Hacked: A LitRPG Novel (Incipere Online Book 3), page 36
Taking a deep breath, Rani thought for only a moment before she tried to speak…
Only to be interrupted by an agitated 25. “You said I could do it! Remember?”
Despite the Moonkin’s hurt tone, Rani still smiled before she remembered the gravity of who was waiting beyond the borders of her territory. “Be my guest, 25. Just remember what I told you.”
The Moonkin beamed. She took a deep breath and bellowed across the water like a bullhorn. “Travelers of the shadowed Wild Lands, I am Moonkin 25, Speaker of Rani, Goddess of the Moonkin, patron of this city and to the Inciperian people.” She waited for a moment, weighing the last of her words before she recited them. She had to be regal, perfect, for her sister. “You have her permission to enter the city of Siris, the heart of her domain. You will not be harmed by anyone within this city if you abide by her laws and don’t mess anything up.”
Rani sighed. Well, 25 had gotten the gist of the message at least.
Though there was no verbal response, the ship began to move as soon as its dark gray sails unfurled. The vessel was as large as a small house with three large sails and tip-to-stern black, polished lumber, and despite its size, the ship was already making good time. Moving at the speed of a vessel half its size, the enshadowed watercraft took the wind and avoided the other moored ships by mere inches as it snaked its way into the dock.
“Eloquent as ever, 25,” Rani said with a true smile on her lips, and her sister beamed. With her praise given, Rani looked to her other companions. “Do you trust me?”
The group looked from one to another before Torrent took up the response they all thought. After he brushed a rabbit ear from his face again, he replied, “You’ve helped us all so far, so why not?”
Rani was delighted. “I couldn’t ask for more, Big Ears.”
“Can you help Athos now?” Sally interjected before any more questions could distract them.
“Honestly, what I told you before hasn’t changed despite new data,” Rani admitted through frustration. She picked her next words carefully. “I can’t, but Ella can.”
The ship was nearly at dock now, and Sally’s voice carried like only an enraged love’s could. “What the Hell does Ella have to do with this?” She motioned to Athos and the shimmering fog of chilling air the other Moonkin maintained to keep him stable. “Ella is the reason Athos is like this in the first place.”
“Exactly,” the goddess said. “There’s so much more going on than you could possibly imagine on a scale you couldn’t begin to comprehend, Sally.” Though Rani’s face tried to stay stoic, sadness and something else bled though. “But, I’ll try to explain. I thought for the longest time that his condition was just a glitch, but Athos was… fundamentally changed.” She shook her head while the ship pushed ever forward. “Athos was Ella’s attempt at resurrecting the Wildkin.”
Sally’s heart sunk. “Wildkin? What the Hell is a Wildkin?”
Rani took a breath and tried to focus on the least offensive terms she could muster for the girl. “The research on them is scarce at best. I only know what Ella has shared, but it wishes to live in peace with them and us.” She let that sink in for a moment before she continued. “Those Wildkin have come here against its better judgment to learn and to help Athos. As much as I don’t trust it, they are being allowed to make their own choices, and I can’t ignore that.”
As the words and meaning of what the goddess said sunk in, no one knew how to answer. Sandra in particular kept a hand on her daughter’s shoulder and squeezed gently, knowing the girl would erupt with choice words given the chance.
While they tried to come to terms with the new information, Athos began to stir. Despite the sub-zero temperatures, he still sweat, but he had finally cooled to the point of operation again. “Everything hurts.”
“Athos!” Sally’s mood instantly changed as she took a step closer…
Sally Queen: Damage Received: 72% Integrity Remaining
Only to pull back from the arctic chill. “Athos.”
He sat up from within his fog and groaned again. His head, his body, everything ached as if his body was slowly being pulled apart by the muscle fiber. Strangely, it didn’t hurt as much as he thought it should though. “I take it we won, Sal?”
She nodded. The others packed in around her at their safe distance. “We did, you brave idiot.”
