02 - The Riddle of Marsani

“I had thought you were going to rest?” Tender asked as he entered the mess hall.

Maya looked up from where she sat at a table with the tablet opened before her. “No rest for the wicked, Tender. Where have you been?”

“I was installing the communications array,” Tender replied, walking up to her. “Now we can communicate with Nanaseto if the need arises.”

“Oh, yeah. Totally forgot about that,” Maya yawned. “Keep up the initiative and you’ll rise high in this organization, kid.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

“So, y’know, I was thinking about the Economic Foundation, that’s like a Foundation Skill, right?”

“Yeah, boss. If you choose correctly, you can set up an economic enterprise that will last generations. The Business Module Token you received will be the foundation upon which you build your empire. If you’re into empire building.”

“Yeah, that’s about what I expected. No worries, right?” Maya chuckled. “I still have sixteen hours until the Integrated Economics gets dumped into my head, so in the mean time I was thinking about Maria and Anisa. They’re both fighting against a world of monsters. From what I understand, electronics don’t work anymore, infrastructure is shot, and there’s no law and order, as far as they can tell. It might just be the areas they’re in, but it might be the same world wide. This is a disaster on an epic scale, bud. As they say where I come from, shit done wet the bed.

“There’s this thing called Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It’s a pyramid of human needs; stuff like food and water, safety, and self actualization. It doesn’t just apply to people, but in a lot of things. Disasters, business, whathaveyous.”

Tender nodded, not saying anything.

“Anyway, I’ve been thinking on what Maria said back in Thailand. She talked about how they were out of water and food, and had no place to stay. Those three things are at the bottom of the Maslow pyramid.” Maya pulled up the diagram on the tablet, showing Tender. “The Physiological needs should have been the first thing I should have addressed. Instead I was selling them guns and swords, when they’re starving and don’t have access to clean water.”

“Mana mutations are a serious threat on newly Integrated worlds,” Tender stated.

“Yeah, they’re getting screwed every which way, but without food, water, and shelter, it’s more painful.” Maya replied.

“So what do you suggest we do?”

“We got about a hundred kilos of biomass from Maria and her people, which can make about eighty kilo blocks of tasty, tasty emergency rations. One block a day to keep starvation at bay.”

Maya pulled out a thick stubby looking pencil from her Inventory. It was technically an Industrial Marker, low grade, Tier 1, and it allowed her to draw upon surfaces. She had used it to create the signs on the cage wall and to draw on her stub. The marker didn’t hold ink, but instead it changed the pigmentation of the material it was being used upon. Maya had been fascinated by the marker, adjusting the size of the nib and drawing on the walls of the habitat. Luckily, it could also erase what was drawn.

She drew the Maslow pyramid on the table and labeled them.

“Right now, we’re here.” She pointed at the bottom of the pyramid. “We need to provide food, water, and shelter to those who need it. Then we can move onto safety. Which is most likely weapons and defenses.”

“The Hanganathorie was designed to handle a crew of two hundred and fifty, according to the records; in emergencies they could handle about four times that amount.” Maya tapped the tablet and raised a holographic image of the Hangy. The ship slowly rotated, it wasn’t the fully interactive map she had with the computer Tender had used, but it was better than nothing. She highlighted various spots.

“Food is an issue for us and the survivors. Right now the Hangy has about twenty of these food processors. They’re scattered all over the ship, with the bulk of them here in the mess hall.” Maya highlighted a machine that rotated before them. “Mid grade food processor, able to convert biomass into edible munchies. Although it can create a variety of dishes, the best return on our investment would be the emergency rations. They’re just fat, some protein, and micronutrients, all the stuff a growing SIL needs.

“So I’m thinking we pull all the food processors out, figure out which work and which don’t. Then cannibalize parts off the processors just like we did for the mana batteries. Then there are about two hundred water purifiers in the ship, every one of the bathrooms and these bathing pods have them. I guess the Nan aliens really liked their baths.”

“That’s a lot of the ship to get through,” Tender said.

“We’ll start slow. I wonder how big the next group will be?” Maya wondered.

