The walk home was silent as I considered the new ability the Forge granted me.
I was now an expert surgeon far above anything you would conventionally find on Earth in the 21st century. I could take care of nearly any conventional injury at with an efficiency that would leave even the most experienced surgeon in tears. That wasn't the most amazing part of the ability though. My surgery skills were specifically specialized in turning human beings superhuman. I could grant the average human being super strength or regeneration, even increased intelligence. I could even grant portions of any ability that the Forge may grant me in future. This was an amazing ability and by the standards of the Forge, fairly middling.
The ability was amazing even before taking into consideration my Forge granted scientific knowledge which opened up new avenues such as making skeletons denser, making the body more flexible and increasing the human lifespan. This would need equipment so specialized and expensive that I was sure I would have been crippled in the use of this ability…if I didn't have the build gun.
Honestly, the only downside to the ability was that I could only really use it on other people, not myself. While disappointing, this wasn't as big of a downside as it seemed. Esau had literally perfect memory and ability to process information. I was sure that if I was able to teach him the ins and outs, he could reasonably turn me superhuman in a relatively short period of time.
Still, that presented a new series of problems. I had so much knowledge that could do so much in a brain like Esau's. Esau was already well versed in a variety of sciences from the primers in the omni-tool but he could do so much more, be so much more, with the knowledge I had. The obvious solution was to directly teach him as a father should do, but that would take years, decades even. Even with Esau's brainpower, it might be more time than that. That was unfeasible if we kept coming into contact with threats like the Orks more often and with the debris showers hitting the planet in what seemed like a regular schedule, something like that was fairly likely.
The big Ork had revealed a lot about our situation despite the lack of context. The fact that it said that it had 'gone soft' if it had been captured by humans meant that there were human beings, out there in space. And that they had regular contact with Orks, enough for the Orks to have formed opinions even if they were violent ones – though to be fair it seemed that the only thoughts Orks had were violent ones. The fact that it had crashed on this planet meant that out there in all the debris, was the hull of a space ship. That was something to look at after dealing with more pertinent problems.
Like the fact that we had barely enough medi-gel to make food for one meal and Esau had an appetite that surpassed mine. We could convert the biomass from the Orks into more medi-gel but that was both disgusting and potentially dangerous. The Orks smelled awful, and were likely to have carried all kinds of diseases.
We arrived without ceremony. There was a lot to do. The architectural upgrades weren't finished before we fought the Orks, and now that we had the build gun, they were obsolete. Despite this, Esau was the opposite of frustrated.
The build gun could deconstruct structures it was pointed at and build new ones with those materials in minutes. This meant that we could build things we absolutely needed but didn't originally have the time or materials to build, like a working bathroom and shower. The shower was temporary while we came up with a new house plan. The piping from the shower was led to a waste tank that I would redesign into a miniature water treatment plant.
My Forge granted knowledge of chemistry, microbiology, water treatment and biology meant that I could design the water treatment plant with Esau only handling how the design would fit into the new house plan. The design done, we deconstructed some of the junk lying around and built the shower. I was covered in blood and we both smelled awful so it seemed prudent to clean ourselves up.
It was likely that Orks carried diseases of some kind, so burning our clothes seemed a good precaution as well. I was mid shower before I realised that I had to take care of the Ork bodies as well for the same reasons. After showering, changing and burning our clothes, I left Esau to work on the house plan while I left to take care of the Orks bodies'.
I had considered giving the bodies a proper burial but in the end, I decided to burn them. Fire was likely to destroy any diseases that may be present on their bodies. I doused them in some of the chemical cocktail Esau fabricated and set them alight with my omni-tool.
While walking back, an idea hit me. It was a long shot, but it was better than scavenging Ork bodies for food. The Ork leader had claimed it had killed some 'spiky gits' and their slaves. Implications of alien enslavers roaming the universe aside, that meant that the ship of said 'spiky gits' had food of some kind on it. It was simple logistics, unless it was a transport ship moving slaves from one place to another, the ship would have to have food to feed them and the crew of the ship, otherwise they would die.
I got back to the designated shelter area to find that Esau sitting on a chair facing a workbench, fiddling with his omni-tool out in the open, occasionally looking from it to the holographic interface that popped out of the top of the build gun's handle of the build gun.
