I woke up the next morning because someone was banging his fist against the neighbor's door so hard that I thought he would destroy my door too in one go. With a sigh, I cast aside the blanket and stretched my body. Even though the day before had been challenging, I felt surprisingly good considering the fact that I had almost died. And I'd feel even better for sure after taking a shower and getting dressed. Thus I grabbed a pile of clothes and while still wearing nothing but underwear, I ran towards the washing rooms. The hallways were busy already, like every morning, and no one really cared for the others around them. Which was no pity at all, because on my way out I had thrown a last quick glance into the mirror, only to see that the bruises on my throat had become much worse over night.
It had been hard enough to convince Elynnja that I'd wanted to wear a scarf during work despite the tropical temperatures, as I didn't want to tell her that I had almost been crashed by an angry Charr-human. Elynnja took me for a weirdo already anyway, so a scarf in summer wouldn't make much of a difference anymore.
While another asura was just tearing the door open and swaggering out, I used the opportunity to slip inside and was immediately welcomed by a dense damp cloud. The hurry was most in the mornings, and right now all PeDACURs were occupied, so I took my time taking off the underwear and throwing some of the clothes inside the washing machine. To pass some more time, I tried to unravel all the knots inside my hair while waiting.
After just a short time I could hear the already familiar hissing of an opening cabin door, and as I turned around to make use of the now empty cabin, I suddenly faced Kekk who was standing right in front of me, naked as a jaybird and grinning from ear to ear while he examined me through the fog.
"What do you say, good morning, long-e-! Oh, in Oola's name, what happened to you!?" He was most likely talking about my throat, as his grin immediately turned into a shocked expression.
"Just had a slight variance, I'd say." I told him with a shrug, while I tried not to stare too much at Kekk's body. I could still sense the human inside of me when it came to this, because I wasn't used to take nudism in stride. Asura didn't have such a sense of shame when it came to their bodies, and nudity wasn't something that had to be hid or mocked. Different situations were sexual matters, and as long as those didn't proceed on purely scientific bases, they were completely taboo in public. I didn't get the sense behind this, but I would have to get used to it – like so many other things.
"It looks like a bigger dispute to me!" But the grin returned to his face, and Kekk smoothly rubbed his hair dry with a towel. I used the moment of inattention to examine this Asura a bit more closely, and tall was definitely the most fitting term to describe him, the more so as the movement put more body parts in motion as well. I felt my face blush immediately, but the steam was able to hide it almost completely – otherwise I'd just have pinned it to the heat in this room.
But while Kekk was running over the hallways half naked most of the time, I only now realized how muscular he really was. And dozens of large scars covered the muscles on chest and stomach, as if he had gotten into a hard fight some time ago and had barely managed to come out of it alive. Black stripe-like patterns ran from his forehead to his back, back to the front at hip height and were then wriggling down on the inside of his thighs until they met at the ankles and faded on the middle toe. This pattern now seemed to be a piece of art to me, and with every tiny movement the lines seemed to dance. At least that was the case on his left leg, as the right one was covered in something that looked like shower proof bandages from the knee downwards.
Kekk threw the towel over his shoulder and slipped into a pair of shorts that were too tight, and I had to clear my throat to tear my eyes away from him.
"Well, it looks worse than it really is, I guess. At least I feel good, apparently." I was keeping myself busy with my hair right now so I wouldn't be tempted to look again.
"If you say so." Kekk laughed. "But now that you're obviously back in Rata Sum, you can visit my Krewe later! What do you think of that?"
"Sounds good." From the corner of my eye I could see another Asura opening the door, and I slowly moved towards the only empty capsule to make sure I wouldn't have to wait any longer. "Where can I find you?"
The towel was purposefully thrown into the designated basket while Kekk didn't look away from me. "Just get to my room; I'll bring you to the lab from there."
And as he strolled past me he decently slapped me across the backside, I almost stumbled into the empty PeDACUR, because now there was no way the damp air could hide my blushed face anymore.
