3.4

Lena

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Reincarnation of Zone Guardian Roberto Morgan Garcias completed successfully. Racial adjustments are being applied to base statistics and skill affinities.

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"Dammit, Lena! Let me through! That's my brother!" Aaron screamed, slamming himself at the archway into Rob's territory yet again.

"As soon as the healing finishes!" Lena said for the hundredth time. Or was it the millionth? She didn't care; she wasn't risking either of the brothers Morgan to the freakish chances of a mana instability. Lena didn't trust that just because the notification of Rob's reincarnation had dinged in her mind that all the mana fluctuations or whatever the hell they were called were done and over with.

Aaron's anger also gave Lena a reason to pay him little mind. He was engaged with their present reality. Jason wasn't.

He had been teleported to the room she set up for him. He hadn't made any changes to it, choosing to spend most of his time with the corporals or their new crew members when not with Rob or Aaron. Now, Jason sat on the floor of his room and stared, jaw held tight and eyes gazing at some distant horizon. Whatever was going through his head, she couldn't fathom, so she gave a larger portion of her awareness over to watching over him.

Candy had retreated into her lab and thrown herself into a creative frenzy. With Sha'lanadi's help, she had been experimenting with making mana circuits and now the energy flowed through Candy's mad science creations.

Ouliel and Wisp were taking things best, but they were also the least emotionally involved. Teleported to their parts of Aaron's floor, they had checked the Tapestry and been satisfied with whatever reply they got. The harpies had come swooping in and the noct was currently playing an odd adaptation of aerial tag that allowed Wisp to participate.

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Congratulations! Absorption of new patterns has allowed your Zone Core (Research) to unlock the following new patterns:

Human

Sapient creatures created through Zone Management may now be granted access to Class Patterns for:

Specialist, Sergeant, Scholar, Mechanic (general), Mechanic (artillery), Laborer, Gamer.

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Due to the effects of reincarnation, Zone Guardian Roberto Morgan Garcias' status has been updated to recognize previously unidentified skills, designs and aspects.

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The first part of that notification apparently hit everyone as Aaron froze then staggered backward, falling on his ass and turning whiter than bleach.

Jason flinched and started crying, the tears leaking from his unblinking eyes.

Candy threw whatever the thing on her workbench was across her lab, then she picked up her pretty tube thing and slammed into another part of her lab. She fired burst after burst of intensely overheated *stuff* from the business end of it until the barrel melted and then she started banging the broken rifle(?) into whatever surface happened to be closest.

«Rob? You awake yet?» Lena asked over the G.C., taking care to broadcast her calm question so that everyone heard her.

An eternal moment of silence passed before Rob said, «Lena? What the hell happened?»

«You got your stuffing compacted pretty badly,» she answered. «Are you up for company? Aaron's been freaking out so badly I don't know if he understood me when I told him you were undergoing extreme healing.»

Reincarnation was pretty extreme as far as healing went, right? She might have to deal with that screwball word choice, but she wasn't about to inflict it on the rest of her crew.

«I … don't feel the same. What kind of healing?» Rob asked.

«Rob? Rob, is that you? Are you okay?» Aaron's mental voice boomed through the G.C.

Rob's answer came with a forced chuckle. «Hey, little man, indoor voices, please! I think I'm okay. I just feel different.»

Lena said, «We didn't have human patterns to work with to put you to rights so you ended up looking like an elf. That was the closest match the Zone system had until it finished cleaning you up. I also got a notice that the Tapestry system updated your status page based on the second deep search. Ready to see your brother?»

«Sure,» Rob said.

Lena unlocked the portal standing between Aaron and his brother.

*~*~*

Aaron

Aaron had pestered Rob into making a decent level, meaning that there was dirt, grass, and a sky as well as the place Rob slept. Rob's house looked a lot like their apartment on the inside, but from the outside it had a bunker feeling to it, with the walls made of concrete cinder blocks coated in layers of light gray paint. His house wasn't far from the level portal and Aaron covered the distance fast enough that he gained a skill up in [Running].

He opened the main door so fast it rebounded in his face, deflecting him into the wall. "Rob! Where are you?" Aaron yelled, barely even noticing as he just shoved off the wall to propel himself deeper into the house.

