Rebirth and Second Chances

Chapter 181: Intelligent Life

The argument had been ongoing for at least a half-hour now. And I was getting tired of listening to it. It had started the moment Bob returned, too late to offer any help in our fight against the Formica. I understood why Thutmose was angry, if we had encountered something more powerful or a group of Formica we might have been in trouble. But his ravings had simply become pedantic by this point.

"You don't just fly off without letting someone know what you are doing or where you are going," Thutmose said boiling his anger down to those few words. "You would have been able to warn us that thing was coming if you hadn't been out satisfying your curiosity.

"We know nothing about this World or the monsters that might exist. What if you had attracted another creature that flies and is stronger than you? You would be dead, and we wouldn't know enough to even find your body, forget about trying to earn payback, or avenge your death."

He wasn't wrong, not completely. We had explained the functionality of the mini-map System had gifted us, so he had no way of knowing that we knew exactly where Bob was at all times. Additionally, this was my fault.

Bob had been tasked with scouting by Grandfather, almost ordered to get aloft and map the area for us as soon as he recovered from the teleport. His delight with the features he gained from the mini-map functionality was like a new toy for him. Something that allowed him to see tangible and real results, to share real-time updated map information as the fog of war was lifted and more and more details were exposed and shared.

We had barely met Thutmose before we'd began this journey. A quick introduction when Isis and Grandfather had gathered us together, a meal that took place in a room that had been booked in advance, was meant to be private and allow us the opportunity to start to get to know each other. That meal had been interrupted before it even began when a few blowhards from Olympus and Asgard who frequented the establishment took umbrage at Grandfather's entrance.

Thutmose, Bob, Sieph, and I had decided to expedite our trip, our exit from the restaurant having nothing to do with the shattered windows that Grandfather destroyed responding to a thrown steak knife. The attack was not planned, a moment of opportunity taken by an outraged Asgardian, reacting in a fit of pique.

But next to a Ranked Sidhe King? One of the five most powerful people on our entire planet? Their attack was meaningless, nothing of import with no real chance of harming us, but action that Grandfather refused to ignore, and was willing to punish.

"Enough guys," I said when Bob and Thutmose finally stopped yelling long enough to take a breath, "can we table this debate for now? I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I'd like to make sure we are ready the next time we are surprised by the local wildlife."

"Fine," Thutmose agreed, but his tone suggested he did so reluctantly. He was convinced of his superiority, but since his entire argument had been based on our lack of preparedness, he had no choice but to agree.

I think his attitude had as much to do with having already completed his Pantheons Ascension process as well as the systemic indoctrination his race felt towards those individuals that were Scions of his people. He wasn't older than any of us, his planet allowing Ascension at a much younger age than Talahm, so I'd hoped we could work well together. But if he continued looking down on us, the chances of that happening lessened with each verbal barb.

"Bob, we do need you to stay close, For now, can you fly a protection grid? We'll expand the area we can see on the mini-map gradually," I said hoping he would amend his training to meet the needs of our group.

"Mini-map?" Thutmose asked.

"What's that?" He demanded.

"Something we should have discussed after System integration was completed," Sieph said.

She wasn't wrong. Knockers were amazingly versatile and talented with technology and blending science with magic. But like most pure academics or scientists they paid little attention to social norms. They were blunt to a fault, their words often coming across as insult or derision. In reality, they simply couldn't be bothered to care how their words were interpreted or if they caused emotional distress with their carelessness.

"I agree," I said forestalling the new argument I saw Thutmose was prepping to wade into. Although I had no idea what part of her statement he would disagree with, I understood his personality. I had met people just like him in Grandfather's court. People that would see slight were none was intended and kept a tally, a verbal version of counting coup, as a means of inflating ego.

"Aside from the ability to form parties and add people to a friend's list, we gained some additional System functionality that should prove to be helpful. We can send messages, to people on our friend's list no matter where they may be. Create guilds that allow members to establish a hierarchy, levels, and a shared spatial vault, with a way to assign contribution points and rewards.

