Chapter 3: Encounters

Rise, little Wolf-Human...

It begins...

Rex quickly sat up, un-annoyed by the voice that ordered him to awaken. He was too busy smiling at the fact that he had his very own ship to explore the vast, adventure filled expanse of the cosmos in to be mad at the voice for yelling at him to wake up. He lurched himself to his feet, and trotted over to the cockpit door of the space-bound vessel. He opened the door and pressed his face against the windows of the ship as he had done on Liax's spaceship, looking out towards the mass of stars and planets that lie before him. Rex walked over to sit down in the pilot's seat to find a new planet to explore. This triggered a window, similar to his inventory, to pop up, illustrating a giant, scrollable star map. He stared at this map in awe before beginning to click around, looking for a solar system with more that two planets to land in. The book that Liax had given him explained that planets in the same solar system only require a single unit of fuel to travel between planets in that same system, whilst traveling to any other solar system required 200. He also had the option to manually pilot the ship, but he thought against it seeing how he would need a source a fuel that he could use to replace the lost amount that he would burn up during his travels. Besides, he had no idea how to drive.

He finally found a solar system with a fair amount of planets. Two forest planets, a snow planet, a desert planet, and an astroid field. It seemed relatively far from his current position, but to still registered as only 200 fuel as a cost. He pressed on the forest planet and pressed the travel button, which triggered the release of two more windows. One requesting Star-travel ID authentication, and another one that was blank. …Authentication? Rex thought. He didn't have any authentication, which could prove troublesome. He randomly pressed the green square in the center of the window which launched a sort of scanning sonar that scanned Rex vertically, multiple times. Ah, gods… Rex thought. It's gonna kick me off of the ship now or something. However, it did not. Instead, the window flashed and some text formed, saying 'New user Authentication complete.' Then that window closed, and the window that was previously empty now filled with data of what parts of the ship were being activated, where they were going, star data, landscape data, and a large amount of other information that Rex currently thought of as useless.

The ship began to move, starting out slowly and quickly gaining speed as it moved. He closed the window with the mass amount of data and walked into the main room of the ship, looking out of the windows to view the planets and stars that he passed by. He began to walk over to the other window when he noticed some sort of locker sticking out of the wall. He neared it and opened it, summoning two windows. One being his inventory, which Liax and Maria had apparently slipped some extra clothes into, and a new window titled 'Ship Locker.' He tapped some of the contents of the 64-spaced chest, which opened an extra window containing detailed descriptions of whatever he pressed on. Only two things were present in the locker. One being 5 seeds that Rex could plant to get fruit, and a Matter Manipulator, which was the same tool that Liax and Maria had so that they could place and destroy the stuff that they had placed. After dragging over the two items from the locker to his inventory, Rex stared at his matter manipulator curiously, wondering how it did what it did, and what made it run.

All the while the ship was still traveling, but Rex noticed how soundless it was, as no motors or engines or whirs could be heard from anywhere around the ship. He also couldn't feel that he was on a moving space ship. In fact, it felt like the ship was stationary, so Rex to one of the windows to double-check that the ship was still moving. After he confirmed that the ship was still in motion, he began to wander aimlessly around his surprisingly wide ship interior. He thought that, since the ship didn't move anything inside of it, even while it was moving, he should get some chairs and a table set up in there. Maybe a bed placed somewhere, or a station or couch or something to make his newly appointed home more… homey. He walked back into the cockpit of the ship and sat in the pilot seat, bringing out the notebook that Liax had made him. Rex decided that he needed to make sure he was prepared for the planet anyways, so he needed to know all he could. And besides, it seemed like the ship was going to take a while to get to the designated planet anyways, so he had some time to kill.

• • •

As he was nearing the end of his reading session, a new window popped up that had a message saying that the destination planet was reached, and the ship's orbital preparations were being made for when Rex wanted to beam down. He probably guessed that the ship had been flying for about a half and hour to forty five minuets. He felt plenty prepared for what he might encounter after reading Liax's notes on survival. His mindset was simple. Spawn down, get a little bit of wood, a little bit of stone, then make a pickax and an axe to get a lot of wood and stone with, and build a base of operations. From there he would explore the surface of the planet and begin his search for ores an the such underground. After going through the list he made in his head a few more times, the window flashed white, showing a changed message. It was now saying; 'Orbit Preparations complete. You many now use the teleporter.' Rex closed this window and got out of the chair he was sitting in as he proceeded to head towards the teleporter room. Once he got there, he pressed the button that he could use to pick the location where he wanted the teleporter to beam down to. He made a selection and pressed the 'Teleport' button, which surrounded him in a white flash, that quickly faded to reveal a new landscape.