"I'm here," Rob said, his voice carrying from the back hallway. He had barely opened the door to his room. Aaron tackled him, sending them both sprawling.

"You're alive! You're alive! You fucking asshole! What the hell were you *doing*?!" Aaron's voice hadn't broken for a couple of years, but it turned high pitched on the last word.

Rob opened his mouth, but Aaron didn't really care. He tore his brother's shirt off and examined Rob's chest for any sign of bruising or left over damage from Sha'vord's hit.

"Jeez! I'm not into that shit, Casper!" Rob was laughing, but Aaron could see the fear he tried to hide.

"You fucking asshole! I thought you were dead! I thought I watched you die! Don't you fucking ever do that to me again or so help me, God, I will bury you ass-up as a daisy planter! I will fucking resurrect your ass just to kill it all over again! Don't you fucking die on me!" Aaron threw himself onto his butt a slight distance from his brother during his tirade.

Rob's expression sobered and he pushed himself into a sitting position. "I don't even know what hit me, Aaron."

"That fucking shasha lord bastard son of a bitch! I heard the crack when his fist hit your chest and then you just evaporated! Lena wouldn't let me in, she said the contract kicked in and you were being healed, but she wouldn't let me near you! What the fuck, man? What the fuck?!" Too disturbed to stay still, Aaron got up and started pacing, his hands flexing.

"That's because I wasn't going to risk you being this out of control around him when he was wrapped in super delicate mana forms," Lena said, her avatar appearing in the room with her arms crossed. "And you have no clue how close you came to getting zapped for barreling into him just now! I need both of you to get over to Jason! I don't think he's sane right now."

Rob stood up. "What do you mean?" he asked, pushing his way past Aaron and heading for his portal.

Lena floated along right next to him. "He killed Sha'vord, didn't take it well, and the damn notice pushed him over to catatonic. He's not responding to anything I say to him and I don't have hands to smack him back to his senses. Candy's just too fruiting furious to hear anyone. When she finishes breaking her fire spitter and her shooting range, I'll try talking some sense into her."

Aaron wanted to scream that none of that mattered. His brother, the guy who had taught him to wrestle and how to catch crawdads in the creek, Rob! Rob had almost died!

However, seeing his brother alive, moving, a-fricken-alive! (even if he was a couple inches taller and as slender as Aaron and had funky big ears and his body moved in some subtle way that was just wrong) And did Aaron need to repeat that Rob was alive? Just seeing that helped him take another metaphorical step back from the berserk fury that had sent him pummeling himself into the locked portal time and time again.

They were in Jason's room before Aaron caught up to Rob and Lena. Rob knelt in front of Jason, gripping him by the upper arms. "Hey, you hear me?"

Jason's gaze drew back from an unseen horizon, but they didn't quite focus on Rob, sliding off him to stare dumbly at Aaron then back again. "Rob?"

"Yeah, I'm here," Rob said.

"You got elf ears," Jason said, the South in his words.

"Side effect of being healed," Rob said. "You okay, man? What happened after I blacked out?"

Jason pulled Rob into a hug and clung to his friend. "You don't evah get ta die on me, you fuckin' beaner!"

"Don't go all Cracka Joe on me, Bama Jama. I will put your ass in check," Rob said, laughing even as he returned the hug. "Now, why are you sitting here like some pansy ass pussy? You trying to impress Lena with how dark and brooding you can get?"

Jason chuckled and held on tighter. "Fuck you." Then he took a deep breath and let go, leaning back. "That's two I owe you now. Why the fuck do you look like an elf?"

Rob shrugged. "I'm just blessed like that. Looks like it's your turn to be the oppressed race now. I wonder what kind of privilege I can pull off being an elf now?"

Jason shook his head, amused despite himself. "No, really, whiskey tango foxtrot?"

Rob shrugged again. "Lena said something about healing and the zone not having the human pattern when it started."

All eyes swung toward Lena's avatar.

"First, everyone sit. Deep breath. Good," Lena said, leading them through what she wanted.

Aaron was pretty sure no one appreciated her introduction, but they all knew it was easier to go along with her than to try pushing her.