Athos smiled at that, but he couldn’t miss the hurt in her eyes. “What’s wrong then?” Then, as if noticing the icy barrier for the first time, he asked with audible resignation, “I’m what’s wrong, aren’t I?”
She gave him a curt nod. “And you’re not going to like what’s next.”
“No, but we’ll all support your choice,” Sandra said sternly, squeezing her daughter’s shoulder again. “What’s your Integrity at, Athos?”
His eyes only briefly looked away before he answered. “Two percent, and I guess Overheat is why I’m surrounded by freezing air?”
“Your form is unstable, Athos,” Rani explained as she kneeled to reach eye level with him. “These people approaching are the only ones who can help you, but I won’t force you to accept it.” As if to demonstrate, Rani created a new cluster of data and pushed it towards Athos. After pushing through the cold and integrating with Athos, nothing happened and the data dispersed. “They are the Wildkin and I’ve been told they can help fix what’s wrong.”
“Then why would I refuse?” Athos asked as he sat back down. His excitement was clear on his face by now; the possibilities ran rampant.
After taking a deep breath, Rani didn’t mince her words. “Because they are Ella’s people, and he has personally extended a hand to help fix what he’s broken within you. If you accept his help, he has promised to fix everything wrong with your core.” When she saw Athos’s emotions wax to hope and wane to darker thoughts, she added. “I give you my word that Ella will keep its word.”
At first, it sounded far too easy. Athos expected someone to speak up, but all of them, even Sally, were silent.
She had spoken with Ella?
She allowed him near her after all he had done?
Ella had a race?
He was willing to help for nothing?
None of it added up.
“Why?”
At least that was a simple answer.
“Peace. At least, it’s a start for one,” Rani stated. “Ella knows that I have an interest in your survival, Athos.” It wasn’t news to Athos, but the rest seemed to be a bit surprised by her. If Rani noticed, she didn’t acknowledge it. “By helping you, he raises himself in my eyes. In turn, that raises his character in the eyes of those I serve. At least, that’s what I assume anyway.” By that time, the ship had docked and a gangplank had been extended down onto the dock. Rani’s attention went to those around her and she spoke a final time in their privacy. “Knowing this, I will warn you all. They might be strange but don’t hurt them.”
Strange didn’t begin to describe the three that took to the plank.
In front was a man with flesh of orange stone and eyes of onyx. He wore a loose-fitting shirt and long pants similar to the current style in Oenus. With each step he took, his stone skin ground at all angles and created a fine, orange sandstorm that followed in his wake.
From the look on the face of the one behind him, it was much to the annoyance of the second.
The woman was taller than the first by at least a head, and she was instantly more familiar to all of the adventurers. Confined within a bubble of water that was quickly gathering sand fragments, the merfolk woman pushed herself forward with a smooth, pink tail not so different from a dolphin’s. The woman’s curves were hidden under a seaweed sundress held together by coral clasps at her shoulders and waist. A long, sapphire staff in her right hand completed her appearance. Unlike the first, her eyes were human and a deep shade of ocean blue. She scanned the area intently.
The final individual was the most alien of them. Fully human in form, the creature was the color of midnight ink and the shape of a woman. She wore what could best be described as sheets of parchment. She had no weapons drawn, and there were no defining marks to separate her forearm from her elbow or shoulder.
It…she reminded him of the shadow spawn he fought so many times before today.
Just like them, her hair and her head could have been one and the same. Two white splotches on her face were all that told how the woman saw. From the way she kept rubbing and moving them around her body, she was no more excited than the second was to be following the sandstone man.
Soon enough, the three stood opposite the Moonkin, Inciperians, and goddess and bowed. It wasn’t hard to see how nervous they were. They could even hear the golem of a man literally shaking in his shoes, sending a cloud of find red dust all around his feet. The ink woman stared for a moment at Athos before her eyes shifted to the merfolk. She said nothing though, and their attention snapped back to the Inciperians at hand. Whether it was out of respect or fear, no words came from any of them.