By that time I had managed to find out how I could extend the pleasant procedure, and thus I enjoyed the interplay of hot water and energy for something that felt like eternity. Thanks to Zojja I now knew that the water got its unnatural blue color exactly because of the special kind of magic they used. Not only did it have an extra cleaning effect, but it also caused the water to feel softer and more comfortable on the skin. I'd have spent even more time inside the capsule if there hadn't been multiple Asura gathering in the washing rooms, waiting for a cabin to empty. I couldn't recognize any faces through the milky glass, but I didn't want to be the one blocking the whole bath, so I stepped out as soon as the cabin door opened with a hiss and another, very small Asura immediately slipped past me.
I grabbed one of the towels with a sigh to rub my hair dry with it and then took the now clean and dry clothes out of the washing machine and got dressed. I hurried to get out of the damp air as soon as possible to avoid the freshly cleaned clothes getting damp again, and then I ungallantly dropped myself into the hammock to get on my shoes. There was not much planned for the day, so maybe it really was a good idea to visit Kekk and his Krewe. The next training session with Aidan was planned tomorrow, and Zojja was glad for sure to get at least one day to rest from my presence. I'd still have enough time to tell her about Asckar and my insight in the evening before work.
The thought of the last evening made me giggle. Even though I had been incautious, it all had been a close shave. Arrhakesh had listened to the whole conversation, but she had told me later that day that she hadn't been able to understand most of what Asckar and I had talked about. Without noticing, we both had fallen back to our old language even though I hadn't even noticed talking in some other language than my native tongue! It seemed that my head was automatically translating everything into Tyrian, except those few words that only existed in my tongue and not in New-Krytan. That's why during our goodbye at the portal, Kesh had asked what "Gougel" meant, and under heavy laughter I had tried to explain to her that Google was some sort of archive-golem that had access to almost any information with breathtaking speed. This explanation had been enough for Kesh and luckily for me, she didn't ask further why no one knew about this term except Asckar. She also didn't ask why we had suddenly switched to another language, and I thought highly of her for this. But Arrhakesh had her own little secrets too for sure and thus was particularly good at keeping secrets of others. And it was kind of calming that she still didn't know the whole story behind my existence. Maybe I'd be able to open myself to someone else than Zojja someday, but the day hadn't come yet – if it ever would.
Although there was one thought that didn't let go off me. The fact that we had talked in the same native tongue could only mean that Asckar came from the same country as I. But what if I met someone who had lived in another country? Would we still be able to talk in both our native tongues or would our brains be wired to Tyrian language with our mother language being untouched? It triggered me to find out, but therefore I had to find a method first of how to identify humans like me.
One thing at a time. Kekk was waiting for me already for sure, and before he would blow up something out of boredom, I decided to make an end to his waiting. I quickly shouldered my backpack, in which I always carried a bunch of extra clothes since the accident at the United Arcanists Lab, closed the door behind me and knocked on Kekk's door. It opened the same moment my fist touched the wood, and Kekk greeted me with a huge grin. He was still running around naked from the waist up, but at least he had switched to some wider pants. I couldn't decide if I should be glad or disappointed for it.
"Well well, there you are! Did you get lost on your way?" He said jokingly while quickly throwing over a rumpled shirt and led me out of the sleeping dorms to one higher platform, where most of the labs were located. It almost seemed as if he was limping a bit while walking, but I wasn't sure if it was just my imagination.
"How comes you are leader of your own krewe?" I asked on our way as Kekk didn't seem to be much older than me, and while most young Asura had already joined a krewe, they rarely had a leading position.
"Providential interposition, I'd say. Had the right idea, the right people, and the right sponsors I suppose, all in the place at the right time. We might be small, but in relation quite successful! Might be because there is not much opposition in that field."
Had Kekk ever told me before what his krewe was doing? My asking face seemed to be enough, because he continued without a single word from my mouth.