"Are you winning, son?" He looked up
"Yes. I think I am. I had first thought that I would simply copy a design off of the omni-tool which I would alter to suit our needs but I disliked how it turned out." That was interesting.
"How so?"
"The building was functional and would do what was needed of it but it didn't feel right putting it up without your input." That was surprising, and sweet. I could tell he wasn't lying but it was a bit out of character. Not even an hour ago, he would have put the building up just to see the look on my face.
"You also want to see if working on the building with you counts as an achievement for the Forge." He smiled.
"The thought did cross my mind." I laughed.
"Let's get to it then."
Now that we had the build gun, size was no longer a limiting factor. So we endeavoured to make our home as big as possible. We eventually ended up with a 30 by 30 meter bunker like design with rounded walls and two floors, one of which would be underground. The size was relatively arbitrary but we decided not to make our home comically big to ensure that we could blend into our surroundings when seen from a high altitude or space.
The underground floor was to protect us from any more debris showers. To facilitate its construction, Esau designed a set of 'digger' drones that would dig up and remove any dirt along with drill drones to destroy clumps of rock using his omni-tool. The drones were then built using the build gun. The omni-tool wasn't used for this because the 'Eezo' we had left would be better used in future projects that would absolutely need it.
The drone dug hole was then smoothed out and stamped in using two manual rollers and covered in concrete-like material, which was then reinforced with metal rebar.
The basement floor ended up being a floor that was composed of a sleeping area, an entertainment room (Esau didn't see the need for one, I insisted that it was essential), a storage area and a bathroom. The basement was otherwise impractical for anything else that may need immediate access to the outside. The ground floor would then be composed of a workshop for anything we might need to build, a kitchen, a second bathroom and a large room that would be where all our medical needs would be taken care of.
Planning done, we got to it with the build gun. We cleared almost a hundred meters of junk. Then, when the concrete-like material (I personally liked the name rockrete) finally setted, I pointed the build gun at the hole in a ground and a blue-green hologram of the house we wanted to build popped up right in front of us. After moving the hologram around to make sure everything fit properly, I let the gun rip. Almost like magic, the materials we collected flickered before our eyes before the house popped up in the space. I almost couldn't believe my eyes. It was as if the building had been there for years.
We were done and finally had a real home.
Esau looked at me expectantly.
"What?" I asked him.
"No reward from the Forge?" Ah.
"Nope. No reward from the Forge." He nodded.
"I see."
"It makes sense though. I got the omni-tool after braving a desert for hours without food or water and finding you. I got knowledge of every scientific discipline after I committed myself to teaching you. We got the build gun after we captured the Ork and I got the knowledge and ability needed to surgically enhance other people after I killed the Ork. Each one was somewhat difficult to achieve barring teaching you. Designing the blueprints aside, building the house was just the matter of a few clicks of the build gun."
"I agree, though I don't think you got the build gun after killing the Ork." I frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"Coming into contact with my pod, choosing to teach me and capturing the Ork suggest a pattern." He gestured wildly as if grabbing and pulling the thoughts out of the air.
"None of these actions rewarded violence in itself. They instead rewarded things that were difficult or otherwise significant." Then he put his forefinger out to put to emphasize his point.
I motioned for him to continue.
"You killed two Orks before you killed the leader and got no reward. So it likely wasn't killing the Ork that gave you the surgical skills. Instead it would be the-"
"The talk I gave you." I said, realizing where he was going. He grinned. I ignored his smug look and continued. "I agree that the talk was significant, it was a very important lesson that should be imparted on everyone. I just…don't see why it was rewarded though. You're my son; it's my job to give you guidance."
"That's the thing though," he said. "I don't think you're being rewarded for giving guidance to your son either."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't think it's the lesson itself that is being rewarded or the fact that you're teaching the lesson to your son, it's that you're teaching the lesson to me."
"Esau, are you implying that I'm not your father? I mean, I know that I'm not actually your biological father but I-" He stopped me before I could finish.
"No, Father. That's not what I meant." He shook his head vigorously. "I meant that besides being your son, I'm something else. Something…significant in some way."
Having calmed down, I motioned for him to continue.
"I'm obviously abnormal. Even with you as the only reference point I can tell that I'm far above the average human. I'm much stronger, faster and smarter than everyone I've encountered so far, even the Orks." He gestured at nothing in particular and was getting more articulated with every word.
