Manifold [An Interstellar Sci-Fi Progression Story with LitRPG Elements]

He was a dwarf in the dream, a tireless and swarthy chap whose whole life was spent poking around in deep places devoid of light. It was a solitary existence, a lonely existence that was consumed by chartless wandering in confusion and nothingness, and he could traverse the rock tunnels for months at a time without meeting another creature, and what creatures he met were rarely humanoid and often uncommunicative or mad or both.

The caverns went on forever, he knew, and all he had to keep at bay the darkness was a lantern within which he had caged a fairy, a creature whose appearance was like a miniature woman. He had caught the fairy a long time ago, before he had had any capacity for memory, and for as long as he could remember she had always been with him.

He looked at her often, throughout his peregrinations. He spent many hours contemplating the appearance of her face, and always he would think her beautiful. She gleamed with a perpetual light that shone from white clothes that never soiled; she spangled with fluorescent lips through which words never passed; it was little wonder he found her beautiful.

He believed the fairy kept at bay the turgid shadow-monsters, monsters he knew were always watching. He saw, whenever he woke from his dream's dreams, the intangible manifestations of darkness recoil from his awareness of them, and he would look upon his only real friend in all the universe and remember that she was bound to him and ponder their relationship of jailer and jailee.

And always there would be nothing to do after but continue walking down the tunnels. He believed he was walking northward but if there were no planet and no surface and the universe were simply tunnels and rock then the concept northward was irrelevant.

It was the myth of his people that it went on forever, the tunnels, unto the theoretical edge of the universe. The long tunnels that meandered and undulated were their cage, their isolation from one another, their unique journeys so special they crossed the path of another dwarf but once in their entire lives.

He recognized the myth to be true because the world had always been dark, the darkness etched not only in memory but in bone. He was already old; he knew his time was coming; still the dark oppressed him. The tunnel walls were slick with thick exudate, the ceiling cracked and fell towards him; all around waited the carrion shadows, waiting for his expiration.

When his legs gave out he saw a vision that was at the same time appalling and magnificent. He leaned back and realized his bare back was rubbing against the rough bark of a woody trunk that thinned the further up it got and which eventually branched out into the surrounding rock. It was causing the tunnel to crumble in upon itself, the thing, and it was the first time he'd ever seen anything like it.

He thought to name it Kritanos.

In his lap sat the lantern and in it his fairy. He brought his face close; the beautiful thing stared at him with forlorn eyes. He looked at her and stared into her eyes and by his peripheral vision he could recognize a face he knew as Frederica and another he knew as Chrysilla.

Better to set her free now, or she would die with him—

Consciousness shattered to re-form. Humidity. Sweat.

Betelgeuse woke to find that he was holding an Incunabulum—not his own, but Frederica's—to his chest. He sat up, blinking away the sleep from his eyes and placing the tome flat upon the bed beside him; as his hand left its graying surface, a feeling of loss and emptiness rose to cloy at his senses, and he was almost overwhelmed, but for his angry refusal to succumb.

From the light streaming through the dirty windowpane he estimated that it was already late morning.

His first thought was that he'd missed reveille and First Parade. His second was that neither Voke nor Douglas had seen fit to wake him.

"I've half a mind to book you for some extra duties on the next off-day. In fact, if I remember correctly, you still owe me twenty-nine days of toilet-cleaning duty, you and Mr. Thatcher here."

Betelgeuse sat opposite Thete, straight-faced as ever. Her tone was sharp with affected severity, and he raised his eyes to meet her prosthetic eye's angry glower. He did wonder at the pout, though, because it detracted so much from her attempt at fierceness.

He leaned forward, placing his elbow upon the table and steeping his fingers over the glass of fizzy, fermented drink which the menu listed as 'rhamidcha'. He'd all but forgotten the punishment for drubbing that civilian at the Dromedary.

Douglas, sitting to Betelgeuse' right, pressed his stump into Betelgeuse' left side and whispered apologetically: "Sorry man, I really thought Voke would wake you for First Parade…"

Betelgeuse shrugged. It was night-time in Saltilla; the morning's fuck-up wasn't so important that he was going to let it hang over his mind during this rare outing to the financial district. He had things to observe.

He passed his vision rightward from Thete to Voke and saw that man sipping his drink glumly. Voke had managed to fix his lopsided hair by shaving most of it off, revealing the penal brand etched into his forehead; but for the brand, Betelgeuse thought he looked very like an Old Empire military recruit plucked straight from the Yesteryear magazines his mother liked to keep on the kitchen tables.

