World Keeper

Phisher’s eyes jolted open, his back covered in a cold sweat. It had been more than a decade since the last time he had actually slept. With how peaceful things were starting to look now, he decided to indulge between training sessions, and drifted off during a brief period of meditation.

What… was that? He thought back, trying to decipher what he had seen in the dream. Unlike some of the other prophetic dreams that he had experienced in the past, this was not a particularly long one. Per his recollection, it should have only lasted a month.

Lady Udona, may I have a word? Phisher asked, his legs still crossed as he sat on the training mat in his room.

Of course, Phisher. What’s the matter? Udona asked in an almost casual tone.

I had another dream, though I am hesitant to decide whether this dream was a vision of fate.

When he said this, there was a pause before Udona asked in a more serious tone. Why? What happened in your dream?

It felt… too surreal. Everyone was merging together in a single mass, covered in countless mouths. At first, I thought that it was a void monster that managed to break through the defenses, so I rushed out to fight it in the void, but I did not see any monsters that had passed the barriers.

Udona paused, closing her eyes. Do you have any other clues to go off of?

Phisher thought back to the dream, trying to remember anything that could prove to be a helpful hint. The few times in the past that he had had dreams of impending doom, the cause of said doom had been rather obvious, so he wasn’t entirely sure what little hints to pick from. It all started about two weeks after successful negotiations to set up a trade route with the Hajit’s City.

You believe that they are the cause? There was a hint of doubt in Udona’s words, but Phisher quickly shook his head.

No, the problem began in Deckan. To my knowledge, none of the other worlds were affected, as a quarantine was put in place immediately.

In that case, something that happened as a response to them. Udona replied in a thoughtful tone. Is there anything else that you need to report? Whether it is about this matter or anything else?

Phisher leaned back on his mat, recalling the news he had heard. The next generation of test shields were ready a week before this crisis began, and resulted in another round of failures. Thankfully, they chose to test with unmanned vessels this time. Additionally, the game that the Keeper has just released,.It did not receive as much attention as others he let out in the past. I believe that is everything.

Within her room, Udona nodded her head, moving over to her desk to activate her terminal. She wanted to see if there was any new research projects that had been reported in the last few days, especially those made in response to the recent discovery of the Hajit and their civilization.

In truth, there were… too many. Historians that wanted to research how they came to be as advanced as they were without the assistance of the gods or the system, philosophers questioning their ethical values, researchers asking to study their teleportation pods that do not interact with the void…

Closing her eyes, Udona let out a sigh, narrowing the search. From Phisher’s report, it seemed like it could be a memetic effect gone wrong. Potentially, there may have been a monster that came back with the second round of shield experiments to properly penetrate the newly enhanced barriers surrounding the solar system. However, since Phisher reported that those tests were unmanned, it stands to reason that the failures didn’t bring anything back. If they had, that would have been something rather easy to tip him off.

Thus, she looked for anything that could be related to memetic scripts. And that was when she caught sight of the most likely candidate. Inspired by the news of the energy used by the Hajit for communication, a small group of researchers wanted to create a universal language that anyone would be able to understand and communicate in.

Udona let out a long sigh when she heard that, planting her face in her hand. “This is why memes need to be regulated.”

“Is everything alright?” Aznod spoke up, moving behind Udona to look at her screen. “A universal language?”

“Phisher just got back to me.” She said, shaking her head. “He had another one of his fate dreams. Apparently, this language is a meme that can mutate and cause all life on the planet to merge into a giant, amorphous blob.”

“...That does not sound pleasant.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Udona exclaimed, throwing her arms up. “We already have a language that we all understand. As for meeting new races, we have numerous methods of providing real-time translation. Why do we need a language based on a memetic script that can turn our insides into somebody else’s outsides?”

Aznod simply gave a chuckle at that. “It should be easy enough for you to shut down their research. On a more pleasant note, are you planning to play that new game, Ascension?”

Udona shrugged her shoulders, leaning back in her seat. “Maybe after they build it up a bit more. Since it’s a total sandbox, there aren’t any cities or anything. It shouldn’t take long for them to build those up, like they did with World Seed. Though, Phisher said that game didn’t seem like it received much in the way of popularity.”