"Add in the fact that I am an omniglot, my growth rate and the fact that I crash landed on this planet, and it all means something. It means I'm…significant in some way."
I couldn't find a fault in his logic. By any metric, the amount of resources needed to engineer a person with all these abilities would be immense. I could see how super strength and super intelligence would be possible, in isolation. Having them both, to such ridiculous degrees along with a physical growth rate that seemed to collect matter from nothing was astounding and would take thousands of years of research at least to achieve.
"Maybe I was even sent here to this planet by whoever or whatever created me on purpose. The fact that I seem to be a universal omniglot would support this, because it would allow me to survive and thrive in any community I came into contact with." He continued. I interjected before he got to his point because this I did find a flaw in.
"I doubt that you ended up here on purpose." He froze.
"How so?"
"Because of the very reasons you're significant."
"What do you mean, Father?"
"You possess many talents, son. So many, that whoever created you could never risk you being under the influence of anyone except them." I said.
"Because any influence anyone else may have on me could be opposed to the goals of my creator." He finished. I nodded. He frowned.
I could see that I had made a mistake of some kind. Esau had the expression he had when he was thinking deeply on a subject. His brows were furrowed and his expression was a fusion of a frown and a pout. On the face of a child so young, it was almost comical. In the future though, something told me, it would be a face that puts fear into the hearts of men.
"Don't worry about it." I said, realizing my mistake. "There's nothing we can do about it now. The lessons I pass on to you are meant to let you grow into a good man. A righteous man. A wise man. I may make mistakes in my road to teaching you the path of the good man, but trust in that I am doing my best to make sure you live well. If your creator is against this, then he is no creator worth following at all."
Esau was stunned, his jaw slack. After the failure of leading Esau into battle despite him being a child, it was good to finally do or say something to keep him on the proper path.
I shrugged.
"Come on, son. I could tell you were close to reaching your point." He exhaled slowly.
"My…point was that the forge seems to reward you for influencing or interacting with individuals that are important in some way. Individuals like the Ork leader or individuals like me. Not necessarily for achieving something difficult things in general." I couldn't find a single flaw in his logic. It made sense, every single reward I had gotten from the Forge were gotten through Esau or the Ork leader.
"If that's true, then the Forge is encouraging me to travel and meet new and interesting people. If the Orks are an indicator of the kind of people I'll meet, that means that danger is guaranteed. I could sit around and do nothing, but then I would get nothing."
"Essentially, yes. It's a game of balance." I nodded. Despite the Forge explicitly wanting me to build, I would have no long term reward past anything Esau and I built with the tools and skills I already had. Admittedly, that was a lot but it could be more. It was greedy, but it was also the key to surviving long term and finding other human beings. The Forge was simultaneously the source of our future problems and the source of their solutions.
"If that is true though, we may have a problem." I said, realizing something.
"What do you mean, Father?"
"The Ork leader. By all accounts, despite being the leader of the Orks we fought, there has been no indication that the Ork leader was in anyway high up in the overall Ork hierarchy. If the Ork leader wasn't high up and the Forge rewards coming into contact or conflict with significant individuals, interacting with him shouldn't have warranted a reward from the Forge."
"Perhaps it was rewarding you for meeting the Ork race in general?"
"That seems unlikely." I shook my head. "By that standard, it should have rewarded me upon killing the two newly born Orks."
"That is troubling. That means that there was something there that we missed. Something very significant to our future."
"Something dangerous." I agreed. And so did the Forge apparently.
[Action: Understanding the Forge (I)
Reward: -SUPERHUMAN DESIRE (Medaka Box Abnormal)]
My eyes widened and my jaw nearly hit the floor. I just got what was likely the most significant ability yet. Despite the ability being minor by the standards of the Forge, it was game changing. I now had the ability to succeed in any attempt to enhance myself. If I encountered any procedure could increase any of my abilities in any way but had a chance to kill me, I would survive and succeed it as long as the procedure wasn't absolutely impossible. Even a zero point one percent chance was enough. This was absolutely amazing. While I wasn't exactly flush with self enhancement ideas, the surgical ability I got just a few hours ago gave me some inspiration.
Regeneration, super strength and increased intelligence were all on the cards.
Even better, that same surgical ability allowed me to potentially pass on any abilities I get to Esau. This was an absolute win. It was also worrying.
What was it about the Orks, that made them so dangerous to warrant this ability, especially after we made sure they were all dead?
