Chapter 3
The walk across the city of Mudna took about 20 minutes before the trio of Hesper, Vega, and Mira arrived at the housing districts where small red brick houses lined up one after another. Hesper took out a key from her pocket and approached one of them to let them in.
"Don't mind the messiness" She said as she opened the door. When she did and lit up a candle with a match Vega and Mira opened their eyes wide in astonishment. Laying across various tables and the ground of the living room were various telescopes, maps, and paintings of stars.
"Woah holy, what is this stuff?" Mira asked.
"Glad you asked!" Hesper replied going up and grabbing one of the telescopes.
"This… is my shrine, my sanctuary for a lifetime of dedication to the universe, space, and its stars."
"That's… that's amazing" Vega said looking at one of the maps. The markings on it were all hand drawn in ink with various cliff notes and names written in pencil.
"Indeed," Hesper said, "for years I've been taking nights going into the mountains and mapping out each and every star in the night sky and hoping, praying that one day I might see something not from this world."
She looked at them with a gleeful smile.
"And that's where you two are from too isn't it?"
"What? No, like we said earlier…" Vega began trying to once again to remember where he said last time they were from.
"Yeah… we are" Mira interrupted.
"What? Mira wait what are you…"
"Vega it's okay, we can trust her. And who's going to believe her that we're from outer space anyways, we can't just make up lies forever."
Hesper let out a smile.
"I knew it I knew it I knew it. Haha I knew it. And you're right by the way, people here don't even believe that Andromicus isn't the center of the universe. Ridiculous I tell you, we're clearly spinning around two heliospheres.
"Heliospheres?"
"Heliospheres, you know, close range stars? The two things we see during the day time? Ahhhh but you guys aren't from Andromicus so for all I know that's a completely different concept from where you're from isn't it."
"Yeah, you can say that," Mira said. As she did however her stomach started growling.
"You guys must be hungry, like I promised I'll make you two dinner. You guys eat human food right?"
"Yeah we're still humans!" Vega exclaimed though after saying the statement he started to reconsider it. "Where did our food really come from anyway, what were the Fetnas even feeding us?"
"At least I think we are,"
"Well I did see you two eat the two loafs of bread earlier so I can at least assume human food is fine," Hesper replied. She led the two into the backroom of her house to reveal a fire stove and a pantry of various breads, meats, and vegetables.
"I'll go heat up some chicken for you two. You two do know what chicken is right?"
"Yeah!" Mira exclaimed, "That's one of the things you can cook at level 1!"
Vega face palmed at statement as Mira had obviously only known what chicken was from Lunescape. Still it did intrigue him that they were seeing what real chicken meat looked like for the first time and would taste it as well.
"And while I'm making this, please tell me about your story."
"Our… our story?" Vega repeated puzzled.
"Yeah you know…" Hesper began as she headed towards the kitchen, "Honestly it's odd that you can speak English if you two are from space but whatever, makes this easier. Yeah tell me your story, where you're from how did you get here; basically just tell me everything about your lives up to this point. It'll be a while for the chicken to heat up anyways and we got all night here and also…"
She grabbed a bottle with purple fluids in it from the pantry.
"We'll be drinking this to help open the mood up. Get to know each other better you know, so you can tell me all about how all the believers of Dragna and famous people are secretly controlled by lizard people."
"What?"
"Sorry that was a strange thing say." Hesper said. She got out a couple wine glasses and poured them some fluid from the bottle.
"What's this?" Mira asked. A wide grin appeared on Hesper's face.
"Don't worry, it's good for you just trust me" Hesper chuckled.
"Thanks!" Mira exclaimed drinking a bit of the wine "See Vega, the truth has to come out anyway, what were we going to do, make up our life stories on the spot every time someone asks about it?"
"I mean I suppose," Vega replied turning to Hesper, "But Hesper are you sure you'll even believe what we say. We certainly lived extremely different lives than the lives of the people here in Mudna. To us your lives here feels like a video game we used to play."
Hesper stared at them with a blank expression.
"What… what is it?"
"What's a video game?"