The surface with covered in lush, green, beautiful grass with spaced out trees there was were not as nearly close together as on the planet where Rex had met Maria and Liax. Back on that planet, the treetops formed a sea of green, with mountain islands sticking out of them. The sky was a beautiful shade of a paled sky-blue, with the sun just barely beginning it's ascent to the cloudless skies. Rex smiled, taking a deep breath of the fresh air of the new, yet familiar, landscape. He took out his matter manipulator and began to cut down trees at a pace a snail would laugh at him for. After what seemed like an eternity, the tree finally gave way and timbered to the ground, turning into small bits of unrefined wood, which Rex then opened his inventory to turn that unrefined wood into wood planks. From there, he created a crafting table and placed it, using his matter manipulator, where the tree Rex had just cut down had been. From there he returned to gather wood from one more tree, which was followed by a little bit of digging to get some stone, which took even longer than the wood, and returned back to the crafting table, He successfully crafted a Pickax, which he was pretty amazed by the fact that he crafted this just by putting some wood with some stone.

He returned to the spot where he found the first bit of stone and began to mine a tiny amount more. After obtaining a small amount of the rocky resource, he returned to his crafting table again, this time crafting an axe, which he tried out on the trees surrounding him. The gargantuan difference between the efficiency of the matter manipulator, and his axe and pickax almost made him want to burst into tears of joy. But even he thought that would be a bit overkill for something as simple as a tool. From here he set to work, gathering mass amounts of stone and wood. He used the pickax the level out a place for a base of operations, while he used his axe to gather more wood that he could use to build his house, as well as some plant fiber, as the book Liax gave him talked about making bandages for healing and that it's also a material that's used to make bows. After finally clearing out a spot to make the base, he got to work building his temporary home. He decided on three floors above-ground and one or two underground, since the Liax's notebook explained chests and how he could find them and take them and use them for his own storage.

Rex made the house out of wood with a stone rooftop, and stone storage rooms as well. He wanted windows, but in order for him to get those, he would need sand. So that would require him to go to the desert planet, so he decided to wait until the house was completely finished. On the second floor, he placed a crafting table, a furnace, and a campfire. The later of the objects was placed on top of the crafting table. The third floor was empty, and he thought of using it as living quarters. But before he could set to work with crafting the furniture items, he realized something.

There weren't any lights.

Rex face clawed, obviously displeased with the fact that another crucial observation had passed his notice, completely undetected. He ran outside to see the sun setting rapidly, and made a sort of low growl. It was another timed challenge, and this one didn't seem as simple as the last one. He took off running, pickax in hand, and began to swing at the ground, taking off just a few blocks at a time. This was no time to go on a full-out mining expedition, unless he wanted to die in a mineshaft. After a while of running around aimlessly, he had finally found what he was looking for. A coal deposit, and a fairly big one at that. He began to mine it, when he heard some creature's growls in the distance, which drove him to mine faster than he already was. After the last of the coal found their way into Rex's bag, he jumped out of the little hole he dug, sword in hand. Good thing he did too, as a creature, that's details were indescribable in the darkness of the night, had leapt towards him. Rex slashed horizontally, effectively cutting the creature in two. It fell on the ground, bursting into small voxel-shaped cubes which, upon inspection, were called pixels. Apparently they served as a currency, but he had no time to ponder on what he could buy, as he could hear the rapid approach of more creatures that Rex assumed didn't want to have a chat with him. He made his journey back to his house as short as possible, moreover running away from monsters rather than fighting them.

He finally got to his house, closing the door quickly behind him, and began using his matter manipulator to place lights all over the house. He would make the spacing proportionate later. His breathing was heavy, as he got slashed a few times before making it back to the house. At least he was still in one piece. He walked up the staircase that he had made to the other floor, the 'crafting floor,' and created some chairs, tables, and a bed at the crafting table. First he went around the house, correcting his randomized placement of torches to make them proportionate and make them actually look nice. Then he went ahead and placed a table and a few chairs to make a makeshift dinner table. Why he made more than one chair despite the fact that he was alone was a mystery to even him. After that, he went up to the top floor, the bedroom, and placed the bed. Liax's book had told Rex about the 'magical' qualities of beds, and how they slowly regenerated health. It had been a long day and he was tired, so he thought about turning in for the night. Just before he could get to that, someone or something rapidly banged on the door. Rex ran down the two sets of stairs, and came to the door, sword in hand. He flicked the door open and got in his fighting position, but instead came face to face with a Hylotl.