"We create prosthetics. The best in Maguuma, I insist. Maybe even all throughout Tyria. There are some Charr who have a reasonable nose for it too, at least they're beating each other up so much; no wonder they lose a body part now and then! But they're primitive compared to us, we are precision and Magi-Tech in the latest state of research! And we do everything. From whole feet to a single claw, and not long ago we even had a nose on order! Can you imagine that? A prosthetic-nose! It was a rather desperate old coot. Said something about losing his nose in a fight, but if you ask me, it rather looked as if he couldn't handle his fork the right way…"
Kekk continued to talk about the weirdest orders the krewe had gotten during the whole way, until we finally arrived at a metal door where huge letters said Cybernetics-Krewe. Kekk tore open the door without a knock and hot metallic air greeted me, causing me to blink multiple times before I could see properly again.
I closed the door behind us and tried to get an overview of the room, but luckily for me, Kekk took me by the hand and pulled me forward.
"Well then, long-ear, welcome in the Cybernetics-Krewe!" He said happily while he showed me around in his lab. Huge displays were blinking and beeping everywhere, and in every corner I could see prototypes and dozens of tiny golems tried to follow up with clearing all the mess. Two of the Asura inside this room were already known to me through the visit of the catacombs: Varna, who was screwing around on a quite extravagant looking hand prosthesis and Meppo, who was just racking his brain over some blueprints. The third Asura was particularly interesting because she stared at me with glowing red eyes as if she was putting me on a trial. Her skin was grayish and traversed by muscles, and I was sure this one was better in fighting than anything else. Her rust-brown hair was bound together in a simple braid, and her ears showed some flaws already. But what was the purpose of an obvious warrior inside this lab?
"Long-ear, this is Eddda. She might be a member of this krewe, but you won't see her inside the lab that often. Eddda prefers to test new prototypes in, eh… let's say, field experiments."
I gave her a sheepish smile and murmured a "Hey, Edda. Nice to meet you." But in the next moment her face changed into a grimace and she stormed towards me with a speed that I wouldn't have given such a delicate figure credit for. I reflexively recognized some of her moves because Narru had used the same during our training back then, and I automatically dodged and in the same second beat the side of my hand against the Asura's neck, so hard that she lost her balance and tumbled over the floor.
In this moment I couldn't say who of us was more stunned: Eddda, who hadn't calculated on a counter attack; the viewers who hadn't expected anything like this or me being surprised by my own move. Seems like the training wasn't useless at all, I thought with a grin.
The other Asura grinned too after she had recovered from her surprise. She got up with a sweep and patted my shoulder. "Not bad for a beginner. Wanna be a warrior too, eh? Really not bad. But remember this: it's Edd-da. Not Edda. Understood? The punch will be harder next time, I promise!"
I blankly stared at her. That had been the reason why she had attacked me? Because I had pronounced her name wrong? I shook my head with amusement. What weird personalities I had met during my short time in Rata Sum already… It seemed as if a huge part of this race truly wasn't completely sane. What definitely made me a part of them.
The moment Eddda moved her hand through her face I recognized the prosthetic that replaced the whole of her right arm. It was designed elaborately and was worked so precisely that it didn't only exactly look like the metallic rebuild of an asuran hand, but it also probably would make possible even more precise fine-motor skills than a hand made of flesh and blood.
While I still examined Eddda's prosthetic, she screwed it off on her wrist with ease and replaced it with one that Varna gave her. This one was way less elaborate but that didn't seem to impact the functionality. Eddda grabbed a huge mace that had leant low-key against the corner of the lab and bumped into me while she ran past me to tear me out of my stunned stiffness.
"I'm off then, testing the new piece a bit." She swung the mace way too close to my head to demonstrate her words and left the lab with a big grin.
Varna had already continued to work on another piece, this time for a foot, and Meppo seemed to have finally understood his blueprints. Kekk casually leant against one of the desks and was playing with a screw that must have lain next to him while examining me with amusement. Only now I got aware of the fourth Asura whose presence I had completely forgotten during Eddda's extravagant show.
