AN: Hey, so just as a short info. This story I was working on a for a while and already have a few chapters finished so posting speed of the first few will depend on how lazy I or my friends are with editing. After that it depends on my mood honestly. I was encouraged to publish this because my friends said that it's good. Originally this was just my idea of how a realistic SI would look like so so expect some hard science sections here and there and a few of my own interpretations. This also started a while before Splatoon 2 but I think I managed to incorporate that as well without going to crazy.
Also at most there will be two main viewpoints, Hina, The Human, and the Octarian Queen who will be introduced later, with a few minor things here and there to explain or explore things better.
That said. Have fun and review!
I woke up the next day and luckily most of the pain seemed to have faded by now. I fixed myself something to eat and was hating the fact that no watches could reliable tell me what time it was as I suspected most of them were broken by now, the mechanicals at least, the computers I frankly didn't trust either.
Still, no time to waste. Now that I could actually move without everything being pain I needed to plan.
I started digging around and found some equipment. This facility was equipped with nearly everything that humans could account for if only sparingly. As such getting my way to the gear like gasmask and the like was actually pretty easy.
If those Octopy could live then it couldn't be to bad, still safety first. I chose to not go with a full hazmat for now, instead if focused on measuring equipment, some of it was broken but most of it was usable and didn't need much knowhow from my side. It simply would inform me if the area was death for humans and death by what.
I walked around the base and inspected the entrances that lead to the outside. There were many of them around the facility incase halve the building got buried underground or something similar. Sadly I found out that most of them were sealed shut. Something on the outside, be it a solid wall of dirt or radiation(I still had my doubts about sensors working for so long. Those on the inside? Possibly, outside? No way.)
Those that were not, well there was only one and that would lead me directly to the guys that apparently woke me up by accident.
Now I doubted that they meant any harm to me, or at least that one that gave me the picture probably didn't. If will have to walk past them I probably should take something along with me to give, the picture was nice but I wasn't nearly good enough at drawing things.
Putting on all the gear I could find I prepared to go back to the cryo room, while you could argue that I was overdoing it, the fact that I wasn't deadly sick or something similar could have simply been a fluke.
As I entered I found that I luckily was alone this time. I started inspecting my pod and typing away at the display, it was fairly boring information with most just being the status of the pod, but hallo there, in the options menu there was something about occupant status.
I clicked it and found a few details about my health. They were measured from the machines when I was still out cold(I will make that pun as often as I damn well please!) most of it seemed normal but in the right bottom corner there was another option that read retrieve occupant data.
I clicked it and a hatch opened revealing my pass that I revived from the dear Doctor, I was instructed to carry it with me at all times but I never asked why. I put it into my pocket and left back to the facility and into my personal room booting up my computer.
Now let's see if this hard drive that was promised to last forever really would hold to its promise. I pressed to power button and it seemed like the promises were held as I saw my normal startup screen.
After some thinking I started up a new document and started to type away describing exactly what has happened to this point. I planned to update this journal every day if I could with as much stuff as possible, maybe attach audio files and measurements for the science guys later on, be they human or whatever.
For now I had a objective, find a way to power the other capsules and wake up what is possible the rest of my kind.
I rubbed my eyes tiredly something I did too often already.
Hina was freaking out, this on itself was not really rare and most people knew to simply avoid her when she had one of her infamous rage outs.
Most of the time she had those only for a half an hour at max but this one was on its way to record time with her raging around for 40 minutes already.
The reason for that was simple, she had no pictures of the precursor.
This whole time she had a camera with her and not a single time she thought about taking a picture. As she needed to make the report for the day she wanted to add a picture of the creature to the related text only to realize that she didn't have one!
She was raging around the camp cursing in ways that make her uncle faint. She had enough control over herself to not lash out against any equipment or members of her team but needless to say most of the expedition excused itself for a fresh air break when they realized that it was going to be one of those days again.
Mario was not most of the staff, and he made it a lifelong duty to annoy her even more, or at least that's what she thought when she saw him approaching while she considered what or who to curse next as she sadly had nothing in reach to throw that was actually disposable.
"Look who is having a hissy fit, what is it this time?" She wondered how far she could throw the old bastard.
"Picture, I don't have a single king forsaken, shark busted, inkling damned picture of the precursor!" She screamed in his face.
"Why don't you just take one then? By now the two of you should be best friends already." He was taunting her, she knew that. Despite being a feared, strong and aggressive Octoling she had no real combat experience that could compare to his, she knew that very well and hated it with a passion, but she swore that she would get him back for it one day.
Normally she would think of something smart to retort back but right now she really wasn't in the mood. "Why don't you Kraken wannabe take your saas and show it up your ink sack, maybe then you inkless bastard actually would be worth something!" she definitely shouldn't have said that but right now she really didn't care.
"Oh, look at you curse like the big Octoling you are, oh I am so scared." He didn't seem to be phased at all, that didn't sit right with her, it meant that he had something planned.