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"Sooo… you're tell meeeee… you got these glass thingssss…. that display drawings on themmmmm and they form a cohesive storyyyyy?" Hesper asked slurring her words. The trio of Hesper, Vega, and Mira at this point had already downed nearly two bottles of wine and were going through as humans often do in these situations, their entire life stories.
"Yeah! You got it!" Mira nodded gleefully
"And you're also saying aliens kept ya in your **hic** whatcha call the places you were in?"
"Domes! Or are you talking about subways?" Vega asked.
"Yeah one of those things" Hesper said nearly falling over on her chair.
"Well I'll be damned, say which one of them stars in the sky out there is Polaris at anyways?"
"Polaris is just the name of the city we were at sillies, I don't know what our planet's called," Mira answered. Also being flush red she leaned onto Vega's body.
"Say, whatcha say this stuff was called again?"
"This stuff called alcohol in fact. Wineeeeee more specifically"
"Am I supposed to feel this fuzzy?" Mira asked leaning further onto Vega. Her face had gone completely red and as she stared Vega directly into the eye.
"Vega..."
"What is it?"
"You trying to fuck tonight then?"
Vega quickly pushed her away knocking Mira to the ground before covering his face in embarrassment.
"Owwww what was that for?"
"I've told you," Vega said blushing, "I'm no ready yet."
"With that attitude you'll be a wizard like me soon" Hesper laughed.
"There's magic here toooo!?!?!?" Mira shouted.
"Nah I fucking wish," Hesper shouted back also falling down on the floor, "It's just a saying or whatever those things are called I don't know I'm no English teacher."
"Say Hesper, you mind if I try out some of those telescopes you have and look at the maps of the sky?" Vega asked.
"Now that's something I do know!" Hesper exclaimed excitedly getting up from the floor.
She got up and grabbed Vega's hand leading him back to the living room
"Hey what the hell don't take him away from me!" Mira said getting back up from the ground herself. She followed the other two who had grabbed a couple telescopes and maps and headed outside.
The stars were out in full bloom that night again with not even a single trace of a cloud anywhere. As Mira and Vega used the telescope to gather a closer look at each of the stars and galaxies within vision, Hesper explained the names of each of the formations they looked at.
"That one I call the Dragon," She said pointing towards a part of the sky, "And that one's called the Butterfly."
"What's that one called?" Vega asked pointing to a 4 star pattern.
"That one I just call rectangle, since it makes a rectangle."
"You come up with these names yourself?"
"Indeed I do, Indeed I do" Hesper replied gleefully.
"And any one of those stars in the sky who knows how many miles away could be where we just were two days ago." Vega thought to himself, "Even rectangle."
"Sayyyy where'd y'all say that Galaxy Train you guys came here from was at again?"
"From them crop fields just south of here" Mira replied without a thought.
"Mira, I don't think you're supposed to…"
"What'd I say earlier Vega?" Mira glaring at Vega, "What are you going to do, just make up shit about everything for the rest of your life? Feel like we should just tell the truth about everything. Hesper's friendly anyways."
"Yeah I promise I won't try anything!" Hesper said, "But we're definitely going on that galaxy train together some time, it's boring as shit here."
"Yeah I agree!" Mira said.
"Mira, you've only been here for two days how can you possibly say…"
"There aren't any video games Vega! And our jobs are literally the same as on Polaris."
"Yeah but…"
"But nothing! I've got an unfinished campaign back at Polaris."
"We're not going back to Polaris Mira, did you forget the Fetnas will kill us if we go back?"
"Oh yeah that's right, I forgot we abandoned everything we knew!" Mira said laughing a bit maniacally
"Well whatever, make shit up as you go"
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With an average lifespan of 10000 years, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that Fetnas were a species far more advanced than humans. After all with all that extra duration of time in their life, surely the average wisdom and knowledge of a Fetna far exceeded a species with a measly 75 year time span.
This assumption isn't totally wrong as on the Fetna home planet of Doineberg, a bevy of incredibly smart Fetnas continuously push the boundaries of science having built things such as a complex virtual reality system for its citizens, the Galaxy Trains, and flying saucers that transported at faster than light speeds for the military.
