Scene 8: Down Memory Lane

You come to again to the soft pattering of rain. It's strangely muffled sounding.

... oh. You forgot to turn your audio sensitivity back up. You do so.

Your systems tell you that it's earlier in the cycle than when you normally power back on. The sound of the rain matches that, hammering down on the metal above you harder than usual. It shouldn't take too long to clear up, but you might have to wait a while so your neurons won't be damaged by the rain.

Your overseer is still perched over your shoulder, but it darts away when you start moving again. It pops up in front of you and watches as you stretch out your limbs carefully. The longer rest did help; you feel less achy, and your head isn't spinning as much, but the inflammation in your lungs and body still persists.

You briefly rifle through your belongings as you go to retrieve your lance. You're a bit low on food. It'd be simpler to forage here than on the way to Five Pebbles' grounds, since you're more familiar with this part of your facility grounds than...

... ah. You're going to have to go through your memory crypts.

You heft your lance back into your hands, testing its weight. You'll... worry about that when you get there.

>Can you examine your body for damage?

You give yourself a quick glance over. Besides your cellular poisoning, there isn't really any additional damage to your puppet. Everything else is otherwise in working condition, thankfully.

You spend some additional time to sift through the information from your systems. The extra rest did more for you than you realized: your cells did a lot of work dealing with the poisoning, more than they would have if you had waited for the rain before powering down. You estimate the poisoning will run its course in around two more cycles at the current rate.

Still, you need to get going. You leave the building the same way you entered it from, emerging into a warm daylight. The sky is clear again today; you glance quizzically in Five Pebbles' general direction. You really can't complain, but it is disconcerting to notice his output decreasing like this.

>Another cycle, another day! Let's see what's poppin'! Head towards your memory crypts, and get any food you see along the way!

You cast a perplexed glance over at the overseer, but proceed.

It takes more time than you expect to climb over the walls around your waste department due to the lance in your hands. You keep slipping and losing your grip, and eventually you just throw your lance over the wall with a huff before clambering up yourself. Thankfully, your lungs have healed enough that landing on the other side doesn't induce a coughing fit, even if it does make you ache slightly more as you straighten up and dust yourself off. Hopefully things will stay this way.

Retrieving your lance, you set off across the marshy soil. You would really rather just head to Five Pebbles' facility grounds directly, but considering the elevation difference between your grounds and his, this is, unfortunately, the better option. You won't be able to climb the slope marking the boundary between your facility grounds and his, especially with your lance in tow, unless you went through your shared farm sector. The fastest route to that is through your memory crypts.

The worm grass starts dominating the ground around you again, spindly tendrils of dark blue whipping around to face you as you walk past. The tips reach for your feet, straining to grasp onto you. You idly swing your lance at a few stalks that are getting too close for comfort.

To your surprise, your lance cleaves through them with barely any effort. The neighboring strands of worm grass are quick to abduct what you cut off, dragging the remains back into the colony. Readying your lance, you make a few more swings, and you quickly pick up one of the severed strands before the remaining grass has a chance to take it. The grass patters helplessly against your metallic hands as you pull them back, wiggling about in a manner that almost seems petulant.

Curious, you inspect your prize. Disconnected from its roots, the worm grass is little more than a limp stalk. There are small, nub like leaves running the length of the thick stem, and the tip has a sticky substance. If many strands were to attach to a creature, it would certainly not be able to escape. You suppose this is why it has colonized so much of your facility grounds.

You pocket it after some hesitation. It did use to be a food crop, after all. (+2 worm grass)

A shadow falls over you. You freeze, grabbing your lance. You shouldn't have got distracted out in the open.

>STAB IT STAB IT STAB IT STAB IT BAD BIRD BAD BIRD

You whirl around, hands on your lance, and point it at—

Oh. It's a rain deer. It blinks at you placidly, completely unfazed by your threat display. A little embarrassed, you lower your lance.

You were so engrossed in looking at the worm grass you didn't hear it approach. It's normally hard to miss rain deer, considering how big they are. The one in front of you only emphasizes this fact as it bends down to sniff you, bringing its wet nose down to your face. You lean away from it, cringing.

It is now that you notice the other rain deer—a much smaller one. A yearling, you estimate from its size, and from the fact that it's half hiding behind its mother while staring worriedly at you. Its mother, presumably having decided that you're not dangerous or particularly interesting, turns away from you to nuzzle her foal.

You watch the pair interact with a sigh, idly brushing at your cloak. Is it birthing season already? You haven't been paying attention.

>Offer the wormgrass to the deer? Do they... EAT that? I forget.

