Waterstrider

Basements, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fourthmonth, 1634 PTS

Over the years, Rachel had absorbed a frankly astonishing amount of information. She had taken in copies of almost all the information her people had acquired about the Pantheonic Territory prior to her infiltration, and she had gathered all the information available on the parts of Tseludia’s network that she was able to access. Within all of that, there was very little on the Reth. Most of what she knew came from records left on Canvas itself, a place where the ruling power had engaged in a practice of destroying the remaining records of the exiled people.

Moreover, as an insular, largely nomadic culture ever since entering the galactic community, when members of the Reth entered and left stations, they rarely left behind their own records on the public network. In addition, the Pantheonic Government had not bothered to propagate their own records on the matter to the various systems. If the Reth wished to deal with a specific arm of their government, they would need to learn how to speak Staiven.

Despite the fact that Rachel could not speak her language, she was hopeful that because of this, she and the Reth woman here might be able to communicate with one another.

“I thought you said you were able to instantly learn any language that you need to,” asked Cyrus, surprised.

“There simply aren’t enough records on the language of Reth for me to use. I only know a few scattered words, not enough for any sort of meaningful communication.”

“Should I just drag her out and hope she understands my body language?”

Rachel paused to consider it, and found that it was likely a poor idea that would waste a lot of time.

“No, let me try something first. There’s a chance she speaks Staiven.”

Cyrus simply nodded in assent.

Before she could say a word, however, the Reth woman’s eyes flicked around Cyrus’ form, settling on an area just above his waist, as if she were staring at his abdomen. Something glimmered abstrusely within her vibrant crimson eyes as she stood up. Her eyes did not move from the point they were fixated on.

“It is an honor,” she said, bowing slightly before him, “to meet the Shadow of a Trueborn.”

It was a good thing that Rachel currently had another part of her mind controlling her projection as it moved with Jihan deeper in the facility. If it had been present here, she likely would have gasped in surprise. The Reth woman had been speaking English. It was heavily accented, and many centuries out of date behind the Pleiadian Standard dialect, but it was undeniable. This was the language Rachel had spoken back when she had been human.

It was initially difficult to understand why the woman would be referring to Cyrus in such a manner, and she could tell that Cyrus himself was also taken aback.

“Rachel,” he whispered, “What did she say?”

Hearing the language the woman was speaking Rachel was able to piece together another item of information. The woman had been looking just about Cyrus’ waist, the part of the body where her conduit rested upon Cyrus’ back.

Despite the fact that she was capable of using all the time in the world that she needed to think, Rachel had never been the type to think too much before she acted. Ignoring Cyrus’ question, she summoned another projection within the room. Unlike the one with Jihan, this projection was not altered to make her look like a Seiyal, but rather true, original appearance. The body of a human.

The woman shivered, as if in exhilaration, her attention shifting to look at the body. She sighed and laughed, and Rachel could truly not comprehend what was going through her mind which caused her to act in such a way. Had she gone mad from confinement? No, that couldn’t be it, Rachel thought. There was still the matter of the language she was speaking. Just how had she learned it?

“So you really were one of them,” the Reth woman breathed out, clearly just as if not more astonished than Rachel was.

Why do you call humans trueborn?” Rachel asked, trying to get to the core of the matter. To the side, Cyrus was watching the conversation with confusion. She supposed he was shocked not only by her projection, but also by the fact that she had claimed she didn’t speak Reth and then began to easily converse in a language he didn’t know. She would explain it all to him later. For now, receiving answers for herself was more important.

The Reth woman shivered, and then responded.

“Lady Shade, this one’s name is Irid, and we refer to your former self as trueborn because you are those born from the great mother goddess’ domain.”

Rachel frowned. Something wasn’t adding up.

“‘Great mother goddess?’ I thought that this term, for the Reth, would refer to Saaya, not Delithia.”

Iris shook her head.

“Saaya is our mother goddess, but Lady Delithia is the Great Mother. She is a higher power, a great inspiration to our own creator. Our creation was inspired by the form of your own people, after all. His as well,” she said, motioning to Cyrus. “But the demoness who created the Seiyal was a plagiarist. Not like our own mother.”

“I see,” said Rachel, not wanting to ask about the Reth’s odd consideration for the intellectual property of deities. “Have your people interacted with Delithia yourselves, then? Is she the one who taught you this language?”

“It was one of your fellows, Great Shade of a Trueborn. He told us that his name is Nathan Crawford.”

