Braxton spent his days trying to learn the language of his ancestors. He worked eight hours a day trying to decode the writing. After a week he had got better at remembering the letters. His translation had made some sense. It wasn't perfect, some words didn't match up and the sentence structure didn't fall in the same patterns. He was able to get some idea of what he was working with though.
"X can you help with this translation but keep it locked up like the report we quarantined?" Braxton requested.
"You can if we lock the suit in the hanger. You should be fine in that city. They have no nanites. I can lock the transmissions from the suit too." X responded.
"Why haven't I been getting reports on kills and stat increases?" Braxton asked.
"This does not compute with my programming." X responded.
"Can you run systems with Alpha and recover programs? Or will that initiate another power struggle?" Braxton questioned.
"Outcome unknown for these actions." X system confirmed.
"Okay, disregard the requests. Now is not a time to worry about that information. I'll change to the environmental suit then we can focus on the translation." Braxton stated.
Braxton got changed and began uploading the data. X system had the data sorted and translated it. Then displayed both languages and spoke the older so Braxton could read it so he could understand it. They spent a long time over the next two weeks conversing. Running basic conversations for eight hours a day.
He didn't learn the information on the stuff he was reading. He was focused on learning the language itself. A few points stuck but very little. He read the name Skaggar once and genetic bomb was associated with it. That was part that related to story in the city archives. He kept that in the front of his mind.
After three weeks of learning between short sleeping periods. Braxton was stretched thin. His travel time each day was six hours. He had finished his blood from the crocs. He still had no idea what his level and stat data might be currently. He had grown a little more. His muscles were stronger and he felt more healthy. It was clear he was gaining but wasn't happy with not being able to know specifically where he stood.
He took a day off, then returned to the cone portal wearing the environmental suit. "Hello." He said in the old language.
"Greetings. Welcome to our home. What is the status of the empire?" The old man asked eagerly.
"I don't know of what you speak. Nor anything of the empire. My people were separated from the empire. I don't know my history. I'm still trying to learn." Braxton responded.
"But you have portals and technology. Weak materials granted but still decent." The old man stated.
Braxton summoned his rope. He laid it out on the ground. Then he cut the end off. He said "This is my family history. I can't even say this was before the empire or after. I have a family tree. It ends with my grandfather's name. Other than that I know very little still. It's almost like my people were hiding or something. I have not learned much. My great grandfather vanished leaving a huge gap in what we know."
"You can use gates. We have lost that ability. Can you return to the capital planet and request aid for us?" The old man pressed.
"I don't think that would be a good idea. I learned the Skaggar may have used something called a genetic bomb. I don't know what that was or if it is still dangerous. For now I will try to see what I can do. What is the name of the capital planet?" Braxton inquired.
"Flozar." The old man replied almost as a question.
"This may seem like an odd question. What do the people of the empire call themselves as a race?" Braxton asked.
"Decamar. It means ten houses. Ten worlds joined together to fight the Skaggar. We won the world and almost wiped the Skaggar out. Then we lost contact and many people died. We are the survivors of the history center." The old man stated.
"How long ago did the war end?" Braxton inquired.
"I'm not certain. Our technologies failed for tracking time. I can say it was before my grandfather was born. Maybe five hundred years but as many as one thousand." The old man guessed.
"How long do you people live?" Braxton asked.
"We used to reach ages in the thousands if we died of old age. That was because of our advanced technology. I'm over one hundred the best I can be sure. We have changed much to adapt to this world. For many years none could breed and our numbers died with our technology. More died hunting for food. We only have ninety three people left total. Our numbers have risen slightly in recent years. We would take any help we can get." The old man replied.
"I have plenty of time to learn now. I just wanted to return as soon as I could make some sense of the language. Gates are dangerous things. Going through you don't know what you will find until you arrive." Braxton stated.
"You brought hope with you when you came through ours. Never underestimate the good a simple action can do." The old man returned.
"You said you lost your technology. Do you have old relics? There made be something I can work with to restore them. I'm not sure I will have any results but I'm working on some other stuff now. Some old tech might help bridge the gap I'm trying to fill now." Braxton surmised.
"We buried broken tech with the last people that could make it work." The old man said after thinking it over.
"Never mind I will let my current research continue for now. I still have many other options. I'll go hunt something. Then return to my camp. I have a lot more research of my own to do. I might be able to get some weapons made from the bodies. What are your hunters using now?" Braxton questioned.
"I do not know. They are secretive with that. They use it to have control over the females. If you hunt you may be seen as a threat to their power." The old man warned him.
"Fine, I'll be careful." Braxton said as he walked away. He vanished before he hit the bottom of the stairs.
