Monday, March 2nd, 317 years since Start

Journal Entry 202

Cain had been gone for longer than I expected. He should have been able to level up at least three times by now, perhaps more. He had yet to return. By now, it has been a week. If he hadn’t gotten a class yet, odds were he never would. There is a chance, however slim, that he had gotten a challenge of some sort in order to prove himself. Through the research I have done, that was a miniscule possibility. Cain had better odds of being someone from the mysterious fourteenth race than getting a challenge.

So, I continued our research during his absence. I figured if he failed to get a class, some good news on our research would raise his spirits. Some good news is indeed what he will return to. Since I got my class, I was discouraged. Yes, I got something that had been the cause of many a sleepless night, but on the surface it was useless.

Do not get me wrong, I am sure there would be some uses for it. Perhaps in construction, maybe some crafting professions. In terms of combat though, there are significantly more classes better suited than mine. The one redeeming factor though, was it was only useless for a normal Reform. I however, had three systems. I have the “slots” —what we have coined the fourteenth system—, the faction system, and the RPG one the Reforms possess.

My point is, alone, my class would confine me to my research —not a bad existence. With the slots however, and with the Faction Perk mind over body, I have found a way to mix three systems together. This in itself, is an incredible breakthrough, something I had just discovered recently. I have yet to tell a soul. If word of this was released to the other races, there would be a hunt for my head.

The only reason a majority of the races allow multisystem users to exist is because each system is believed to be independent. Having two, three, or four systems is not better than focusing all your attention on one. A level 100 Reform would wipe the floor with a level 50 reform with Faction Perks ten times out of ten. So, if the other races were to discover I have been able to synergize multiple systems, the worst can be expected.

This is where the benefit of my Faction Perks come in. Olania can read my mind, as can many in the faction who chose the path of sola animo. This in itself would mean my secret would be out within a day. Yet, I chose mind over body. The power to alter my body ever so slightly by having more control of my brain. Using my new class, I can tweak it. Rather than my mind having the power to alter my body, now I can have my mind alter my mind.

This seems redundant, perhaps even pointless, but there is a benefit: I can make a portion of my memories locked. The downside to this, is even I can forget these memories or lose access to them. For now, it seems I can remember them for a fixed duration, but I have already —I assume— lost a few ones in testing.

Back to research. I realize I rambled, but as you can assume (I am assuming this is future Yuclaus reading this), I am deciding to lock away the very information that could condemn us both. Rather, condemn me. Including what I am about to say. I have figured out a way to manipulate Wisps. Late at night, after a few days of a research stalemate, I got frustrated, and tried to force two smaller Wisps together. I just wished that they would merge, and was surprised when they did. Perhaps, I pictured them like clay? In any case, I am going to check if Cain has returned.

“So how were your nights?” Khalil asked the group as they plodded down the muddy road. Yuclaus did not hear the question though, he was busy staring into space. His mind was a little foggy, likely from being jerked out of his mindscape so abruptly. He never thought it was even possible, granted, neither him nor Isencia had ever really tried. He felt as if his mind was full of cotton, just watching the rain fall.

“Good.” Justine answered brusquely. Her quick flick towards the back of Yuclaus did not go unnoticed.

“It was soooo nice!” Meagan took over the explanation for her superior, “there is nothing like a nice cup of tea on a rainy day. I really love traveling with Justine! We have the best shelter because of he—” She stopped at the sideways glance of the aforementioned Reform. “The one downside,” She continued hesitantly, “Is that—”

“There is very little alone time, no hot baths, and no new books,” Justine mumbled in the background.

“—there is no food, heating, or running water. The tea was something we grabbed in the city. Oh, I’m sorry, we should have offered some!”

Yuclaus visibly perked up at the mention of tea. It was strange though, he never remembered really drinking tea growing up. He decided not to mention the fact that they should have offered to share the house with the whole party. The tea was far less of a trespass. Then again, it was their two story foodless house. Also, he wouldn’t have been able to spend time with Isencia, which was just objectively better. Then again, he would have a higher probability of winning against any of the party than Isencia. She truly learned fast.