“There is a chance that we will meet none,” Tender replied. “The connection to your planet is random. We don’t have enough data to fully understand how to control the connection or why it even connects only to your planet. The multiverse is massive and yet it has connected to your world twice now.”

“Maybe I have some magical connection to Earth.”

“I know you use the word ‘magical’ in jest, but you might not be too far from the truth.”

“Quantum essence mana signature,” Maya grinned.

She cleared her throat. “Back to business. We have food and water covered, but what about shelter? There any pop up boxes that can create a defensible house?”

“Such things exist, but they require the access to dimensional storage devices,” Tender said.

“We need to get more of those too.” Maya made a note. “We can print out more of that skin suit material right? It’s low grade and Nan said there was an abundant amount of the material.”

“It is durable and easy to manipulate,” Tender said. “There are some emergency shelters that are created with the same material. The low grade Duracloth is used in a lot of industrial manufacturing.”

“Awesome.” Maya ticked off the Shelter box. “Now, we get to Safety.”

“Your Sullivan Special was well received,” Tender said.

“Yeah, but that beauty took two days to build only two of them. Not really mass production.” She dug around in her inventory and pulled out a sword. They were weapons scrounged from within Shen’s ship. The Necro had a fully stocked armory, but his tastes had focused only on mid and high grade weapons. The current low levels of humanity meant they could only handle low grade end of the spectrum with any proficiency.

Maya held the sword in her hand and peered at the weapon. It was a double edged blade, three feet long and one handed. The metal had a red tinge to it and the blade, for its size, was very light and very sharp.

“Mid grade, Tier 1 - Kovamar alloy Dukathi Fighting Sword,” Tender identified. “Marsani alloy is used for a lot of low grade weapons due to its high availability, while Kovamar is used for weapons that hold enchantments.”

“Not many low grade enchanted weapons?” Maya asked.

“The cost is not worth it,” Tender explained. “There are some minor enchantments that are easy to apply; sharpness, durability, and such, but anything that requires sustained mana channeling into the weapon vastly increases the cost.”

“How abundant is marsani alloy?” Maya asked.

“Marsani is used in almost every industrial enterprise. The hull of this ship is a marsani alloy coated with an ablative armor. The metal is cheap and easy to process. It is like the steel you use, but far stronger and more durable.”

“I had a boyfriend,” Maya said, turning over the sword, “he used to love the idea of making knives and swords. He bought all this stuff for it, suspension leaf springs, hammers, and he even made an anvil out of a piece of railroad track. Then he realized how much work it took and then gave up on it.” Maya laughed. “He used to get caught up in all these things he wanted to do, but never had the follow through.”

“Interesting,” Tender replied.

“How hard is it to turn the marsani hull into a weapon? From the little I learned about my world’s version of weapon smithing is that steel needed to be heated and quenched to keep the metal from becoming too brittle or too soft. Does marsani work like that?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Tender replied. “But the alloy is fairly uniform in its creation. Most people shy away from mass produced weapons, due to stigma and general difficulty to enchant the metal, but the metal itself should be as durable as any.”

“Stigma? Difficulty?”

“Machine made weapons are viewed as inferior to SIL crafted weapons. SIL smiths imbue their weapons with mana. This allows the weapon to accept enchanting more easily. Even though it’s been proven that machine made weapons are equal to non-enchanted weapons, many still believe it is best to buy SIL crafted weapons. A selling point that the Crafting Guilds exploit.”

“Huh. So I could just make some swords out of the hull and it would be as good as if someone had crafted it?” Maya asked.

“Yes. It should be.”

Maya jumped out of her chair. “Let’s give it a whirl.”

“What about the motor?” Tender asked.

“What motor?”

***

“What is the riddle of marsani, Tender!” Maya boomed.

“Boss?”

“Is it marsani? Is it flesh? Is it will?” Maya continued.

The rogue AI glanced down at the sword that was in his hands. With machine precision he held the cutter in one hand and the billet of marsani they had pried off the hull of the Hanganathorie in the other. It wasn’t their first attempt either; on the deck lay half a dozen other swords that Maya had tried to make herself. Being one handed did not make for a good smith.