"More importantly, at least until the planet has been claimed, we received a HUD update that included a mini-map function. It shows the area that we have explored while shrouding the area we haven't in a fog of war. The more thorough our exploration, the more detailed the map. But more importantly, it allows us to see where each other in our group is on the mini-map and our status.

"When we started fighting, a message was 'broadcast' to the mini-map updating our status from neutral to 'in combat'," I explained.

"Bob was using a standard Slaugh grid pattern to fill in our maps in the most efficient manner. Something he has been tasked to do by King Teigh," I explained. "I'm sure you have your orders from Isis or your Pharaoh, but if not, each of us has assignments we have been asked to fulfill.

"The mini-map feature allowed Bob to complete his mapping assignment much easier than normal because there was no need for him to stop and create an illusion of what he has seen for us to record.

"As for what our superiors have asked of us, there is nothing secret, no clandestine policy that we are going to implement and cannot share. Sieph has been tasked to find any unique metals and gems by Princess Wynne. Bob has also been tasked with a detailed analysis of any potential flying dangers as well as mapping the area. And I have been tasked by King Teigh to search for any intelligent life, collect plant and animal specimens, and fill in the more detailed parts of the map that Bob can't see from the air.

"There have been no hints of intelligent life," Thutmose began before I interrupted him.

"Not yet," I agreed.

"The scouts have reported back on what they have found during their exploration, but they have confined, their excursions limited to a narrow-defined area, just wide enough to satisfy safeties sake and protect the researchers that have set up in that area. Grandfather has a theory that the universe would find a way to evolve intelligent life on any planet that was teeming with as much life as Ijal has, and if it exists, he wants to find it.

"Indigenous intelligent life will complicate matters," Thutmose warned.

"King Teigh realizes that. He has had an exhaustive search done on prior planets that were discovered. In all instances, when the diversity of life had reached the threshold where dungeons formed, intelligent life was discovered.

"Those native civilizations have not fared well when a planet is claimed. The occupying power enslaving or destroying them. I'm not sure of His Majesty's ultimate goal, but he has been a stalwart champion of equality on Talahm. He honestly sees no difference between Seelie, Unseelie, Lesser, or Tuatha de Danaan.

"Because he sees Sidhe and not species, I believe he would protect and uplift any civilization that exists on this planet."

"Uplift?" Thutmose asked. "He would add their numbers to the Sidhe people?"

"It has been tried before, with murderous consequences. The indigenous people were treated badly. Squabbles over resources and land expanding until an all-out war was eventually waged, resulting in the annihilation of those people," he warned.

"In other instances, people were being kidnapped to be experimented on, body parts were being harvested for new elixirs and pills that were refined using those harvested organs.

"It became so bad that the Senate considered at one point how any indigenous people should be treated until a policy of separation was finally established and agreed on. Now, they are given an area of the planet, protected by defensive arrays, and left to fend for themselves."

"A policy that hasn't done much to protect them," I interjected. "In reality, those defensive arrays are easily circumvented by those with enough power or knowledge to deactivate them.

"The harvesting and experimenting continue, no matter how the Senate pays lip service to concerns about the welfare of those people. Grandfather has hinted that he plans on doing what should have been done the first time a new intelligent race was discovered. He will integrate them into the System paradigm and absorb them as Sidhe.

"There will be no reservations, no them versus us, no experiments in the furtherance of science. They will have the same protections as any person on Talahm," I explained.

"A fool's choice," Thutmose scoffed, "there will be some, no matter how equitable his solution, that will yearn for more."

"But the planet will be Sidhe if we succeed, if we clear a dungeon and claim the core, so a choice that is his and yours to make. It will be interesting to see if his ideas are any more successful than the countless exchanges between native and invading Pantheons that have dealt with this issue in the past," Thutmose mused.

"We certainly can't do any worse," I suggested.