So, 25 took it upon herself to break the ice. “Good afternoon. May I present Rani, Goddess of the Moonkin and her champions.” To the surprise of Sally and possibly Rani, 25 bowed, suppressing all of her usual sass and vigor. “Speak freely to her as you would your own patron, and she will listen. As representative of my sisters, I welcome you to Siris and offer aide to you and yours as needed.” With that, two Moonkin popped into existence near her and all three bowed deeply. “Until then, please do your best to make your requests clear and known to us.”
The three Wildkin looked between each other, slightly confused by the welcome. Silence gripped the world for a while longer. Rani waited patiently for the group to speak.
(Party) Trina Rorna: I’m not sure what to think. I mean, these are Ella’s people? They look… Well…
(Party) Torrent Lase: Rani says they don’t mean any harm. Really look at them, Trina. They’re scared stiff.
(Party) Sally Queen: They should be.
(Party) Sandra Queen: Sally! I taught you better than that!
Sally winced at her mother’s scorn and the gaze that followed it only moments later.
(Party) Sally Queen: Sorry, Mom.
Finally, the three broke their silence, and the inky Wildkin took a step forward with the others flanking her. “We were not aware that any of our kin arrived here before us.” To everyone’s surprise, her voice was much like her body: dark, silky, and mysterious. “We would like him released to us. Whatever his crime, it can’t be worth such treatment. Rani, Goddess of the Moonkin, we realize that he is dangerous, but if he has done something worth this treatment, I doubt he would still be alive.”
If anything, Rani hid her surprise well. Her hands moved behind her back. “What is your name, Wildkin?”
She stood a bit straighter. “I’m Quill. My companions are Cris and Micha.”
“Quill and company,” Rani began as she took a step forward towards Athos, “Athos isn’t a prisoner. He only survives because of my Moonkin’s efforts. His program is overheating, and his Integrity is too weak to survive until his body can recover.”
Understanding seemed to leak from her formless face as she nodded and the merfolk moved forward, but it was Quill who spoke again. “Cris would like to look at his condition while we continue.”
“He rejects any items we use,” Sandra offered to the newcomer. Then, when she wasn’t interrupted, she added. “If it helps, he used to collect data to heal, but that doesn’t work either now. All we get is a list of errors when we try to help.”
The merfolk woman silently floated towards the veil of frost and shook her head. Her piercing blue eyes studied his form through the mist carefully, taking in each shine of his metal arm, his heterochromatic eyes of fire and ice, and even the metallic sheen that peaked out from just below his collar. Her gaze was so intense that Athos had to suppress a blush.
Silently, the woman turned back to the walking inkblot and the golem before nodding.
The stone man laughed like an avalanche while the ink woman’s eyes bobbed inside her head. She seemed amused as she spoke. “This is something we can fix. At least for the moment, it will hold until he can return home.”
Everyone in the party had the same burning question, but one was faster than the rest to vocalize it.
“How?” Sally asked urgently, and the merfolk smiled.
Turning to Quill, Cris opened a window of her own. Quill explained what the water-born woman was doing. “We ask that you say nothing about what we are about to show you.”
With her words, Cris materialized a small, blue stone and held it out to Athos, attempting to initiate a manual exchange while the others watched, prepared for the inevitable. Athos hesitated to reach out past the veil for it but steeled himself and reached for the stone.
Kin Shard - C Obtained!
Chapter Forty-One: Update
“How?”
Athos’s question brought a smile to Cris’s lips, but she still said nothing. Instead, she pointed to her mouth as the large mountain of a man spoke for her though he sounded a bit confused himself. “If you’re worried, don’t be, brother. We have plenty for the trip that we can share. I know it’s not high grade, but one should do for now.”
He was supposed to eat it?