“How was your night though Khalil? I’m sure it was—”

“Our night was alright,” he interjected, knowing if he let Meagan build up, it would be a long time before anyone else would get to speak. “I personally appreciate the comfort of a Spatial Tent rather than a house. There is something about folds of fabric that really make you comfy.”

“No water got in.” Darryn contributed.

“It’s nice and cozy. There isn’t too much room though, so sometimes it can be a little tight. You should stay with us next time, Yu. It may be a squeeze, but I have a large sleeping bag,” Jenny said suggestively to Cause. It was then that everyone actually processed that Yuclaus stayed with neither of them. It was also interesting to note he neither attempted to escape them, nor tried to harm them.

“Um, Yuclaus,” Khalil started, “How was your night?”

“It was alright, I sat in mud.” Cause could not help but try to make them uncomfortable. He thought it would be funny if they thought he just sat there the whole night. He accomplished his goal.

“You sat there the whole night?” Khalil pushed, aghast at the implication.

“Yup. You know, it isn’t as bad as you would think.”

“Were you gruntled?” Darryn chimed in.

“Gruntled?”

“Gruntled.” Once more, Darryn and Cause were at a standstill.

“Do you mean disgruntled?” Yuclaus guessed.

“No, gruntled is the opposite.” The rest of the party looked on the exchange with amusement.

“I… wouldn’t say I was gruntled, no.”

“A shame. I would have been much gruntled.” Darryn took that as his queue to bend over and put his hand in a puddle. Yuclaus stopped with him, confused. The rest of the party, by now very used to his tendencies, kept walking. Soon Justine and Meagan passed the two, Justine obviously twitchy.

“Why?” Yuclaus asked the armored man. Darryn seemed taken aback for a moment. Typically, he was not questioned much after first meeting someone.

“I am checking how deep the puddle is.” Cause thought through his next question carefully.

“Huh. Well. Um. Why?” Darryn cocked his head to the side.

“To make sure no one is hiding.”

“Why would someone be hiding in a puddle? Not to mention, don’t you have super good intuition or something? I mean you destroyed Ise—my bush before we met.” Isencia had briefly described his destruction of the bush during the night.

“I don’t know.” Darryn stood back up, looking at the brown water that was slowly being rinsed by the sky. “I wouldn’t like someone attacking us from a puddle.”

“Nor would I my friend, nor would I,” Yuclaus patted his armored shoulder, noticing how it felt dry, before he continued walking. Darryn soon caught up to him. The two walked in silence, trailing behind the rest of the party. Darryn’s eyes remained vigilant, searching all over the terrain as they squelched down the path.

It was at that moment, the world sharpened. Almost as if Yuclaus put glasses on, finally noticing how bad his eyes were. He stopped in his tracks. Quite literally, he put his foot back down in the impression he made. The rain had stopped. Besides Yuclaus, none stopped. He was momentarily stunned by how suddenly the falling water abated.

Yuclaus spun to look behind him, and lo and behold, a gentle waterfall slowly drifted away from the party. Though Cause had not been in the eye of a storm, he assumed this is what it would be like. He noticed he was falling behind, and jogged to catch up to Darryn. Halfway to the suit of armor, he felt his injured leg give out. The vine tightened, but unlike last time, he had more momentum. He fell forward, and barely caught himself on his hands and knees.

He thought he did, until he saw that suddenly Darryn had grabbed the back of his cloak to keep him from face planting. Yuclaus looked up to see a small crater where Darryn just was. The sonic boom hit Cause soon after. The benefit of his state was that his eardrums didn’t burst.

“Thanks Darryn,” Yuclaus said as he rose to his feet, Darryn quickly grabbing on his arm and hoisting him up. He also, luckily, didn't have a socket his arm could pop out of. However, when he looked at the adventurer’s porter, he saw his eyes were fixed on the sky. Yuclaus soon followed his gaze, until he saw what the man was focused on. Hanging on the bottom of the cloud, was a small city.