The Asura scanned some data on one of the displays and I wondered how I could have missed her in Rata Sum until now. Grey-brown hair had been put into two high braids and her violet glowing eyes scurried over the lines carefully. Black patterns decorated her otherwise extremely pale and colorless skin, and together with pink and purple clothes that had more ribbons and glitter than the wardrobe of the human queen, she was truly an eye-catching (while not beautiful at all) view.
"Long-ear, this is Ronnée. Co-founder of the Cybernetics-Krewe and daughter of the legendary golemancer Snaff." The Asura gave a short wink without looking away from the display (which reminded me a lot of Zojja), and ignored the coughing attack that shook me because of the surprise. Snaff had a daughter!? Did Zojja know about it? She had never mentioned something in that direction…
Kekk cleared his throat. "Shocking, isn't it? Only a few know. Ronnée doesn't like to talk about it, but it always makes a good first impression, you see?" He laughed. One more who doesn't like to talk about their origins. Almost like me, I thought, and without thinking further, I asked: "Who is your mother?"
Finally Ronnée turned around to face me, and her big eyes glinted skeptically. "Who wants to know that?"
I played around with my ear in embarrassment. That much for a good first impression. Varna and Meppo hurried to get after their work, but I knew exactly that they were listening closely to our conversation.
It wasn't easy to find the right words. Asking such a personal question to a complete stranger had been dumb, most of all when the subject seemed to be uncomfortable anyway.
"Well, I… Zojja is my aunt and she has been… quite close to Snaff, that's why I'm confused that she has never mentioned you…"
"Because she doesn't know." Ronnée simply countered. "And besides I have never heard of you before too, even though you're related to such a famous person like Zojja!" Cynical, but she wasn't wrong with that.
As I continued to plainly stare at her, she sighed and stemmed her hands on her hip. "Listen. Your Zojja doesn't know everything, and I'm sorry if that destroys your world view. But there are reasons for keeping it out of the public. It was a kind of… let's call it a failed experiment. My mother has never contacted Snaff again ever after it happened. He probably didn't know about his daughter until the day he died."
To underline her words, she turned around again and continued to study her data. I was surprised how openly she talked to me despite the dismissive impression she had on me.
Kekk hummed awkwardly to bypass the uncomfortable silence. "Hmmm. Well, long-ear, you best tell the rest of the krewe about your idea that you have told me about. This could be another break-through for our krewe, especially since it's going into a completely new direction!"
And well, I immediately had the attention of everyone. Except Ronnée.
"Eh, so, I… I think the messaging system via mail pigeons and golems is quite impractical, and communicators already available on the free market are not the best either. Why not develop some kind of image-and-voice communicator? Something that maintains its quality over long distances, maybe through transmitters on the way? And thus something that would be able to transfer holographic images in real-time?"
I might be stupid for Asura standards, but the interested views that I got were enough proof that it sometimes could be helpful indeed to transfer ideas from one universe to another. Even though I would have never admitted that of course.
"We could use the present concept of the communicators for the sound and just extend it to higher standards, and there has to be a way for the images to optimize the recording devices of the sender so the holographic display can be rendered simultaneously to the sound."
While I had no idea how to implement such an idea, this would be the job of Kekk's krewe members. I gave the idea, they did the job.
All fell into thoughtful silence for a moment. Then it was Meppo who clapped his hands over his head. "This is so primitive that it could actually work!"
I grunted. "Humph. Thanks… I guess?" Not quite sure how to understand Meppo's comment, I threw a glance into the group. Even Ronnée, who had her eyes still turned towards the display, had her ears focused in my direction. Kekk laughed. "Hey, that's quite an extravagant way of thinking for a Norn."
"You have to speak from experience. Tell me, Kekk, how many Asura do you know that have grown up between Norn?"
"Enough to be positively surprised."
