The storefront he'd haphazardly chosen for the meeting with Dayo Sovni's leading trio was a bar. A long, L-shaped wooden bartop dominated the space, with a band of wide-hole, perforated metal near the floor dirtied by hundreds or thousands of shoes resting there. The stools at the bar were made like bicycle seats, with a single vertical metal piece to act as a backrest. The sticky floor stretched out from the bar, to where a series of tables were set against the wall, with lower, more standard chairs. All of those pieces were made from wood, seemingly coated in a clear, epoxy-like substance Reid couldn't properly figure out. Whatever it was, it was letting his dense frame actually sit down - so that was good.

Behind the bar, a dizzying array of bottles and containers with fanciful labels and shapes contained liquids of every color, gleaming in the light. Reid stared at the light fixtures. They were mounted on the walls with simple sconces that supported metal bowls with a cylindrical metallic cage in their center. Within the cages, a tube of light glowed fiercely.

Reid turned back to the table - one very clearly made to seat two patrons to a side. He took up the entirety of one end of the table, and the trio had squished themselves together in the other. The woman and the gym coach were even closer than they needed to be. If there had been any remaining doubt for Reid that the pair were sleeping together, the hands they held strong on each other's upper thighs would have made him certain. Each had a glass of amber liquid in front of them - so far, only the old man had touched his, and it was half empty.

Reid eyed his own glass, and lifted it to his nose. The drink had an earthy, slightly spiced aroma. He swirled it in its glass, and took a sip. The spiced alcohol tingled against his lips and coated his tongue, then warmed his throat when he swallowed. It left a smoky, cozy aftertaste - like campfires, nutmeg, and cinnamon. He felt the alcohol start to work - then fade completely.

RESISTANCE ACTIVATED

Reid frowned at his glass. Could he train his body to make exceptions to let himself get drunk, or at least buzzed?

"We got more drinks, you want something different." The old man offered, gesturing with his now nearly empty glass towards the back of the bar. "Gasten knows this whole planetary awakening was shit enough before spirits stopped working. We haven't got the taste right on the new booze."

Reid set his down on the table. "Don't worry about the drink. What I need is information, and calm discussion." He gave the gym teacher a pointed look, and continued. "First off, why aren't you all in the tutorial? You're obviously fully awakened if you can use skills. Did you... learn to use them on your own or something?"

It was the first mystery to untangle, amongst several things he had to discuss. His initial list from getting onto the island came back to mind. Resources, shelter, stat increases, armor, info on wildlife, questline steps, and skill practice were done. From his initial list, he just needed info on Belar, info on where Hugo and Lycra might be, and wider cosmic knowledge. He added 'general Vuxarinan information' to the list, starting with how there were awakened outside the tutorial, and then where the hell this island was on the planet.

The old man was the one to answer him. "Nobody I know of got skills working by themselves. Don't know if you had the same, but everyone on Dayo got shifted to this beacon thing all at once, and when you touched it, you got your skills unlocked. Not everybody was ready right then to go slapping some alien rock, so we waited. People disappeared into that 'tutorial' thing, and then they stopped disappearing at all. When I touched it, that rock told me there was some error, and it's been doing that for everyone since."

His heart dropped, and Reid felt a similarly worried and conflicted response from Nyx. There was a non-zero chance that whatever caused the tutorial to stop admitting people inside was his own fault. It was something he couldn't really apologize for due to the reasons why it was his fault - and honestly, it was something he didn't regret. The tutorial had allowed for a massive boost in his abilities and strength, and he wouldn't change his decisions if he had to do it over again.

The old man shared a glance with the other two as silence stretched, then turned back to Reid. "You seen anyone in your tutorial talked about Dayo? We can show pictures and the like, see if you recognize them."

Reid shut down the question. "If they had been in my tutorial, they would've come back by now. Hold any other questions you have until I'm done. Now, what is your relationship with Belar?"

They exchanged glances and shoulder shrugs. The woman offered a fast, nervous reply. "I don't know a Belar - maybe you mean Planissia Belmar? She 'relocated' to Dayo Evni months ago after her husband - Gasten watch him - was killed by those awful beasts. She said it was to wait for her cousin to come out of the tutorial, but I think she was interested in going to join Ferber's compound, that sell-out. Who knows what sort of things they get up to." The actual words that had spilled out of her mouth caught up to her brain, and she hastily added, "Not that I dislike either of them - if you're friends with Planissia - or with Dr. Ferber..."