"The Forge agreed?" Esau asked me, pulling me away from my thoughts.
"Yes."
"What did you get?"
I told him.
He rubbed his chin.
"That has immense potential, Father. Though the implications are…unsettling."
"I thought so too." I agreed.
"We need to take advantage of this ability and make all the equipment we could possibly need."
"Then we need to go see what the Ork was talking about."
"It is our only lead to getting more food."
We got to it.
We collected more junk, occasionally stopping once the build gun was full to make items we would put in the house. While the build gun was only supposed to be able to make buildings, or material for buildings, this particular model had a 'craft bench card' installed. This meant that the build gun could build almost anything we had the blueprints and materials for, which meant things like tools and appliances.
The first item created was a large series of solar panels that we layered onto the roof of the bunker and much of the area surrounding it. We also fabricated half a dozen batteries like the one we already had in order to store the power we would use throughout the whole bunker. One of the notable items was the craft bench, a pre-designed blueprint already present in the build gun. It had series of tools that could be used to build near anything. From screwdrivers and drills to a lathe and a set of specialized tool for building electronics. Despite how specialized it was, it had only needed about three square meters worth of material and rested in the bunker workshop.
The second notable item created was the Molecular Analysis Machine, or MAM, the other pre-existing build gun design. This was a scanner and computer of considerable power. It took up half of the workshop and would no doubt be considerably useful. Any item, organic or inorganic, we fed to the MAM would be analysed by its scanners, after which it would conduct research by conducting iterative simulations in order to find the function of the item in question. While it was possible that quite a few items would be out of its understanding, there was no doubt that it would be infinitely useful.
It also only needed a bunch of iron, copper and plastic to create. As long as we could input the designs and materials we needed, the build gun was broken.
We also created appliances and amenities like lights, a stove, a fridge, beds, doors, a few computers we would later sync to our omni-tools and equipment for our med-bay. This included a set of beds, basic surgical equipment and a second MAM we would modify and use mainly for biological scans. All in all, we finally had a real home we could be proud of.
After we were done, we got ready. It was time to prepare and leave. We would celebrate when we finally got back with some food.
I had Esau fabricate us a set of scale armour that covered our clothes. The armour covered our clothes and was hardened in around our torsos, necks, thighs and groins by ceramic plates.
We were both armed with knives that were originally intended to be used as kitchen knives. I also had the build gun, my omni-tool and a single metal spear. Esau had his own omni-tool and a set of three digger drones we could use to move debris we couldn't take care of with the build gun, along with a set of three drones we could use for transport of anything we found.
Even though we had cleaned out a significant portion of the junk surrounding our home, the area just beyond it was a mess.
Esau said that the Ork hadn't actually crashed near our home despite having killed the black creature there. While a few fragments of the ships had landed near enough, the primary bulk of the ships had crashed about five kilometres north of our home, or just over the horizon. The Ork had just ended up here because it was following the black creature which had apparently run upon seeing the Ork slay its compatriots. It showed. The Ork had barrelled through and over piles of dirt, plastic and general bits of metal in its chase, opening up a kind of path for us to follow.
It took us about an hour and a half of navigating the path, occasionally ducking out of the way of an unstable piece of metal and using my omni-tool's Geiger counter to avoid potentially dangerous radiation, for us to reach the ships.
One looked sleek, but deadly. Like a pirate ship on the water, complete with a sail directly on top of it, except with blades covering much of its black-grey hull. The second looked like how a rocket would look if a child who had never seen a rocket decided to build one. It was huge, with jagged pieces of metal arranged randomly around the ship. It was also painted red, with crude iconography scrawled upon it in meaningless scribbles. The Ork ship then.
Both ships were intact enough to recognised but were both so heavily damaged that they should have collapsed by their own weights by now. They were also both surrounded in dead bodies. Orks lay about, having died from the impact or the resulting battle. Most were crushed, some were torn in half and the rest had died in battle, with smiles on their faces.
The bodies of the figures in black surrounded the Orks. Each one was covered in some kind of specialized equipment. Some were fully armoured, while some were shirtless with some sort of harness on their backs and others were almost fully naked. The Orks vastly outnumbered the Orks but it seemed that they were by far outgunned. That seemed purely academic however, because the Orks had won regardless. Any way you looked at it, this was a massacre.