Kekk wandered back and forth, most likely to think about the realization of my idea, and now that he was running around inside the lab without a pause, I again spotted the slight limping. This time it seemed to be the right moment to ask.
"Hey, Kekk? May I ask why you limp like this?" Ronnée snorted, but this time I didn't care about my blunt intimate questions. Kekk was the last to be offended by it. If anything, he seemed to be happy that I wanted to address this topic.
"You see…" He pushed up the right side of his trousers and there were no bandages like I had seen in the morning, but instead there was a complicated looking construction made of metal and other shiny materials connecting his knee with his foot. It wasn't the first time I saw a prosthetic as I had seen many of them even outside the lab, but it still surprised me seeing it on someone I knew. Had everyone inside this krewe lost a part of their body? Eddda her right arm, Kekk his leg…
Kekk pulled the fabric down again and sat down on one of the tables to start a sketch, maybe for our new prototype. "I loved to play around with wild animals when I was a progeny. One time I guess I played a bit too rough as I quickly learned. A wolf shredded most parts of my lower leg and I can be lucky that I could get out of this alive. But at least this is how I got to building prosthetics and this baby here-", he pointed towards his leg, "was my entry ticket for the college of dynamics!"
Meppo gave me a chair and I thankfully sat down between him and Kekk. With hundreds of Asura living inside of Rata Sum and Tyria I could have met the meanest personalities of all and directly throw myself into disaster. But instead I had met one serendipity after another – starting with Zojja, who had befriended me without hesitation, over Nahraija, who seemed to become some kind of best friend to me with her quirky, life-loving and just gentle personality, to Kekk, who would have had so many opportunities to exploit me already but he never did. Maybe I would have ended as an Inquest-experiment, if the wrong eyes had seen my arrival to Tyria. But now I had a bed, work, friends and maybe even a krewe. Maybe it wasn't that bad at all to stay here? At least for a while?
During the rest of the day, Kekk asked me many questions about the prototype that we wanted to build; and even if I didn't understand half of what he and the others said, it was a good feeling to have contributed something. Shortly after Varna had gotten lunch for all that resembled fried noodles with eggs and Meppo and Ronnée were just discussing how they could put up transmitters throughout Tyria that were not only weather-proof but also could stand against other situations as well, like attacks from animals or bandits, the door was torn open and I startled so much that I almost covered the whole table with my food.
It was Eddda who stormed into the room, the prosthetic of her right hand completely torn and the face covered in sweat, but she was gleaming with happiness as she threw the mace into the corner with sway and plonking the destroyed prosthetic onto Varna's table.
"You should take platinum next time, should be more stable. This one was crap, but I have been able to beat up a Charr completely behind his horns! Oh, food."
Still grinning, she reached for her own prosthetic and screwed it on again, then she grabbed the only food box that was still available. While she loudly supped her noodles, Kekk told her about my plan in detail and what they wanted to do for the first prototype. Eddda hummed in agreement.
"No fad iwea iww you afk me", she murmured with full mouth.
The members of the krewe came to the conclusion that they wanted to test the image-and-sound transmission over short distances on the prototype first, and as soon as that was optimized, they would develop the system so it would work flawlessly on longer distances. Eddda didn't seem to understand more than I from what they said, and as soon as they went too deep into detail, both of us stopped listening. Eddda instead told me how she had gotten her mace – that she had always loved to sit on a tree and throw cherry stones at Ettins, but some day the branch had snapped and thrown her right in front of the feet of a very angry Ettin. Somehow she had managed to wangle the weapon off the Ettin's hand and pull it over his head, and since then the mace was her favorite weapon.
"Of course I have long stopped using the old stinky thing, but the system remains the same. What weapon do you use?"
I hadn't tried any other weapon except the hammer yet, but somehow I knew that that wouldn't be necessary at all. As soon as I would be able to properly swing the hammer, I wouldn't even feel the need to try anything else. Hammer and mace were not too different when it came to the fighting system, and Eddda promised to bring me to a reputable weapon merchant once I had learned the most important skills.