Reid pinched the bridge of his nose. These people were either incredibly dense, incredibly isolated - or both.

"Belar. Trade. Corporation. Where are they on the island, and what relationship do you have with them?"

The gym teacher held up both hands. "Wait, wait wait. The ones that made our contracts?" Reid lifted an eyebrow, and the man continued. "Belar Trade Corporation, right? We all had to sign an agreement with them when we touched the beacon."

"But you haven't seen them in person?"

"Well... no. Not that I - that we - know of."

Reid slouched back in his chair, and the wood groaned under his shifted weight. That Belar wasn't active on this island was equal parts good and bad. Good, that these people hadn't been subjected to the terrible treatment Belar had brought to Hugo and his people. Bad - that for some reason, the corporation hadn't deemed it necessary to send anyone to this island. He tapped a finger on the table. He needed information - and he felt a rising compulsion to help these people stay free from Belar's control and influence, as much as he could reasonably do.

"I need a map. Or a globe. I want to see where we are, in relation to the rest of the continents."

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The gym teacher nodded. "We have a few at the secondary school. It's only a ten-minute walk. Maybe less. I'll go - "

"No," Reid interrupted. "Have someone else grab it. While they do, I need to tell you who Belar actually is."

#

#

"You're sure, the king is really dead?" The woman wiped away tears and further streaked her eyeliner. The story had taken far longer than intended to convey, mostly because the pair of idiots on the other side of the table repeated the same questions over and over again, until Reid just stopped answering them. He had at least gotten names out of the trio during what was now a half-hour of waiting time for someone to come back with a globe. The gym teacher was Walsamo, the woman Kaeryn, and the old man was Rongo. They might not have been convinced of Reid's accounting of his time in the tutorial and how the evil corporation had treated their beloved and idolized royal family, but they weren't actually opposing his statements.

Rongo leaned over the table, another glass of amber liquid clenched in his hand. His breath was a mix of alcohol and cinnamon notes. "If the prince really follows you, I'm in. Make us part of your fraction, and we'll fight the bastards."

The corner of Reid's mouth curled in a smile. Rongo was definitely his favorite of the three, and despite his consumption, he was the only one trying to pick up the details Reid laid into his explanations. "It's a Faction, but yeah, that would probably help you. Just know I'm not going to be actively managing anything. Not my job, and I'm not interested in it. I can leave you some weapons and armor, though."

Rongo blinked repeatedly and stared at the section of Reid's arm the flying fish had tried to swallow. "You took a bite and cut that fish wide open. Smashed right through a spider. We got a boneworker, but his work isn't half as sturdy as yours. Alright, I'm in - sign me up for the fraction."

Reid tilted his head. "Fact-ion. No R. If you have an osteal smith, I want to meet them. But I'll work on getting you invitations to join -" An emotional nudge from Nyx brought his attention inward, to a series of lower-leveled invitations to join as basic members of the Osteal Empire. The ones for Kaeryn and Walsamo included extra language stating how little authority and influence they were allowed to have. He shared a bit of internal gratitude, and fired the invitations off to the trio in front of him.

The first notification was immediate.

NOTICE: Rongo Arana has accepted the invitation to join [The Osteal Empire] as [Dayo Sovni Settlement Chief]. Rongo Arana now has highly limited access to quests, reward distributions...

Rongo elbowed Walsamo hard, and two more acceptance notifications joined the first after a few tense moments and fearful glances towards Reid. He mentally shrugged it off. This was just a tiny town on an island - if some of the people here ended up with a wrong impression of him, so be it. All he really cared about was giving them a fighting chance against Belar and the beasts.

In the silence, Reid noticed one of the lights on the wall dim slightly as it and its canister rose out of the bowl, then glow brighter again as it descended. He pointed at the odd source of illumination. "What is that thing?"

Walsamo furrowed his brow. "A... light? We have them indoors."

Reid reaffirmed his low opinion of the man. "Got that. What kind of light is it? How does it work?"