You're actually not sure either. You pull the worm grass out of your pockets and offer it to the deer. Both the foal and the mother perk up, staring at the food in your hands. The foal starts towards you, then hesitates, glancing between you and the lance.

You... can spare the time this cycle. You drop your lance and push it away with your foot. Emboldened by your show of peace, the foal slowly, warily wanders up to you, and it delicately eats the worm grass out of your hand. (-2 worm grass)

The most you know of these deer is that their preferred food—or maybe it was just their default fodder?—is fungus. Based on how the foal is chewing on the worm grass though, they seem to enjoy this too. If you ever received feeds from your overseers of rain deer eating the worm grass, you don't have that information anymore.

Even here, though, the mother doesn't seem too inclined to directly eat the worm grass. Instead, she's staring at you, twitching her nose. Her amber gaze seems expectant.

>YAAAAAY it's your friend now Inny. You have a new friend! I'm gonna name it Greg ok?

"What did you just—" Your head spins. You shake it to clear it, to no avail. "Don't call me that."

Des was really the only one who called you Inno. Night and Silver did it occasionally, but most of the time, it was Des. You weren't really partial to being nicknamed before she did it, but with her, it felt natural.

You don't remember when the last time she called you Inno was.

The mother rain deer is still staring at you, and her foal is licking at its lips, glancing between you and your now empty hands. You meet their gazes, and then sigh, bending down to retrieve your lance. You have an idea of what the rain deer want from you.

The foal skitters away from you as you swing your lance, cutting through a nearby swathe of worm grass. Dragging the severed ends towards you with the end of your lance, you hold up one of the longest strands to the mother rain deer. She bends down immediately to carefully eat it out of your hand, nibbling gently at your fingers as she does so with a satisfied grunt.

As you brush the rest of the worm grass towards her, she begins to sit, folding her spindly legs underneath her laboriously. You duck out of the way, narrowly avoiding her antlers, as she lowers her head to eat your offering. The foal patters over and copies its mother, sitting down and munching on the food you've brought the two of them. Evidently, they really like it. You cut down some more of the worm grass and push it towards them, but pocket some for yourself. (+6 worm grass)

Your hands are coated in rain deer slobber and worm grass fluids. You can almost hear Des laughing at you as you attempt to wipe them off on your cloak, achieving nothing but soiling the cloth further. His voice is crystal clear in your head: "You look disgusting." He'd be getting the words out between giggles, with the odd little lilt he always has at the end of sentences whenever he laughs.

... you miss Des.

>Friendship ended with silver lizard hatchling, now Greg is best friend. Ride Greg. Be the ferocious rain deer warrior you were always destined to be! She can probably take you safely across the grass, right?

Blue worm grass isn't too difficult to walk over, but truth be told, having a lift sounds nice. You're still sore from the poisoning, and, admittedly, you need the rest. If this rain deer is willing to give you a ride, you're not opposed to it.

Both deer give you a curious look as you approach. You put a hand on the antlers of the mother, hesitating briefly. Before you give yourself the time to second guess your actions, you hoist yourself up into her antlers, your lance clacking against the tough bone loudly, and you cling to them with all the strength you can muster. The rain deer mother raises her head slightly as you clamber into her antlers, snorting out a breath of air, but returns to eating your offering without making a fuss. You release your own breath of air, one you didn't realize you were holding. They still retain the docility they were originally bred for. You carefully slide down her neck, still hanging onto her antlers, until you're straddling her with one leg on each side of her head.

... they were clearly not bred for your stature. Your creators were significantly larger than you are, and so would possibly have had a less uncomfortable time riding these deer. You wiggle around, trying to find a better position, but you don't find one. You give up and lie down on her neck with a sigh.

The rain deer mother takes a while to finish her food, but once she does, she lifts herself up again. You latch onto her as she rocks underneath you, hands clenched tight around her antlers as she languidly stretches her limbs. She turns her head slightly, one massive eye flickering back at you. You can't do anything but stare back.

With a snort, she sets off again. You hear her foal pattering alongside her. Slowly, carefully, you adjust yourself so you're leaning against her neck, with your lance in your lap.

She seems to generally be walking in the direction of your memory crypts. Oddly convenient. You try your best to settle into her neck.

>I guess I can go scan around surrounding areas while you ride the deer?

Your overseer zips off to scout the areas around you. It sends back a steady but shifting feed as the rain deer walk, showing you mostly noodleflies of various colors drifting around and other mother-child pairs of rain deer ambling along in the far distance. The report is strangely absent of more aggressive creatures, but you suppose they're either not active in this area. Or maybe they're camouflaged.