The city was diagonal from the group. If they walked a few more hours, and then went straight up to the cloud, they would reach the city streets. An equidistant circle devoid of rain encompassed the civilization, implying the absence of water was caused by its presence.

The city seemed to be carved from ice, defying gravity by sitting on the bottom of the cloud as if it was solid ground. The distance was too great to see if there were any humans, or Reflux, walking around on the thin cloud-walkways. In the center of the city was a massive tower. It seemed to stretch downward, reaching for the earth it lorded above. Perhaps to the citizens of the upside-down city, the earth lorded above them.

The tower had a beam of blue light shooting out of it, contacting the earth below. The beam seemed to be up ahead, in the middle of their path. Yuclaus focused on the beam, and thought he could see specks of brown flying up it. He would have asked Darryn what it was, but he noticed the man had continued walking while he was gazing at the unnatural yet awe-inspiring sight. He continued his sightseeing as he quickened his pace.

Steaming rivers flowed between the hills of clouds outside of the city. The banks of the rivers seemed to be made of earth, while the liquid that flowed down the canals was hidden from view by the abundance of steam. The hills that stretched from the city seemed to be constantly growing. They would increase in size until suddenly, they would start deflating once more. It was difficult to see at first, but after a while of watching, Yuclaus could see the pattern occurring near the edge of the clearing. The clearing being the absence of rain.

Trees of ice grew in the land that surrounded the city, branching down towards the earth below. There appeared to be grids in the cloud, as if a snowplow had carved out sections. Each one was a slightly different color. It reminded Yuclaus of looking out the window of a plane as he flew cross-country. As he watched, one of the trees tipped over, crashing up to the cloud above. The tree that looked so small must have been massive, as the lumberjacks were nowhere to be seen. Finally, Yuclaus caught up to the scarred, barehanded man, and was able to ask him a question.

“What is that?” He asked, though Cause realized half way through his question that he already had come to the proper conclusion.

“Reflux.” Darryn said. He spoke no more, so Yuclaus prodded for more information.

“How are they walking on clouds? Rather, how are they defying gravity?” Darryn glanced down at the Figment before returning to his vigil of the sky.

“You were sheltered.” He did not ask a question, nor was he demeaning, he was simply stating a fact. “When you go high enough, gravity switches. Up becomes down. If something else changes, I am unsure. Yet, I could walk on the clouds there. It is cold.”

“Cold?” Yuclaus asked, confused.

“Yes. I thought I would go into the hot springs to warm myself, only to find that the liquid was colder than everything else. The Reflux found me bathing in it. They tried to drown me.”

“They tried to drown you right after they saw you?” Cause asked hesitantly.

“No. They spoke gibberish for a bit, so I ignored them and tried to leave. When I found my armor seemed stuck, I broke a hole in the earth around it. The liquid started to flow out and into the clouds. Then they attacked.”

“Oh well. That’s...interesting.” Yuclaus did not understand the situation whatsoever. It seemed Darryn was trying to escape, yet angered the Reflux somehow. He felt it was probably caused by language barriers. An issue he could easily bypass.

“Yuclaus!” The two turned down their gaze, to see the rest of the party had stopped, and Meagan was jogging back to them. “This is one of the Reflux cities I was talking about! Isn’t it like, super pretty?” She shouted as she got nearer to them. Eventually, she reached the two, and almost seemed to jump to their side.

“Has Darryn explained anything about them?” She asked, tilting her head almost to a comical degree. She brought to mind a Golden Retriever, but with blue hair. A Blue Retriever. Heh, it may have been a while but I still got it.

“He vaguely mentioned how gravity switched, but the rest didn’t make much sense. From what I’ve been able to observe, it looks like the clouds are solid.”

“Oh, ok! So basically, the Reflux are the closest allies to the Reforms, so we know a bit about them. Well, the adventurers do. We still know enough since we are Reforms, but probably less than Jenny and Khalil.” The trio was close enough to the other three for Khalil and Jenny to overhear. Khalil flashed a smile which suggested he did, in fact know. Jenny flashed a smile that for once, did not terrify Yuclaus. It mortified him.