It was then that Rachel understood what had happened. Another Terran had encountered the Reth soon after their exile, and influenced their religious beliefs so that they revered humanity, and so that they all knew at least one language that could be used to communicate with other Terrans. She couldn’t help but smile at the realization.

Quickly searching her database, she found that as of five decades ago, when she had last visited the Pleiades, there were three Nathan Crawfords recorded as having been uplifted. Of them, two had never left the collective, while one had last been recorded a bit over three and a half centuries ago. That matched with the exile of the Reth.

Once, Rachel would have thought it was wrong to influence another culture in such a self serving manner. But the experience of having her race hunted down and being forced to give up all of her prior dreams and aspirations had changed her. Now, she only felt proud of her comrade’s achievement. Turning an entire race into an ally was already incredibly useful to the war effort, much less one such as the Reth who had both a progression system and an ascendant guarding them.

“Well then, Irid,” she said, “Would you like to be freed?”

Irid smiled, her discolored teeth and sunken cheeks making the expression seem somewhat ominous.

“I would like nothing more than to be freed by your hand, Lady Shade.”

“I’d prefer if you were to call me Rachel.”

Irid bowed.

“It is an honor to call you by your name, Lady Rachel.”

Rachel had become used to the respect that the Seiyal gave her title of Vice Sect Leader, but she had to admit there was something special about the near theological nature of Irid’s reverence. She rather enjoyed the feeling.

With a wave of her hand, Irid’s bonds released, and the woman stretched out her arms, enjoying the increased ability to move her arms.

“Will you be freeing the others as well?” she asked.

Rachel nodded.

“We’re rescuing all the Canvasians who were locked up here. Including the force that was sent by the Lee Clan to rescue you.”

“I thank you, Lady Rachel, for your great generosity to us.”

Rachel puffed her chest out. She could really get into this role.

“It is no issue.”

She glanced at Cyrus, who was giving the two of them very odd looks. Rachel suddenly realized that Irid had been ignoring him essentially the entire time. She supposed that it didn’t matter. It was not as if the two of them could even communicate with one another, regardless. She turned to him, speaking in seiyin.

“It turns out that we had a different language in common. I’ll explain in greater detail later on, but the Reth should be willing to help us out. The result should be just as acquiring Jihan’s assistance.”

Cyrus nodded appreciatively, stepped out of the room.

“Good work. Will you have to speak with the rest?”

“Irid here should be able to speak with them as we move. We should go back, Jihan is getting the last of the Seiyal as we speak.”

With that, Rachel quickly asked Irid to speak with the rest, and they moved through the rooms, freeing all seven of the Reth who had been confined within the facility.

Suddenly, a burst of knowledge was flagged with priority when her second consciousness had a realization. They had seen every Seiyal within the facility, and while there were martial artists ranging between mortal to core formation across the facility, there had only been one single spirit refiner: Jihan Lee himself. Rachel could not help but find herself feeling somewhat suspicious. Of all the Seiyal trapped in the facility, there had only been one single spirit refiner, and he had by chance been placed in an operating room alongside Ester Perivar, the one they had been hunting. What were the odds of something like that happening, at just the perfect time?

Between this and the mysterious assistance she had received in preventing the alarm, she could not help but feel as if she were a marionette on a string, dancing to the puppetmaster’s tune. It was a feeling she could not help but despise. The person who had sent her that message within the network- who were they really? Were they manipulating events on the station through network infiltration? If so, were they inside this facility, or had they long infiltrated far deeper than she herself had? What reason would they even have to manipulate events in such a way?

Moreover, was this individual a Shade, or were they a deity? The question chilled each of her consciousnesses, even the one who was merely monitoring the network.

Delithia: [Along with Relya the Sunweaver, goddess of the Escalos, Delithia is one of the oldest and most powerful ascendants in the known universe. Like Relya, it is said that Delithia had her own associated species, though they are said to be long extinct. Legends of various civilizations say that Delithia entered this universe through the depths of the endless ocean, which has become the 'holy land' of her cult, whose members are known as Depthists. The cult has yet to discover this claimed 'ocean of boundless depths'. Delithia is an avowed enemy of all Osine nations, and her followers are targets for elimination by their forces. The Depths Cult is also illegal within the Pantheonic Territory, though the government does not usually put too much effort in exterminating them, so the cult widely exists as an underworld organization, running black markets across the territory. A disproportionately high number of the cult's followers among races with progression systems are those who use sanguine miasma. Delithia's current location and activities are unknown to all, though it is rumored that she occasionally sends messages to her more devoted followers.]