Aznod nodded his head, bringing his hands up to grab and massage Udona’s shoulders. “It will probably be more popular among those that have not yet achieved their first divinity.”

“Yeah, maybe. What have you been up to, though?” Udona asked, relaxing as she leaned back towards Aznod.

“I’ve been thinking. According to Lifre’s initial report, the Hajit’s City looks like it has quite the interesting selection of food. She mentioned a street food that resembled fried energy kernels. I thought that it might be a good idea for me to go and investigate, see if I can learn any new recipes.”

Udona gave a small chuckle, nodding her head. “If you want. They aren’t releasing the details of the alliance until tomorrow, though. If you want to go before that, just make sure you change your appearance to match the Hajit.”

“I’ll be sure to do that.” Aznod said in a reassuring tone. Whenever the topic of new recipes came up, he was always eager to travel and find out exactly how it was produced. If he was able to incorporate it into his own recipes, he may be able to create amazing new flavors.

Some time later, Aznod could be seen walking up to the gate on the sixty-second floor. As he approached, his appearance changed to that of a brown-haired elf with glowing, blue eyes. He stepped through the gate with a smile, immediately teleporting to a nearby alley to avoid drawing any attention.

After he left the alley, the first thing that he did was to walk the streets to look for the stalls that Lifre had mentioned in her report. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for him to find them, and he began sweeping his senses over them. As soon as he did so, he was secretly astonished.

They use a device that imbues a mix of natural energy and ki as a thin wrapping around refined grains of energy, seasoned with specially modified spiritual energy for additional flavor? Aznod looked at the price of the dish, determining it to be roughly five times the total energy contained within the food itself, though that was normal. After all, this was an item that could be considered a luxury.

Still, he chose to pay for a serving, receiving a small bucket of glowing green energy kernels. When he popped one into his mouth, he was surprised by the rich flavor. This could be a wonderful snack food to market to gods, or those who have achieved perfection.

Walking down the street, he noticed several of such stalls, each having their own, unique flavor. Naturally, Aznod sampled each of them, noting how the slight changes in energy mixtures brought about a great change in the taste of the food.

Already, he was thinking about how he could take this information back to Deckan, and how it could cause a revolution in the fast food industry.

Lifre huffed, breathing heavily as she stood atop the chest of a colossal figure with deep, blue skin. She glared hard into his eyes. “All the work… to track you down… and you still tried to go easy on me!” She was frustrated even more, because the adult entity had only started to turn serious when he realized that he wasn’t Lifre’s match.

Granted, she didn’t plan to kill him or anything, just teach him a lesson. During her time hunting him down, she had noticed a few details about this layer’s ‘civilization’. First of all, they weren’t entirely barbaric. They greatly encouraged using battles to settle disputes, and even their children would fight one another. However, they had their own rules.

Children fought children, and adults fought adults. Whenever children fought, their parents would always be watching from somewhere, ready to intervene if one of them started to take it too far. As for the adults… well, she had seen three cases of adults fighting to the death during her hunt.

Lifre couldn’t help but shudder, realizing that the James that had first come through to Fyor was actually still just a child by this race’s standards. His first true demonstration of power as an ‘adult’ was the incident in which he lifted the palace of Deckan into the sky and punished those who tried to harm Chelsea’s family.

The adults in this layer were all very powerful, and were masterful druids even more skilled than the golden sylvans. Their very being was fused with natural energy, and they could control it with a simple thought.

Still, despite the ‘order’ that was maintained, Lifre hadn’t seen any signs of proper civilization throughout her chase. No cities, no villages, in fact the only structures that she saw were those created by children.

“Listen here.” Lifre spoke, sending her voice directly into the mind of the figure via her spiritual energy. “I don’t know your language. I don’t know what your people call themselves. I don’t even know if you have the concept of language. Go home, wherever that is. If anyone else tries to pick a fight with me, they’ll get the same treatment. I’m going to go explore for a while.” She said, before jumping off of his chest and flying into the air.

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Because James had left this layer prematurely, as well as the other one of this race that they found buried in a mountain, there had to be some form of mineral on this floor that connected elsewhere. Lifre was determined to be the first to find it.