Braxton walked around the area. He wanted to try and locate the hunters. He was surprised by the amount of wildlife he was seeing inside the camp area. He didn't see them before. When he vanished the wildlife seemed to multiply. They all looked like passive animals. Many small creatures like rats and squirrels were running around. Small birds filled the trees. Braxton had never seen any of these species before.
He saw many people. He wasn't counting them but, he guessed he had seen close to half. There were many young women. All of those he saw were pregnant or carrying small children. The old man had said something about controlling the women. Sex was what Braxton assumed was meant after noticing these women. He wasn't able to change their world if that was the issue. He might be able to help level the playing field. First he needed to know what weapons they had around.
Braxton had no luck finding the hunters that day. He decided to follow the women. That seemed more likely pan out quicker. Once the hunters came for sex he could follow them. It wasn't long after his new course of action paid off. The females all went to a building together a little before midnight. Braxton watched as most of the women of the village entered the building. He knew some were missing from the gather mass. He ones he had seen with the old man were not here. As were a few of the youngest ones. The bulk of the women were pregnant and many were recent mothers.
As the last of the group entered the building Braxton followed them. They had all taken up positions on mats. They had exposed their vaginal areas and assumed positions ready to be mounted. Males came into the room hauling dead animals. Then they all walked around and picked a female and mated with her. Afterwards those women got up and went to collect a portion of food. They left after. The process continued until the food was all gone. Several of the women went away without food. Those women were crying harder than the others.
The ritual upset Braxton. The Hazul had shared their food among the whole tribe. It was freely shared until it was gone. This was more like paying for sex. If they wanted to live they had to be willing to subject themselves to torture. To be sent away with nothing meant their families would starve.
Braxton stayed here waiting and watching. He had yet to see any weapons the hunters possessed. The hunters all slept soon after the last of the women left. He counted nineteen hunters that had joined in the mating ritual. He could probably kill a few of them easily if he wanted. That wouldn't be very useful. It would lessen the amount of meat they could provide the tribe. It would also decrease the numbers of the tribe and weaken it. These were their warriors too.
Braxton decided to exit the building and sleep for a few hours himself. He set an alarm for six hours later. He returned and followed the hunters when the began leaving for the day. He expected them to gather weapons from somewhere but none did. He found it odd they passed up so many creatures that looked like easy prey. Many were the size of cows. Even more strange was those animals looked like they casually moved out of the hunters path. Several times it looked like they barely missed colliding.
The hunters walked along for miles without seeing any prey. Braxton followed along waiting to see them in action. To figure out how they were providing food for their people. The animals they passed paid far more attention to Braxton than they did the hunters. They actually would run away from him. It caused the hunters to jump at the noises they made. They acted like they heard ghosts.
Braxton became more and more convinced the hunters couldn't see these animals. He had to back off a bit in his pursuit of them. They had been spooked by the ghost noises. Braxton relied on his Scout Vision to watch them from afar. He used his crossbow and quill to kill a couple animals of his own when they were a few miles away. His kills were similar to the desert rats. It was meat and blood and these were plentiful creatures. With his food source secured he resumed his real mission of the day.
The hunters finally saw something. It was an armored rhino looking beast. It's head was was more spike covered on the top. The hunters spread out around the creature. The six hunters loosed different elemental magics from their hand. One had lightning, another used fire, a third froze the ground below the beast when it began to try and change. The team worked well together. The rhino beast fell to the ground on the ice field. A fourth hunter summoned a black cloud over its head. Then spikes flew at it from the sky. The spikes didn't pierce its armor, they looked like the quills Braxton had turned into weapons. Braxton didn't see what the sixth skill might be but it looked like they were using magic.
The battle only lasted a short time. When the black cloud vanished it was over. The hunters constructed a litter and put the huge beast on their cart. They pulled it back to their camp together. He watched as they harvested its blood. He was able to follow them close again inside the building. They prepared the blood as he would himself. Then shared it among their crew. They ate well and talked.
The conversation covered many topics. Women and sex were the most common. Blood and magic skills were common to and of great interest to Braxton. He learned they had not found any new creatures that would give them skills for many years. When they found one they used the blood to add more hunters. This told Braxton the hunters wanted to expand their army. The requirement was magic skills. The hunters only had one each and they were different.
The rest of the hunters returned they had two more beasts in tow. The first he saw was a bird. The feathers looked like steel. The second creature was a porcupine looking thing. It had fired its quills at one of the men. He had one stuck in his arm. The quill had hit the elbow joint. That reminded Braxton of Vixen's wound. The bulk of the quills had been deflected by her armor. It also made him think about the quill left out on the battlefield by that porcupine and those spikes summon by the team he followed today.
Braxton stayed and watched a while longer. The wounded man was being cared for the best they could. It was clear he was suffering. The blood of the bird was more like a blue smoke than blood. The hunters cheered and talked excitedly about it.
Braxton left the hut. He returned to his gate at the temple cone. He was after a medical suit.