Tender’s finished product was a three foot long blade with a full tang. Maya had opted for a single edge on the weapon, taken more from memory than something that actually existed. She could have copied the shape of the sword she had in her Inventory, but this weapon was more proof of concept than actual product.

Maya clanked down the corridor carrying the new sword. She wore the refurbished armor taken from the Shen zombies, deep cleaned and refitted to her body. She wasn’t taking any chances on this test. The last thing she needed was losing her other hand.

She experimentally swung the blade, making loud swooshing noises and then glanced at Tender. “I’m going full out on this,” she said.

“Okay, boss.”

“You won’t be mad if I break it?”

“Why would I? This was made to be broken, to test the strength of the metal.”

“Right. You say that now, but you’ve been very emotional lately. Crying about Nan and such.”

“I do not recall that event,” Tender replied.

Maya grinned and turned to face the inner bulkhead. She rolled her shoulders and hefted the blade.

“Hiya!” Maya cried as she slammed the blade against the corridor wall.

They stood in the outer corridor, not far from where they had battled the Roach King. The hole in the side of the ship provided them easy access to the exposed marsani hull plating.

Maya hadn’t taken much interest in the construction of the Hanganathorie, even though it was the first alien space craft she had found. Seven weeks in the rainbow sky hellscape had all been dedicated to surviving what the dimensional plane had thrown at her. So it was with some interest and excitement that she had peeled away the hull plating and looked upon the metal that made up the ship.

After Pops had retired from the Army and before the beginning of the food truck business, the entire Sullivan family had made the journey to see the USS Texas in La Porte, Texas. The old naval ship hadn’t inspired or impressed a sullen thirteen year old girl at the time, but Maya still remembered the ship and the vast expanse of its nearly seamless hull.

The Hanganathorie wasn’t built like that old battlewagon, instead of riveted and welded steel plates, the ship was made out of planks and then covered in half a foot of resin, on top of that there was an additional foot of metallic looking ablative armor that Maya had assumed was the actual hull. The planks of marsani metal were two feet wide, three inch thick thick and forty feet long.

Tender claimed the planks and resin reacted better to external stressors than if it were a solid sheet of metal. As Maya was no [Spaceship Engineer], she took his word for it.

They used the cutter, with liberal battery packs, to remove a rough billet from the hull. Although the cutter could slice up the metal, it was a slow process and Maya discovered she didn’t have the control with one hand to hold the metal in a correct manner. After the fourth attempt to form the blade, she had given up and had Tender do it. She had hoped to increase her [Smith] and [Weapon Maker] abilities.

The combination of Tender’s machine steadiness and unnatural strength allowed him to shape the blade and even put an edge upon it. Like a steel blade, a sharp edge would have to be added on later.

Maya also discovered that since low grade melee weapons weren’t considered dangerous compared to system tech mid grade weapons, the Hanganathorie most likely had a collection of weapons that the crew themselves had brought with them.

It was those moments of casual references to potential dangers and constant vigilance on the part of people in the safest places in the multiverse that caused Maya to realize that the world she had lived in was truly gone. She could understand Integration and had seen the apocalypse that was occurring on Earth, but her default imagining of a city or town was as a semi-safe place where one didn’t have to carry about weapons in case a mana mutation crawled out of the sewer.

THUNK!

The blade sunk into the metal of the bulkhead. Maya raised an eyebrow and grinned at Tender. Then she tried pulling the blade out of the wall, but it was stuck.

“Shit. Tender, a hand, please.”

Tender removed the blade from the bulkhead and handed it back to her

Maya sighed. “I gotta get this hand regrown,” she said. She handed Tender the blade. “Go to town on the wall, Tender. See what it’ll take to destroy it.”

“If you insist, boss.” Tender gripped the weapon in his hands and turned to the wall. “I would stand a safe distance away. “

Maya gave him a thumbs up and scurried down the corridor.

“Let ‘er rip!”