She always did love collecting magazines.

"To be fair," Betelgeuse began slowly, "everyone else is dead now, so there's only three people to choose from. For the toilet-cleaning duty, I mean."

"Yer goddamn insubordinate, you know that, B.T.? I'm beginning to think that mutiny wasn't a once-off occurrence," Thete groused, but, for all her affected irritation, unable to maintain her voice's hard edge. The establishment which Thete had brought them to—the Sociedad de Guerra—had been furnished with dim blue lighting that made the skin flatteringly soft and smooth, and to Betelgeuse' eye Thete's face seemed almost prepubescent. The scars on her face—the brand and the gash that ran over her prosthesis—were made dark and ominous shadows.

"Hey Thete, don't you think Ballsman here should get some credit for overturning the demerits?" Douglas brought his stump up and over Betelgeuse' shoulder. "I mean, he practically saved you two hunnerd credits, which is, like, more than three months of your pay."

Someone hollered from the other end of the bar: "hey there, I'm waiting for my refill here!" Betelgeuse shrugged off Douglas' stump and raised his eyes to see that it was an older man, balding, with sclerosed lips.

"... I guess that is true…" Thete sighed. "Who am I kidding? Captain Cacliocos ain't gonna sign off on any punishment. He just loves Mr. Ballsman. Maybe he's goddamn gay, I've no idea."

"He did also save our ass like three times," Douglas said, chortling, sticking out his index finger and dipping it in his drink.

"Doug, if you don't stop sucking B.T.'s dick I'm gonna complain to HHQ and they'll send you to homo-re-education," Thete sighed. "I hear they stick needles in you and run electricity through your dong, see if its conductive."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Douglas snorted, throwing up his hands in mock surrender, then refocused his attention on the glass of amber liquid tinged blue by the obnoxious light.

Betelgeuse brought his own glass up to his mouth and sipped. Sour. Tart. Citrusy. "Feel free to punish me," he said, clinking his glass back onto the plastic surface.

Douglas almost choked on his drink, and Betelgeuse glanced distractedly at him.

"... but did you bring us here just to tell us about the various punishments you have in store for us? Pretty dull conversation for a night's out, don'cha think?" Betelgeuse finished, returning his gaze to Thete. Voke stared at him silently, with hooded eyes, making no move to join in the conversation.

Thete sighed again, her expression softening, the sides of her lips creasing with heavy emotions. "... well, we didn't have a chance the last time around. I was planning to bring y'all here but then the crazy Nookster-thing happened. I… just figured we owe Frederica a toast, is all… And I think, despite everything, we probably owe you a toast too."

An awkward silence interspersed, and Betelgeuse took the opportunity to glance over at the other patrons. He wondered silently why it was that their skin was relatively fair compared to the Nooksters and the denizens of the Prilogia. The bar was relatively lively, with a majority of the seats filled by well-groomed and expensively-dressed couples—talking, laughing loudly, touching each other's shoulders and sharing coy expressions. And there were paunchy business types and young ambitious-like wheeler-dealers and thin, sharp-faced men hunched over and talking money in hushed tones. It's what he expected anyway, coming out to Saltilla's financial district, and though, in the end, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of envy, he felt—he knew—that those lives were not his destiny.

"To Frederica," Betelgeuse said suddenly, raising his glass and admiring the liquid's soft effervescence backlit in blue.

"... To Frederica," Thete said, raising her glass of reddish liquid that foamed with the movement. "She was kind and empathetic."

"To Frederica," Douglas said, raising his glass and almost spilling his drink over. "She was fierce and vindictive."

"To Frederica," Voke croaked, his eyes never leaving Betelgeuse even as he joined his glass of sparkling clear liquid to the others. "She was pure of soul and heart."

Betelgeuse sipped his rhamidcha and returned his glass to the table. He figured he didn't have anything better to say about Frederica than what the others had already offered.

"And there's no need to toast me, please," he said, chuckling.

"What, too good for a toast?" Thete jibed.

"Maybe the guy's shy," Voke said, affording a crooked smile and finally looking down and away from Betelgeuse.

"Shy? Isn't that, like, the pot calling the kettle black? Anyway, fuck it, to Ballsman," Douglas said, raising his glass again. "You're not dead yet so I guess you don't get a line."

"Fuck it, to Ballsman," echoed Thete, cracking open her own wide smile.

"Fuck it, to Ballsman," Voke said, lowering his voice to mimic the way Douglas had said it.