Hina having raged enough was back thinking a bit more clearly."What did you do?" She asked menacingly.
"Oh, nothing that is worth mentioning, I just.."But before he could finish his sentence the proximity alarms they set up started to rattle and inform them that something was closing in towards the camp.
Hinas rage was momentarily forgotten and everyone was back at full attention from the normal activities."Where did that come from?" Mario shouted to one of the guards. Who looked up and pointed to the cave. This could only mean one thing, the precursor came out of the building. "Ha, oh Hina your friend is coming out, what shall we do, make him a cup of tea?"
She would deal with whatever mess the tentacle sucker created later, right now she had to deal with this. So far there was nothing aggressive about it but there was no telling what it was up to now. "Everyone hide! We don't want to startle it with numbers."
"And what you will just stand there?" one of the scientist shouted towards her.
"That is exactly the plan." Hina stated this time she had her camera ready.
Everybody went into the tents and some chose to watch from the shadow of the plants, everybody hid just in time because in the next moment rounding the corner it came, it had to duck because of it's size and the only thing that let Hina know that it actually was the precursor was how tall it was. Back when she first saw it it had no clothing on and the second time there was some of it, but now she felt completely tiny before the imposing giant.
It was fully clothed in many layers and all over its body. A hoodie over the head, the face masked with one of the old masks they sometimes found, and thick clothes and gear whose functions she could only guess.
There wasn't a single speck of skin visible on it and by the looks of it it had double its weight with the clothes alone.
It looked around and she heard talking coming from it, what or who it was talking to she had no idea.
It lifted it's hand and she heard the same sound when she gave it the picture, it was a bit distorted because of the mask. She assumed it to be a greeting and just waved back and watched as it started to look at the various instruments that it had strapped to its body. All of that while talking to itself.
At this point she was pretty sure that it was scouting the outside and taking some measurements of the surroundings.
After it seemed to have finished with its work it carefully looked around, could it see where the other where hiding? It walked towards Hina and who was unsure of what to do, it stopped a few paces away and reached behind it's back, where a backpack was placed that she hadn't noticed until now, and pulled something something box like out and placing it on one of the tables that protested against the sudden weight. It then pointed at Hina and then at the box.
It's intentions clear Hina approached carefully and now that she looked at it closer she recognized the thing. It was a book. A gigantic one. Hina has never seen such a collection of paper, paper that was probably filled with knowledge about things from times long forgotten and things that most archaeologists and precursor specialists were dreaming of.
The precursor was forgotten and greedy the book was practically ripped open, to her disappointment she couldn't read it but. It was written in its language but that was to be expected, still this was the largest collection of written text coming from a precursor she had ever seen, and as she flipped the papers she found that to her great enjoyment there were many pictures there to. Some of them showing other precursors while others showed strange things she had no idea how to even name.
This, she never expected to see something like this, the book itself as she looked at it was as alien as the content, it felt strange to touch the paper as it didn't feel like paper at all.
And it was heavy, way heavier than she expected she tried to lift it a bit but she could barely push it a few centimeters when she pushed with all her might.
The precursor seems to find this amusing. As some strange barking sound came from it, she was pretty sure that it was laughing. Naturally this hurt her pride as a big and fearsome Octoling and she tried to lift it again. With all her might she pushed upwards and to her satisfaction one side of the book lifted ever so slightly.
Only when she dropped it again the table collapsed beneath it.
Hina now with one eye twitching could only stare at the ground where to book was now on top of the flat table as the barking, she was now 100% sure that it was laughter, continued.
As it started to calm down it again started to look around and after choosing a direction, it started to walk again. The surrounding area was on a plain and surrounding the mountain that hid the facility, there was water in one direction and Inkling turf in the other.
Currently it was walking towards the water slowly while carefully studying the surroundings and ever so often speaking beneath its mask and looking at the tools it had with it. All the while Hina and a few others were following it.
It obviously didn't mind, it had seen them but didn't even react to it.
They reached the top of a hill and stopped as the creature was taking in the water Hina tried to see some of the reactions but the mask was blocking everything, the only thing she heard was breathing and the occasional talking.
It started to move again. Hina expected it to it would stop and look around carefully studying its surroundings, but now it was a straight line without stop and Hina had a hard time to keep up with it.
It reached the coast and Hina started to get nervous, everybody knew that for Octarians and Inklings the oceans meant death, their body could not hold itself together in the water and would literally fall apart, this was the cost they had to pay to become land creatures as they now where lighter and more agile than ever going so far as being able to nearly completely liquify in their own ink.
But the precursor it seemed didn't even seem to be a tiniest bit bothered by the water as it calmly walked towards it, its boots being now partly submerged and its clothes being hit by water with every wave.
For a while it just stood there before taking out more tools and using them on the water.
What they were measuring Hina had no idea. It even went so far as to collect some of the water in bottles and packed it away.
It turned around and walked back seemingly satisfied with whatever it did and on the way back Hina made sure to make a big circle around the water that was still sticking to its boots and dripping of ever so slightly.
