69 When past becomes present 2 (1/2)
As I once again experienced the side-effects of teleportation I started to look around to see, where I had been dropped off.
I started to notice that the Observer has fulfilled its promise, I was seeing a village in front of my very own eyes.The only thing that I had not expected was, that the Observer would take my phrasing that literally.It was indeed a remote village, where no player would appear frequently.
I would not call it secluded, because that would mean that people would still be able to reach it. This village was isolated, because how in the world, would any sane person climb up this gigantic mountain, expecting a city to be up here.
Question after question kept popping up in my mind. Where did those villagers get their food and water from? How did they get the material up here to build such a village?Why would those villagers even decide to build their village in this place?
I doubt that the Observer has thrown any realism out of the window, so there must be many things that explain those questions.
Looking out of the quite tall entrance, I saw a blue sky and clouds preventing me from seeing the ground. I might have to build a cover for this entrance as I do not know how many monsters will appear in the sky.
An odd thought suddenly appeared in my head, what if this place was a village and has been abandoned to unknown reasoning, this whole place can be a place full of monsters and I would dig my very own grave without knowing it.
But Judging by the height of the cave, the monster could not be too tall or too big for their mobility will seriously be hindered in this place. If I am lucky It would just be another nest of strange insects.
Since there do not seem to be any monsters active as of now, I will use the time efficiently and scout the area. I might find signs of monsters or any other indicators that would let me draw conclusions,
Hey, quit sulking and help me out here.
” I thought I should not interrupt your thought process, as I did not notice any apparent flaws in your reasoning.”
What kind of change occurred, when I treated my eyes with the ”special treatment.”
” The absolutely minimal amount of information is worth 2 points if you want to know everything that would come to a total amount of 15 points. Which option is to your liking?
Even if you have learned from me. do not try to scam your partner out of points by stating such an absurd amount of points.Let me turn the question around, what do you want to know about for your 2 points?
” Tell me more about those metals”
I have no clue, why exactly those caught your interest out of all the things I have said. But it is such a broad topic, that I will only show you a memory that is worth exactly 2 points. An appetizer if you will.The memory fragment you are about to see describes the most basic properties of metal and about its general appearance.
Judging by your silence, I think that this information has sufficed?
'” It truly is an interesting material as you said. I will stay quiet for quite some time because I will try to deduce how I can create it, that would save me the trouble of spending points for it.But of course, a deal is a deal so here is the knowledge you have asked for. Indeed during this whole process, your eyes underwent 2 significant changes.
”The first change is suitable for a place like this as your eyes adapt to the missing light and produce a substance that makes it easier for you to see in this absolute darkness. You might not have noticed it, in the whole time you spent digging, because I had blocked that function at that time. I wanted to reduce every possible source of energy loss. I am not going into detail how exactly these substances work, as this information comes only with the 15 point version, but be sure that your energy consumption will increase.”
”I will not tell you about the other change, because the development in that area has not yet finished and I need more samples of creatures to accomplish it. Just be sure, that the change will be massive once it comes into fruition. ”
”It will take quite some time till we will talk to each other again, so you got any other last wishes?”
Tell the queen ant, she should prepare to produce a lot and I mean a lot of new ants. We will need them for several purposes.
” She will not be happy about that one.”
I have never seen her happy in the first place when she came into contact with me.
” Yeah, that's true. I will let her know, but whatever she decides to do is not of my concern. It is between you and her. Have fun in this very interesting place”
I can just imagine what kind of demands she will raise, once she will learn the reason why I demanded such a huge amount of ants. Until then, I will have a look, in this dark place.
I took my first step into the darkness and I noticed that the world suddenly got a lot brighter and I could see my surroundings clearly. That fucker had deactivated the substance, to maximize the chance of me asking for his information.
The whole village became visible to me. These buildings were just plain and simple made out of the hide from animals. The resemblance to the TIpis from native Americans was shocking. I saw many Tipis left and right along the path I walked. There was no way to deviate from the path as it was the only possible one to reach further into the mountain.
Each and every tipi had the same height and colour scheme, there was no way to tell the difference between them. Caught by interest I decided to risk peeking inside of one.
It was quite relaxing to explore this place, without any monsters or players lusting after my life. But my nice change of pace ended abruptly as I saw. Inside of tipi was a mummified corpse of a human. It looked like it had been sucked dry of everything. One touch and it would most likely just turn into dust.
The person has died while it slept, judging by the positioning I found the corpse. There was no sign of any kind of struggle. Except for a thick layer of dust, the surrounding clothes were stacked in an ordinary fashion.
There was no possibility to deduce the gender of the victim as the corpse was human in name only.
I left the corpse as I had found it and began to search the other houses for evidence. Though the number of victims was different from each tipi to the next, their specific corpses were all the same. Babies, children, women or men, they all were left without an ounce of life left in them. There was never any sign of resistance in their corpses, one corpse even died while holding something in its hand.
I stopped for a second pondering whether I should disturb the rest of the dead and grab the item or just go on. But that worry was quickly discarded as I reminded myself of the fact, that this is a game world and each player would have no qualm about doing it.
Upon touching the arm of the person, something heavy dropped to the ground and the whole corpse turned into dust and disappeared. There was no trace left, that a human had once rested and lived here.