The stone, if it could be called that, was perfectly smooth and strangely soft to the touch, almost the consistency of a gummy bear. No bigger than his thumb, it shimmered a soft, inviting blue. He looked over it more than confused. He repeated Sally’s question. “How did you give it to me?”
“‘How’? What do you mean, ‘how’?” Quill sighed and stretched her arms long as he continued to look over the stone.
Rani coughed softly to take the attention from Athos as he studied his ‘food’. “Athos is not one of your kin, Quill. He had an accident,” she explained, and the three turned their attention to her. “His condition worsened when he exerted himself earlier. Now he’s as you see him.”
The merfolk’s expressions seemed to flow between confusion and fear, and the others were unreadable as they embraced the silence for a moment. Turning to each other, their conversation became somewhat private.
Rani frowned.
Being the vanguard for their race, they were going to be powerful, or so Rani assumed. But, she couldn’t even begin to imagine how even the most powerful Wildkin could fix Athos’s core data issue so easily when a system administrator, a god, couldn’t. Ella said that Athos’s repairs were beyond her, but how had he even managed to condense a core data repair program into an edible item?
How could they even transfer it to him like that?
Why did they even need to carry it?
As she came out of her thoughts, the group had already looked back to her, and as before, Quill was the one to take center stage.
“The origin of one’s birth doesn’t matter, goddess. It isn’t hard to tell that Athos is one of us.” The inked woman explained. “However, an attack by the Pretender Unum cannot be ignored. We must urge Athos to integrate the kin shard as soon as possible. His full strength won’t be returned by such a poorly refined shard, but it will be enough for him to fight with us if the need arises.”
In return to her speech and the now-undivided attention, Athos squeezed the stone between his fingers, making it bulge out on each side like some sort of toy. Anyone who knew him could easily tell the apprehension in his ever-so-slightly glowing eyes.
Only one person dared to speak at that moment.
“Do it, Athos,” Sally urged with a practiced half-smile. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I can think of a few things,” Athos returned with the other half of her smile. After a few moments of silence, he sighed and cautiously took the stone to his lips.
What’s the worst that could happen?
Hesitantly chewing the stone, Athos smiled at the pleasant taste. The kin shard tasted like blue raspberry as it dissolved into data.
It was a pleasant last few moments of peace.
A moment later, Athos gripped his chest as a pressure began to build. It felt like something was punching his heart with a jackhammer, and the pain flowed like molten lead into his head. There, it only got worse as the throbbing became explosions that rivaled any neutron bomb. Again and again, the pain radiated throughout every inch of him, but his Integrity never dropped. The fires of pain burned and consumed the alchemical arm’s existence for what seemed like hours, but to anyone on the outside, the screaming was over almost as soon as it began.
For Athos, the lack of pain was a welcomed absence, but it was just the beginning as the world went from shades of white, pixelating pain to shadowed darkness.
That too, only lasted a moment.
A small, green dot crossed Athos’s vision as soon as he stopped screaming. In fact, there were three simple dots in an ellipse of green light. Before Athos could even begin to process what that meant, it changed. The dots became a box, and that box began blinking in a rather nonthreatening manner line by line as it came to life.
…
Good afternoon, Athos Aramis.
An avatar update is in progress.
Please wait. There are 2,501 kernel changes to implement into the system avatar - Athos_Aramis.
#I apologize for the inconvenience.#
Without pain, sight, or hearing other than the green letters, Athos relented his anger and at least some of his fear. At least you’re apologizing for it.
A few moments later, the screen continued to compile new information.
………
Corrupted sectors could not be corrected.
Deleting unnecessary functions.
6,052 kernel functions deleted.
Restoring functions from the Wildkin default setting.
2,501 kernel processes have been overwritten.
6,052 kernel processes have been restored.
Inciperian status could not be restored due to the new default.
Wildkin status overwrite has been confirmed.
Sapient Race protections have been restored.
……..
New Race acquired: Wildkin