"There comes a time when every warrior needs a good weapon that is exactly adapted for their fighting style. You can't fight with the cheap scrap forever, and most people don't sell anything better in the street corners. But if there's someone who really knows about weapons, then it's Leo. She loves to build things from scrap most of the time, but if you're searching for really exotic weapons, she is the right one to talk to. It's just hard to find her sometimes because she's always travelling around and rarely in the Citadel."
Eddda was incredible. She was friendly indeed, most of all since I was on a good way to become such a warrior like her, but as soon as I pronounced her name wrong – which happened more than once during that afternoon – I either received a head butt, a hard blow between the ribs or both.
As it got late I said my goodbyes to visit Zojja before I had to get to work. Kekk forced me to promise that I would come back the next day so he could show me how far he had gotten on his prototype, and Ronnée dismissed me with "no words to your aunt!"
As not expected otherwise I found Zojja inside her lab, this time though the console was shut down. Zojja knelt on the stone slabs instead, the face bend over a golem whose inside was open. I couldn't say if she was disassembling or assembling the golem, but seeing all those little parts I really respected all those who knew anything about golemancy.
"Hey, auntie. I'm back. And I'm still alive."
Zojja threw a quick examining glance towards me. She didn't seem surprised about my presence; after I had visited her almost daily during the last weeks, she most likely calculated on my arrival all the time.
"I can see that. Though barely, as far as I can tell."
I snorted. This was more than I had expected. She could have said something like "told you", and I thought highly of her biting back such a comment. Even though I was sure that she had to bite it back with difficulty.
"Did you achieve anything other than looking like a hanged woman?"
"Many things, actually. Asckar is indeed one of us."
"One of you? How many of you are there?"
"That I don't know, but if Asckar is like me, then there have to me others too. I know that, and now I only have to find a way to identify them. I need someone to talk to about all this… When I came here, I already knew about Tyria. Asckar didn't, that's why it hit him particularly hard. But I knew what was going to happen, from the first moment until years in the future. Although something has happened to my head, the same way something has wired Asckar's and my head to your language, and every time that I try to remember there is some kind of blockade. And it's getting stronger with every day passing by. I don't understand. I should be able to know exactly what is going to happen, should be able to remember! It has been like this with Zhaitan. And my memories stretch further. At least they should. I have this feeling, foreshadowing, when I hear certain names or see certain places. But every time I try to reach those memories, there is this wall shielding the memories from the rest of my thinking! If I could breach this wall, maybe I would be able to change some things…"
"And where should that lead to?" Zojja asked with calm voice and stopped her work on the golem to look at me with serious eyes. "My dear, I think it's rather some kind of protective function. What do you want to achieve by changing the future? Don't you think that you might only make things worse? By changing something to protect it, you only cause more damage in the end. Everything has its place in the Eternal Alchemy, and some things just have to happen."
I shook my head. There had to be a reason why I was here, and maybe it was exactly that. That I had come to Tyria to change something!
"That can't be. What if I had come early enough to prevent Snaff's death? Wouldn't that have been much better, for everyone? Most of all for you!"
I could see sadness in Zojja's eyes for just a heartbeat. "But you were not. You couldn't prevent Snaff's death, and no one else was able to. The events have happened, and if they hadn't happened like this, many things probably wouldn't have followed the way they did and who knows how the world would look now. I think your memories are blocked so you can't turn the way of the world into something worse. Only after events have actually happened, the memory will return. And who tells you that it will really happen the way you remember it? And what happens at the point where your memory ends?"
I didn't want to find out at all. The run of events had been way more progressed in my world at the time I had come here, and I planned to be long home until the Tyria that I knew now had followed up. I remembered that the plot in the game had already covered five years, and right now I was in year one so to say.
But what if Zojja was right? If the blockade truly was some kind of security mechanism so I wouldn't make things worse? Could I even make something worse with just trying to save someone's life?