"... To me, I guess," Betelgeuse smirked. He let a large gulp of the liquid run down his throat, and felt refreshed for it. It had the tang of orange juice, and the effect of coffee.

"You don't have to down it like that, Cockster, it's just sparkling water," he heard Douglas say.

"Shuddup, I drink how I want to," Voke replied.

"I should take the opportunity," Thete began, "to let you guys know we're going to be activated for city patrols starting tomorrow. Unfortunately, we've been assigned to Prilogia. Rough place, but at least lunch is cheap around there. Not Nook cheap, but cheaper than the rest of the city."

"Oh shit, no more Barracks cleaning. I take that as a win!" Douglas cheered.

"Or tank re-greasing or equipment maintenance," nodded Voke, "very nice."

"Don't be too smug. The place is very dangerous," Thete said, sipping her drink. "It's dangerous enough they couldn't assign any of the Jegorichians there because they're afraid they'll have a pitched battle on their hands, Cacliocos told me."

"… What'll we need to prep?" inquired Betelgeuse, "we can't be using our exosuits, right? Since they're with… with Jegorich Support."

Voke glanced at him. Douglas laughed sheepishly.

"... Exosuits are for external operations. We'll get urban ops gear tomorrow—blacksteel plating to cover everything. Heavy as fuck, but, well…" Thete shrugged.

"Somehow I think you're not going to have a problem with that," Betelgeuse said, taking another gulp of his rhamidcha. The refreshing drink had a calming effect on him, he realized, and when it slid down his gullet it took with it no small amount of stress and anxiety. It was addictive. Like coffee, his mind couldn't help adding.

"Ah well, we'll see tomorrow," Thete said.

"Why cun't we just go in uniform…" Douglas whined.

"You're gonna wish you had the armor if someone shoots us, Downie," Voke returned.

"You know, B.T.," Thete said, addressing Betelgeuse in a conversational tone, "you said you managed to find a hiding place right after Aisya and I split from you guys. How'd you find it so fast? The damn Nooksters were literally right behind us."

Douglas and Voke froze mid-banter, their eyeballs swiveling to the side.

"We got lucky," Betelgeuse chuckled, "we tried one of the buildings and found it unlocked. Turns out it was an old woman's… who was kind enough to hide us. Of course, all thanks to you and Douglas getting me far enough away that we even had the chance to go hidey-hole hunting."

"Hm. You got an amazing sense, you know that?" Thete said, taking another sip from her glass. Douglas and Voke nodded silently to themselves.

"So, Thete, given that you know of our Increments and Etchings and have known for some time. It's only fair that you share yours," Betelgeuse said, changing the subject quickly.

"Uhuh, that'll be fair," Douglas echoed in that irritating psittaceous practice he'd recently picked up.

"What? Why do you wanna know?" Thete said, immediately defensive, clutching at her sling-bag out of reflex.

"Eh. She's obviously a Hollow," Voke sounded nonchalantly.

"Everyone knows she's a Hollow, Cockster."

"It'll help with the coordination. We don't know what we'll encounter on the street tomorrow, and anyway I suppose we're close enough to share it."

Thete gritted her teeth and passed her vision from Betelgeuse to Douglas to Voke. They'd been through life and death together—surely she could trust them?

"I mean, I'm not suggesting to literally show your Incunabulum. Just tell it to us," Betelgeuse said.

"You wouldn't be able to read it anyway, 'cause it's in Aluaa," Thete sighed deeply, "... Fine. But all of you will have to share with the others as well, if you haven't already. And we'll do it later in the bunkroom, where we have some privacy."

'Well, they already have a sense of what my Incunabulum blessings are, even my ability to resist the compulsion,' thought Betelgeuse. 'It shouldn't be an issue to reveal it to Douglas. Voke however… that guy's definitely thinking something, but it can't be helped. It would be useful to know their exact blessings if I have to use the compulsion on them in future, and when that time comes I'll have gained a valuable datapoint in relation to how exactly the compulsion interacts with their specific blessings.'

"What the fuck, I'll have to share it with the others?" Douglas snapped, suddenly incensed.

"Uh… yes? That's my condition," Thete raised her finger.

"But… but they'll think I'm fucking weird!" Douglas said, rising to his feet and almost knocking his glass over.

"Hey, you're drawing attention," Betelgeuse said, grabbing on to Douglas' sleeve and pulling him back down.

"Come on, man, it can't be that bad," Voke volunteered.

"Uhuh, it isn't that bad…" Thete began, then, thinking about it some more, added: "Isn't it?"

"See? Even you think it's weird. Fuck!"