The Hylotl looked frightened, and a bit traumatized. It was covered in scratches and bruises and cuts, but just stood there in the door, staring at Rex. Then he remembered how Liax had told him about the conflict between Florans and the Hylotl, and Rex remembered he was a Floran. But he didn't want the fish-person to die, so he dropped his sword and gestured for the Hylotl to come inside. As it did, Rex quickly shut the door as another creature that Rex thought similar to the one that tried to leap at him before attempted to run through the door to get to them. He could hear heavy breathing behind him and turned around to see the Hylotl sitting on the ground, head to it's knees and hugging it's ankles. Rex felt a bit awkward about letting a random stranger in his house, be he was to kind to say no. Even if it would try to kill him in his sleep.

"Thanks…" The Hylotl managed to say in her long slur of heavy breathing. Well, Rex assumed it was a female because, now that he thought about it, she had a pink/purple Kimono, and the voice sounded feminine. She didn't make eye contact with Rex thought.

"No problem," Rex replied, sounding as upbeat as possible.

The Hylotl managed to stand. Her heaving breathing was reduced to a light strand of inhaling and exhaling. Looking at him, she managed a very forced smile, and extended out her hand. "My name is Alicia."

Rex shook it. "My name is Rex, nice to meet you Alicia." He replied, which earned a shocked look from Alicia. Rex slightly tilted his head, confused on why She looked at him like that. Then, suddenly, Liax's explanation of the different races came back to him. "Oh, right. Florans don't usually talk like this, do they?"

She shook her head, slowly.

"Well, there's always room for an exception. So, what can I do for you, Alicia?" Rex asked.

She sort-of turned a way, just a little. "W-well…" She stammered, obviously hinting at the fact that she didn't trust the Floran standing in front of her.

"Hmm?"

"…"

"Uhm… okay? Do you need a place to stay for the night or something?" Rex asked.

She looked up at him, nodding. Standing in the torchlight, Rex could see her a bit more clearly. She had the same fin position as Liax, but hers were purple. Her under-belly color was white, but the rest of her seemed to be just purple, save her three red eyes. She was also just a tiny bit shorter than Rex, and wore a necklace with a crystal carving in the shape of a water droplet. She wore a side-bag, similar to Rex's, with the symbols 女の子魚 on it. What did that mean again? girl fish?

"Alright, wait here just a second." Rex said, as he ran upstairs to split the bedroom in half, and crafted an extra bed to place in it. After he had done this, he came back down to where Alicia was waiting. Rex gestured her to follow him, and brought her upstairs to one of the two rooms. "You can sleep here tonight, if that's okay."

"Thanks…"

As Rex began to walk out of the room, Alicia sorta talked to him as he was walking away. "What happened…" She started, as Rex turned around, his attention grabbed. "Was that I was on a ship. It was breaking up and I needed to get back to my home planet. But the ships engines broke down above this planet, and I crash-landed. My job was to get minerals to create weapons and armor, but I couldn't find any, and I tried to make it back." She sighed. "I suppose it's for the best. The failure of my mission would have me exiled anyways…"

Rex smiled, realizing that he could be helpful. "You know…" He started. "I could help you out, if ya wanted."

"Y-you could? How?"

"Well… I have a ship. And I have mining materials, so I suppose I could help in your search for minerals."

Alecia stared at him for a bit, which made him feel like he said or did something wrong. Turns out he didn't though.

"You… would help me? A Floran helping a Hylotl?"

He shrugged. "I don't see why not. Besides, I like being a helpful person about 90% of the time."

"But… the war with Florans and the Hylotl…"

"Were you present, or even alive during the time of the war?"

She shook her head.

"Well neither was I. So as far as I'm concerned, I don't have to be enemies with anyone."

This was replied with a more honest of a smile from Alicia, as apposed to before. "You're right," She agreed. "So, you'll help me?"

Rex nodded. "But… can we start in the morning? I'm really tired…" He said, partially yawning.

She nodded and smiled. "Thank's, Rex."

"No problem." Rex said as he made his way to his own room. When he finally got there he fell on his bed, and that was it. He was probably already asleep before he even made contact with the comfortable, soft, bed.