda had mentioned, but it's very strange, actually. I'm not sure what it is."

  Laetilia, with a start, "Hey! Then I can help with that. A large part of the initial knight training involves understanding that sort of thing. But you found this language in this ship's memory? How bizarre!"

  Silas scratches his head but lets out a smile at the possibility of help. He says, "Okay, but don't you want to cool down first? We need to prepare a welcome-back party, at least."

  Laetilia gets excited and tries a few dance steps, saying, "Woohoo, sounds good to me!" She smoothly sheaths Kalis, then approaches Silas, "But one thing at a time. We don't even know where we're going, and the sensors are off. If we pass over Seneca on the Tempus route without knowing, it will be a problem, especially with the Golems so close."

  Silas ponders and replies, "Yes, I just fixed the sensors in basic mode, but the repair list is still long, and even with help, it will take a good while. On the other hand, this information about the ship seems important. What do you all think?"

  "I'll cool my head at the same time I help you with the ship, Silas. What's there for me to do?" Petra offers.

  "Alright, count me in!" agrees Frank, while Liora nods and returns her focus to piloting.

  "Well, I can either look at the memories or fix things. Where do I start?" Laetilia asks Silas.

  "Okay, okay, let's get this organized. I have a priority list here. While we fix the ship, it would be good for you to focus on the memories today, Laetilia, and then join us later," Silas replies, as he distributes tasks to everyone. The ship visibly accelerates.

  Liora comments as people begin to fulfill their duties: "Everyone, before I join you, I'm going to max our speed to gain more time over the Golems. From now on, we only have Mosh's notes on his map. The next point on the route to Tempus is months away at warp one, and there's no name or record of what it is besides coordinates."

  They all spread out throughout the ship, often removing parts and taking them to the dojo universe's factory to speed up the repairs. Meanwhile, Laetilia begins to check the memories, but without access to the city of spirits' knowledge base, it is a very difficult task. She sent a message to Silas after throwing the towel: "Whatever this ship's memories are, they’re deeper, stranger than I ever imagined. There are lines of thinking, whole thoughts in the ancient tongue I didn’t even know were possible. Whatever this vessel truly is, nothing in my training comes close. And the truth is... I know almost nothing".

  After a hectic day, Laetilia and Liora are left alone on the bridge late at night, where they engage in long conversations, while the others are exhausted and asleep. A few days pass, softened by a comforting sense of normalcy that routine provides. Laetilia interrupts her meditation for a few nights to talk with her mother, and the ship once again regains the welcoming feel of the past. The red parts, however, are preserved but now covered by panels on the wall until they can determine what they are. A soft, darkness hue still fills the environment, but they are learning to pierce through it.