However, for the average everyday Fetna citizen who's only real distinction from humans in the first place was their lifespans and the color of skin, one could hardly say reached an intellectual point that could be easily distinguished from humans. Time is all relative after all and despite the extra time the majority of Fetnas passed their time doing things such as argues over pointless political debates, gamble on major sporting events using bitcoin, join the military like the young Fetna Dale did in order to pay tuition for the Fetna Academy, and play the newest virtual reality video game.
Most Fetnas did not really understand the principles behind the advanced technology they used on their daily lives similar to how most 21st century earth humans do not understand how computers work despite using them for their every day lives.
Also similar to how humans from first world countries will often times visit 3rd world countries in order to experience a less modernized and more traditional world, the Fetnas who visited the planet Nestbula went expecting a similar experience. Indeed if not for the skin differentials of its inhabitents, one would think that the planet Nestbula had not changed one bit from its functionality of 10 years ago when humans inhabited the planet instead of Fetnas.
There, certain guideline on what technologies were and weren't allowed on the planet. As well a decentralized internet connection made the planet an ideal vacation or even permanent resident spot for Fetnas who wished to disconnect from the overwhelming technology hub of Doineberg for a bit.
And while the majority of the populations on the planet Nestbula were still located in urbanized locations that had been taken over from humans, there did exist one Fetna who lived near the city of Ginan but with a lifestyle unheard of by any other Fetnas. The Fetna there was an elder green Fetna who went by the name Mikal.
Currently Mikal was 8500 years old and by Nestbula standards nearing his twilight years. During the 8500 years of his life Mikel had accomplished a great number of things from going to one the most prestigious Universities, being a designer for the tablets of Fetna's largest tech company, becoming a civilization renowned actor, and eventually even becoming the Prime Minister of all of Doineberg.
Being such a famous celebrity and powerful figure amongst Fetnas however, Mikal's family in Doineberg was often times under constant threat including his late wife Dana who just 300 years ago was assassinated by someone hired by another Fetna on the Parliament council of Doineberg named Rigel who wanted Mikal out of office so that he could take over instead. Seeing that his kids could be targeted next as well as being quite sick of the Doineberg world as a whole, Mikel made a secret plea deal with Rigel and stepped down from his position in order to ensure his kids were sent to safe colonized planets. Afterwards Mikal wandered through countless colonized planets of the Fetna empire until just 5 years ago settling down on the planet Nestbula.
There Mikel lived deep in the one of the mountains near Ginan in a small barn he built for himself. He spent most of his days doing two things mostly. One was painting with the painting supplies he took with him drawing magnificent paintings of the sky that would make Van Gogh jealous. The second was tending to his very own farm that he had with grown vegetation and various farm animals. Occasionally he would visit the city of Ginan although only in shapeshifted human form as he still feared many assassins who were potentially after him. This was not uncommon among Fetnas who enjoyed the aesthetic of human form better than their own.
Somewhere around a couple months ago, Mikal was approached by a new member of the Prime Minister Council named Murek. The election cycle of the Fetnas happened once every 400 years and it so happened that Murek had been in the running to be the next Prime Minister against Rigel. Still bitter from what Rigel had done to his wife, Mikal agreed to support Murek using the various platforms on the Cyberweb that he still had access to help him get elected and push Rigel out of office. Of course one of the hotly debated issues in each election was the topic of the treatment of humans. Rigel happened to be one who enjoyed maintaining the status quo. The new generation however who wished to elect Murek had all called for better treatment of the humans and freedom for them from Dometon and a stop to the colonization.
As Mikal painted the stars in his view he couldn't help chuckle at the ridiculousness of the protesters claims. To Mikal knowing better, he knew humans were all the same and that in reality it would be better for them to remain the Dome cities. Of course, being a politician still and wanting revenge on Rigel, he had to pretend otherwise to help Murek get elected. Opportunity arose for the both of them on that one day when 2 humans happened to spawn right next to the Galaxy Train stop on Nestbula near Mikal's barn.