I looked closer at the figures in black, which I had now recognized to be extremely pale, human looking creatures if not for one thing. They had pointy ears. The Ork leader had not lied. It seemed that this really was a fantasy universe of some kind, if both Orcs and Elves existed, even in variation.
At the edges of the battle, were the bodies of what I recognized to be humans. They looked to have been running away. That didn't seem to matter, I saw, as most of them had been shot in the back by the figures in black or crushed by Ork hands and feet. It was all I could barely do to keep myself from throwing up. This was really gruesome.
"This is horrible." Esau said, reminding me that I had brought what was basically a child into a warzone.
"Esau…"
"I know, Father." He didn't, not really. He had no sense of context for how awful this was. For all he knew, this was the standard across the galaxy. Maybe that was for the best. I hoped sincerely that it was not the standard, otherwise there would be no point living in a galaxy like that.
"I will have to burn the bodies after this." I said. I had failed to shield him from seeing the results of the slaughter because I needed him near me, to protect me. It filled me with shame, as a father should always strive to protect their son, not the son their father. I would burn the bodies, both as my duty and my penance.
We avoided going into the Ork ship, in case there were any Orks that were still alive in there. Instead we sent drones to map the ship out and mark any living being it came across. After a few minutes of exploring, the drone found none. We sent more drones into the elf ship and again, the drone found no living beings, though it had marked an area that it had identified as having a living being.
We entered the elf ship.
The ship looked equally sleek from the inside, though infinitely more disturbing. The ship was covered in sharp implements of all kinds. Blades and hooks adorned every wall. Every inch seemed been designed to inspire the most fear in anyone who saw it. Faintly, I smelt the coppery-iron smell typical of blood in the air and I would occasionally step in a liquid that I didn't dare look at for fear of losing my dinner.
Eventually, after running into several dead ends, where the drone could fit through areas we could not, we found the room that the drone had marked. The smell of blood was the strongest it had ever been. In the far corner of the room lay a set of five pods, not unlike the one Esau had landed in. All five pods had a human floating in the mass of liquid with their eyes closed. Only fur pods were active, judging from the light coming from the pods themselves. Of the four pods, only two people were alive, a small boy maybe seven or eight years of age and a woman, who looked to be in her mid-twenties. They, like the rest of the humans, both looked haggard and were covered in rags.
Esau and I walked up to the terminal near the pods.
"Can you understand the langua-right, dumb question."
Esau tapped a few buttons on the console and the previously dark room lit up, revealing the full extent of the horrors of this room. Each and every human being in this room had been maimed in some way. The four dead were maimed the worst, with some of their organs visibly being missing. In the dark, they had just looked thin, now in the light, they looked horrific.
"Esau? Would it be possible to free the two living humans?" I asked him, doing my best to keep my voice level.
"It…should be." He answered, tapping away at the console some more. I looked closer at the living humans. Despite being relatively whole, their bodies carried the visible signs of having been cut, recently at that.
"Esau?" I said, suddenly calm.
"Yes, Father?"
"Do you remember when I said that murder should always be the last option?" he paused.
"Yes, Father." He said before continuing to type.
"I think that we may have found an exception to that rule." I said, grimly.
"I think so too." He whispered, almost too quiet to hear.
Suddenly, valve beneath the pods released, and the liquid in the pods drained out to somewhere beneath us. The dead people flopped lifelessly to the bottom of the pod while the boy and the woman caught themselves. Esau had done it!
"Good job, son!"
"Thank you Father." The pods opened. I frowned.
"Do you smell that?" I asked.
"Yes, I do." It smelled like ozone.
The kid was on his knees and emptying his guts out onto the floor. The awakening process was apparently very disorientating. I looked over to the woman. Her eyes were glowing blue. Suddenly, electricity arced between her eyes, then out of her hands in large bursts around the room, before she threw it at us!
Notes:
4.1. Perk(s) earned this chapter:
Domain: Protection -SUPERHUMAN DESIRE (Medaka Box Abnormal) (100CP): You always wanted to be special and that want was itself so strong that you really did become so. Whenever you are subjected to a procedure that will improve or beneficially alter you with a chance of injury to you, death or even just the procedure failing outright, it will instead have a guaranteed chance of success. Risky operations will always go off without a hitch, shoving an energy source into your own body will have it combine with you successfully if there was even the smallest chance of you not dying.