Walsamo shrugged, uselessly. Kaeryn, eyes now drier than before, jumped in with her too-fast, slightly rambling way of speaking. "I know this one - the secondary school just did a great module on this, and the showcase at the end was wonderful. My Suphi had the best model, of course, but the other judges and I decided to give first place to Vhingi - a volunteer has to be impartial, after all. And -" Her train of word soup halted under Reid's unamused glare, and she restarted. "It's a sulfur lamp - they use sulfur plasma and microwave radiation to make a highly efficient reaction and produce light. AND! They were invented here on Dayo, by Randal Ferber's great-great-great uncle, Rhulani Ferber!"

She looked quite happy with herself for getting the information out - her face a mix of anticipation and pride. It reminded Reid of the way Sara, in elementary school, would come home and share what she'd learned that day, always excited to see Reid and Susan ooh and aah over her display of new knowledge. Reid gave Kaeryn a small nod.

"Thanks. You keep mentioning this Ferber guy - who is he?"

Kaeryn jumped back in. "He's super smart! He's a doctor, and a bioengineer, and he's going to stop aging one day!"

Reid had heard enough anti-aging pseudoscience on Earth to recognize it was all different flavors of bullshit. He was still forming a response when a young Vuxarinan in a grey, uniform-like outfit walked through the door carrying a globe. Then a second entered, awkwardly shifting a massive cylinder of rolled paper like a carpet to get it to fit through the door.

"I only needed a globe or a map, you didn't need to bring both-"

A third grey uniformed Vuxarinan followed with a series of wooden plates, the outside of which appeared to be topographical representations of the planet. A fourth came in with a dim screen and a book-sized device. A fifth carried half a dozen rolled, plastic-y mats. A sixth started through the door, and Reid held up a hand.

"That is more than enough!" Another person peeked their head through the door "Have anyone else in line wait outside or something. I just want to see where we are."

Reid stood and paced over to the globe, now resting on the bartop. It had a tiny amount of ice near each pole, and a seemingly contiguous continent dominated the upper two thirds of the planet that he could see represented. Rongo followed him, spun the orb and slowed it with his hand. The motion revealed a second continent, smaller than the first and separated by the first at most points with a seemingly thin strip of water. The old man pointed to a small brown and green splotch off the lower right side of the smaller continent, separated from the larger landmass by a vast stretch of open ocean.

"This is us, Dayo. The smaller of the continents there is Arinathos, and the bigger one is Vuxuhand. Getting from here to Arinathos by sea before the awakening was a multi-day trip. If you could buy a plane ticket, take you hours instead. But everything expanded, so I can't say what it is now."

Reid bit his lip. "Where's the royal capital - where the prince would live?"

Rongo spun the globe to the larger continent and pointed towards the northern side. "The royal capital is inside of a city called Gasten's Rise, and it's about as far from Dayo as you can get. They used to say that if you dug a hole through the center of the island and through the planet, you'd come out in the city's outer districts."

Reid felt a wave of unease rise and fall from Nyx. He probed for a response internally, but got nothing.

Rongo took his silence as cause to continue talking. "Was a time when I was less picky about the fish I caught, if you know what I mean. Stored less fuel to keep weight down and speed up. Downside was you had to bounce between islands instead of going straight to Arinathos." His hand zigzagged between a series of brown splotches, closer and closer to the continent's coast. "Figure no matter how you travel, only way to do it now might be the springboard route. Just have to deal with the monsters on the way."

Reid ground his teeth together as Rongo kept talking. His location was terrible, but at least he had a real, tangible lead on how to get where he needed to go. He reshuffled priorities. Skill practice with wings, crafting items so the townspeople would be safer, and getting them into his faction so they could benefit from his experience-sharing accolades.

A sudden yawn escaped him, and Rongo motioned one of the grey-uniformed Vuxarinans towards a staircase. They sprinted up two at a time and swung open a creaky door, footsteps thudding overhead.

"I'll cover more details about the route with you tomorrow. For now, let's get you set in for the night. Bed's upstairs, and we can feed you, too. Just say the word."

Reid waved away the offer, and dismissed everyone as soon as the young Vuxarinan came back down the stairs.

He was overdue for some proper rest - and he was sleeping in a real bed tonight.

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