They reached the camp and the precursor, calling it that became really annoying by now, stopped right before the entrance of the cave and seemed to be in deep thought, or that was what it looked like judging by the way it was stroking the bottom of it's mask.
It turned around and walked to another table and sat on the ground, then it reached into its backpack and took a few sheets of paper out and a pen.
Then it started drawing. Hina of course was very curious what exactly it wanted to share with them but so far it was only squares, a field of 3 times 10 then it started to fill them out the first one on the top left was left empty and the rest were filled with dots, every field had one more dot then the next.
As Hina finally understood she started to drool, she would get numbers, she as the first ever Octarians archaeologist would get numbers translated into the amount they represented.
Her hands were shaking with anticipation as each and every line that was drawn on the paper took shape and as the last symbol was finally filled in she couldn't hold herself any longer and noted it in every way she possibly could she made multiple(hundreds) of photos copied the exact shapes into multiple notes she had with her. Only when she was about to draw them on the wall of a tent she rilzed how stupid she must have looked.
The precursor simply stared at.
Then he fell backwards and was holding his sides while rolling around in laughter.
Hina wanted to sink into a puddle and never come back out again.
It took a while but it(she didn't even know it's gender or if it had one for the matter!) calmed down and made a hand gesture towards her before pointing at the paper. Only the second and first row of boxes were filled out and the third was left free. It wanted to learn Octarian numbers in return and Hina was more then happy to fill them out for it but she ran into a problem, the Octarian numbers only reached from zero to seven. She could simply fill out the rest of them but she didn't want to create a misunderstanding with the number system.
The precursors obviously used base ten as she could see but how would she tell that they used base eight. It seemed to notice her hesitation for the last few spaces and added a few other things to the paper. One new box was added and filled with thirteen dots and below it the symbols for one and three were filled in with the one first and the three second. The precursor didn't give her the paper right way but chose to take a new sheet and made a new roaster but this time added numbers from ten to… twenty three? At first Hina didn't understand but as it added more and more numbers and connected lines from the original one things became more clear.
It was different from Octarian numbers but not vastly. Hina understood the basics after enough lines were drawn and thus connections were made she understood.
Hina as the first Archaeologist of her species understood the numbers of the precursors.
On this day the smile on her face could melt the sun.
I didn't know what to expect when I left the facility as such I tried to prepare of everything I could think of.
The only problem I couldn't really prepare for was the Octopy people, finding their camp right outside the entrance basically forced me to interact with them but luckily that was something I expected. And the encyclopedia I gave them as a gift was very well received to say the least, this enthusiasm when reading, seeing and browsing the book felt good to look, but when the what I assumed to be the leader utterly failed to lift the book and the table collapsed I simply couldn't help myself but laugh my butt of.
The trip to the water was very eventless besides the fact that my company for some reason seemed to avoid it, maybe it was just my imagination?
I had many fancy testing stuff in the facility and many down to earth descriptions on how to use them, I didn't need to be a engineer to use them, but it helped.
Back to the matter at hand, as I reached the entrance of the facility again with my octopy friends I started to think again, even if the water was good, not drinkable but filterable, and the air was breathable I had nothing really solid, like it or not I needed the knowhow of someone who lived here and knew the area.
I needed their help, and the sooner the better.
Considering they were a completely different species I doubted they had any understanding of our language so I started simple with numbers, luckily I didn't needed to think of how to approach this, one of my books already dealt with that topics and as the author I claim the right of copying.
When the Octopy mutations realized what I was doing I tried to hold back, I really did, but in the end I failed and fell flat on my behind while laughing my butt off, again.
It was nice to see they blushed in a similar way we did, only with the color of their tentacles.
Still, after that first little stepping stone got out of the way we got pretty far.
I learned a few things like that their number system was base eight but a problem also appeared later on.
I tried to show it how to say our numbers and after a few tries she got it, seven must mean something funny in their language because there was hesitation in it and one of the other Octopy around us hid a snickered as my study buddy tried to copy it very reluctantly.
Then my turn came and I ran into a problem at the number four, they had sounds that I was not sure I could copy accurately, after a few unsuccessful tries I chose to leave that be for now, I was recording literally everything around me that I could think of, later on I could practice in peace.
Sadly it was getting late and I needed to start the analysis on the samples so it could work overnight. Still there was one last thing I wanted to know before I finished.
I stashed all the papers to signal that it's over for today, which resulted in the most heartbroken look I have ever seen.
Well not like I would never come back, I told myself to shush the guilt. I stood up and pointed at various objects and naming them which made the Octopy stare at me in confusion. It cleared up when in the end I pointed at myself and said 'Human' then I pointed at my Student/Teacher.
The sound she made I could luckily copy fairly accurately "Octoling." I said making the word roll of my tongue. It seemed to make the creature incredibly happy.
Well it was time for me to go.
I went to the cave and waved my goodbyes for now.
I could claim the this was a very productive day.