The boosts to Maya’s Physical stats had made her stronger, with the new levels she had gained from ‘laying to rest’ Shen’s zombie crew, she wasn’t weak. But she had to marvel at the strength displayed by Tender as he hacked at the wall. She knew it was all from the fact that he was a machine, but she was still impressed.

One day she would be stronger than he was. That was the joy of being SIL. She could level, while he was stuck the way he was until he got a new form.

The bulkhead was destroyed in short order. The sword didn’t break, but it did bend. A lot.

“Well,” Maya said looking at the hole Tender had hacked into an inner compartment. “Success?”

“I believe so,” Tender replied.

“Crom would approve.”

***

Maya opened her eyes. She steadied her breathing and blinked away the sleep. What had she been dreaming about? She couldn’t remember.

She was laying in her old nest bed, taken from the Hangy trash pile seemingly months ago. There were no day or night cycle in the rainbow sky hellscape and sometimes Maya didn’t know how long she had been asleep, awake, or even how long ago she had eaten. The hours and days seemed to blend together.

The cell phone she had brought with her was dead now. It had been the only thing that had allowed her to keep track of days. Even Nan and Tender had different views of what consisted of a day, even though there was technically a universal standard day, which Maya had learned was roughly 30 hours long.

For all the changes she had gone through, Maya wasn’t willing to give up the 24 hour day she had been born with. It was a petty thing, she knew, but it was the only thing she had control of. Since there was no day or night in the rainbow sky hellscape, it didn’t matter how long they labeled a day.

In the semi darkness of the mess hall, Maya raised her left hand. She looked at the stub. There were days when she thought she was dreaming, where all of this; the dimensional instability, the Integration, and all the horrible things that had happened were a dream. Yet, it was reality. She poked at her stump and felt nothing.

Her hand was gone. It had been gone for a week now and she could have had the hand regrown, but she was dragging her feet about it. She had claimed there was no time for the last six days, but that had been a lie. She hadn’t wanted to get the hand fix; she didn’t entirely know why.

It was proof, she figured. Proof that this was all real. Proof that everything had happened and she had made her choice. She was going to be stuck in this place for five hundred years.

The thought boggled her mind. Her grandmother had only lived to seventy-nine. Her grandfather to sixty-five. The oldest person she ever knew was Old Lady Byrd and she was nearly ninety. Weariness was the word that Maya would have described Old Lady Byrd. She had seen all her own children grow and die, her grandchildren didn’t visit anymore, her husband had been dead for nearly twenty years, and she was alone in her house. She had lived through trying times and had seen the world change so many times.

Maya poked her stub again. She wasn’t just going to live five hundred years, though. She would be living nearly two thousand. The product of becoming a Tier 2 lifeform.

Civilizations had risen and fallen in two thousand years. Whole languages had shifted in that amount of time. It was strange and terrifying and too immense to properly get a grasp of.

Maya sighed and closed her eyes. Nan had said that cultures slowed once Integration occurred. Where people had only lived for less than a century, now most would live nearly two or three, depending on their levels. An old adage was that every level gained added a decade to a SIL’s life before Tier 1.

Normal, everyday people would make it to mid grade levels without trying too hard before their life spans ended. But that was the other side of the coin. People might live longer, but danger was also exponentially higher. Mana caused all kinds of problems.

Every day would be a fight. Every year. Every century. Every millennia. Maya sighed once more.

She didn’t regret it. She didn’t regret it, not if it meant that Bell could go home and she could help people. She didn’t regret it. She just had to get used to the idea.

“Are you awake, boss?” Tender asked. The rogue AI was working quietly, organizing components. He hadn’t strayed far from her, preferring to sit between her and the tub that held Junior, using the dim light coming from the grow lights to sort components from the mana batteries they had collected.

“Yeah.”

“You really should get more rest,” Tender said.

“I really should,” Maya replied and pulled herself upright. She forced back a yawn and rubbed her eyes, then got to her feet.

Tender watched as she approached him. She sat down heavily on a mana battery case and began sorting components beside him. After a while, Tender returned to work. The only sound in the mess hall was the shifting and clinking of components.