“I do know answers to a variety of questions,” Jenny said.

“I would love to answer any questions you have,” Khalil answered simultaneously. He glanced sideways at Jenny, before shaking his head.

“Wait, before I ask about the Reflux, I want to bring up something you just mentioned.” Yuclaus was curious about the obvious division in the group. He couldn’t remember Isencia mentioning the Administrator. In fact, for all purposes, it was as if he never heard it to start with. Almost as if it was scrubbed from his mind. Almost.

“You said ‘the adventurers’ I know you guys seem to be distant from one another, but are you not adventurers?” Cause asked Meagan, while also looking at Justine in the middle of the sentence so that she knew he was addressing the two of them. The girls looked at each other, silent words were literally shared.

“We… are not,” Meagan replied tentatively, “we were recruited by a… shared contact to travel with these three. They are skilled adventurers, and we had something to look into, so we partnered. We are Reforms, but we actually associate more with the Orthodox.” Yuclaus had vaguely heard of the Orthodox from Isencia. He couldn’t remember if she explained their system, or their race. The title rang a bell though.

“Orthodox?” He decided to be straightforward, taking a similar approach to how he talked with Darryn.

“Think of them as underwater humans,” Khalil chipped in, “Just switch the effect of air and water that we have, and you have a very basic idea of how they work.”

“What is their system?” The rest of the party was visibly shocked at how blatantly he asked the question. Some were confused how he didn’t know, others felt the subject was taboo. Unnoticed by anyone, Justine’s eyes alighted on the symbol that shone on Cause’s neck. Her right hand also tensed, refusing to place it over her own matching symbol.

“Oh that is... Um. I’ll tell you another time, ok?” Meagan awkwardly responded. Justine hadn’t said anything discreetly to her through their abilities, and she also wasn’t sure how Khalil would react. Luckily, Khalil decided to act.

“Basically, think of it as the Reform system —you do know about the Reform’s RPG system right?”

“Yeah.”

“So boiled down, think of it as a group of people who all share the same class. Yet, it is significantly more skill based, and the ‘stats’ everyone gains are calculated from the strongest people in the faction. An easy example would be if everyone had a basic ranger class. The leader of the faction —known as either the matriarch or patriarch— is the forerunner. They decide how the faction progresses, and have all the skills that can be chosen.

“This is where the ranger class example comes in. Let us assume this faction is the Faction of Ranger. Nonexistent, but good for explaining. Each person can choose if they want to focus on survival, bows, nature magic, or whatever suits their fancy. As each person completes more ‘ranger things’ the faction can get stronger. It is a grouping of similar people that share abilities.”

“Huh, that’s interesting.” It truly was interesting to Yuclaus. He still had some more questions, and was curious about the innerworkings, but he could tell Meagan was slightly uncomfortable. He decided to not press on the factions, nor ask about the Orthodox themselves —though he was curious about their appearances. Is my physique strange because I am one of these other races? Cause did not know how close he was. Close, yet so very far. Instead, Yuclaus asked another question.

“You said you had something to look into,” Yuclaus started. He saw Meagan take on a contemplative demeanor. Had she gotten more uneasy, he would have dropped the question. “What is it?”

“You actually may be able to help,” Meagan had a vague idea of what was happening. A guess which was closer than Khalil’s. She thought for all purposes, there was a fifty percent chance Yuclaus would know. It may be better to say that one of us knew. “We were sent for a few reasons, but one of them was to look for an old city. It’s whereabouts have been hidden for centuries, but it is suspected to be in the Misfortune.”

“The forest?”

“Yup,” Meagan responded cheerfully. Yuclaus thought back to his travels. He went back in his mind, nearly retreating into his mindscape in his search. Luckily, he didn’t. He went all the way back to when he first came into this world. He had an answer. He spoke honestly, deceit absent.

“No, I never saw an old city.”