Lena locked gazes with Rob. "Sha'vord's fist broke your ribs and your sternum. Your ribs pierced both of your lungs and your heart. Your heart took the most damage. There's enough of a difference between the human cardiopulmonary system and the patterns our Research core had that I had to pick the closest pattern match and let the system rebuild you from the wounds out."

Aaron felt the pit of his stomach drop away. With most of his rage spent, the fear that he very nearly lost his brother stole his balance. He was peripherally thankful that he was already sitting.

"On the bright side, the core now has a human pattern and the Tapestry, I guess, doesn't have to wait for you to show what you know." Lena tried to give them a reassuring smile, but her own stress was writ large on her face.

Her avatar's face.

Aaron didn't know why that thought struck him.

"[Status]," Rob said, drawing Aaron's attention back to his brother. The glassy eyed look of someone peering at screens in their head took over his face for several long moments. Then he blinked and shook his head. "That's nasty. I mean, that is the nastiest way of tracking character growth I have ever come across. I wonder if we can do something to fix this crap."

"Oh?" Jason asked, beating Aaron to the punch.

"So far as we've seen, all attributes are based on skills, right?" Rob said. Aaron and Jason nodded, and Rob continued. "I gave up on reading all of my skills because there are just too damn many of them, and most are just 'so what?' skills, the things that have to do with walking and breathing level of basic stuff. I have triple digit stats for Brawn, Dexterity, and Wisdom, and the rest are close to it, but we all know that you are stronger than me. It's not just about build; you work out and I do what I need to so I can get by. That's just a stupid way of assessing stats."

Aaron nodded. Jason rubbed his chin. "Having a point buy system where you can't really choose what you're buying except by what you're trying to skill up is screw ball."

Lena asked, "Has Candy shared her opinion on Designs and Aspects with you guys?"

Aaron nodded, but Jason shook his head and Rob just looked quizzical.

*~*~*

Lena

A part of Lena relaxed as the guys took the bait and focused on game mechanics over serious emotional drama. She was having a hard enough time of her own, even with the lack of adrenalin to screw with her thought process.

Candy finally threw the scraps of her weapon away and sat down to bawl her eyes out.

Lena conjured up a ball of light to act as her avatar with Candy and said, "Hey, cous. You ready to hear me?"

Candy shook her head. "Why? What the hell?"

"Rob's alive." Lena led with the big news. Candy stilled, her gaze focusing in on Lena's light ball, demanding more, so Lena continued. "The healing he went through had to use the closest match we had for human, so he's got elf ears now, but he's alive. It was really deep healing. That's why we got the human pattern."

Candy nodded, waiting. Lena went over the same healing report she had given to the guys. Candy's gaze unfocused as her attention shifted to her own thoughts. When she spoke, she asked, "Why? Why did that guy hurt Rob? What was his derangement?"

Lena didn't have any good answers, so she just listened as Candy let loose a torrent of unanswerable questions, doing what she could to make sure her cousin knew she wasn't alone.

*~*~*

System

Outside the East Karth entrance to the Studio of Capricious Dreams, two Sun elves, three cat kin, and five hemat wolves departed, carrying the body of a third Sun elf. It was a point of honor for Sha'dakai to hand carry his deceased lord. Sha'lanadi had no need for such dramatics when it came to carting their weapon boxes and relied on a [Telekinesis] spell.

Inside, soldiers of Lotrot trained, completely oblivious to the new portal and the grieving relief of their hosts.

In the city of Lotrot, Crafts Master Gilvillian argued furiously with a trio of gold scaled merchant arassi. Both sides recognized that their continued impasse brought them ever closer toward a trade war.

Along the road from Port Sala to Lotrot, an archmage, a mage, and a golem did what they could to hasten the trip of the caravan of merchants with whom they traveled, eager to meet the new Travelers.

And far, far distant, across the Infinite Void, a being of mana and energy heard a faint "Ding!". The entity that had chosen the name Rhofhir allowed the message attached to that sound to spin through his consciousness.

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Your project [The Grand Tapestry] is in need of maintenance.

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Had the entity a body, he would have stretched, enjoying the release of muscular tension. Had he a mouth, he would have smiled.

This won't take much longer to finish up. I'll go see how things are progressing in my little terrarium right after I tie up that one little loose end there …