You press further into the mother rain deer's hair, curling your fingers around your lance. You're generally big and metallic enough that most things wouldn't be interested in you as a meal, but you're not going to take any chances.

After a surprisingly mundane period of waiting, you glance around the shoulder of the mother rain deer to see your memory crypts approaching. You then look down at the ground, which is...

... maybe you can tell the rain deer to let you down. You carefully turn around and reach for the mother rain deer's antlers again, gently tugging on them.

She snorts, turning her head to blink at you. You hesitantly gesture at the ground. Do they still remember...?

With another snort, the mother rain deer halts, carefully folding her legs underneath her. You scramble off her back, sliding down more than you climb. Steadying yourself with the end of your lance, you turn back to her, meeting her calm, blithe amber gaze. Her foal stares at you, similarly nonchalant.

She really did save you a lot of energy, so... "Thank you," you croak out, air scratching through your voice module. You suppress a cough. "For carrying me."

If she understands, she doesn't show it, merely blinking at you again. You sigh, reaching into your pockets for the worm grass instead and tossing it at her and her foal. You don't even know why you're trying to talk to an animal. (-2 worm grass)

You leave the two rain deer to eat their food, turning to face your memory crypts. From your current position, it looks a lot larger than you remembered it to be. The buildings loom over you, casting shadows across the ground as you approach, gripping your lance tightly. This might take longer to traverse than you thought.

You sigh again as you step into the boundaries of your memory crypts proper, completely dwarfed by the memories held in the stone and metal around you. This is the best path through.

>Let's not go straight forward yet. How 'bout we scout around the outside to look for a good path through that won't kill us? And maybe find a shelter so we get our strength up before venturing in?

Your memory crypts were designed with your and your local group's rain output in mind, so really any building in here should do as a place to wait out the rain. You doubt there's a clear optimal path through. Even beyond that, if you were to walk along the edge of your memory crypts, you would probably spend the rest of the cycle walking, especially in your current state. Your memory crypts are smaller than most, but that's relative.

Regardless, you stroll briefly along the outer edge of your memory crypts for a spell, weaving in and out between buildings. Unease prickles through your fingers with every step. There are memories in every single one of these buildings around you. You were never privy to them, nor do you really want to be, but the fact that this information is, theoretically, accessible to you is... uncomfortable.

You clench your lance tighter as you sense movement to your right, but lower it again as a giant millipede ambles into sight, blithely pattering across the stone and peat. You watch it walk, a faint, puzzling, persistent jealousy worming its way through your core. Things would probably be simpler if you were just a millipede.

>If there’s no optimal path, do we have to go in? Could we just walk around the edge forever (miros bad and scawy)… I mean, you can go in if you really want, but just saying…

You sigh. Routing through your memory crypts is, overall, the better option as the ground here is more likely to be intact. In other areas of your facility grounds, the rain may have eroded the ground so much you would have to squelch through mud. Not that you haven’t already done that, but it’s faster to walk on stone. It’s also easier to find shelter in established areas, which will be beneficial as you get closer to Five Pebbles’ facility grounds.

You suppose you could hike around the edge of your memory crypts instead, seeing as yours was never fenced in like many others were. Though, the Miros vultures here… they shouldn’t be an issue. They really shouldn’t be, if they’re functioning properly.

Then again, you don’t have that assurance anymore, do you? After all, you have seen the horrifying abominations they can mutate into. You can try to interface with their neural circuits—you should be able to. That was how your creators communicated with most things they made—but if it goes awry… you do still have a bomb.

You’ll think more on this next cycle. You head for the building nearest to you, interfacing with the circuitry in the door to open it, and step into its dim interior. The air is musty in here, irritating your already aching lungs further, but you can’t be bothered to search for another place to stay. By now you suspect most of the buildings here are in a similar state, housing mostly rotten tatters of cloth and long abandoned memorabilia.

A blue lizard pokes its head out from between the cabinets as you walk past, emitting a low hiss, but it disappears back into its den as you halfheartedly shake your lance at it. Your memory crypts definitely seem to be a haven of sorts for a variety of creatures, though, if the claw marks on every surface you can see are any indication. That’s probably a good sign for you.

You idly peer into one of the storage cabinets as you wander past, skimming your gaze over the worthless trinkets scattered about within, but stop in your tracks as you notice the pearl inside. You know the scavengers, regardless of whether they’ve organized toll posts or not, populate both your and Five Pebbles’ farm sectors. Gaining favor from them would be wise, and they adore pearls.

You reach for the cabinet, but hesitate. Disturbing the resting memories of those who have passed on is sacrilege. That is why memory crypts exist to begin with: they are highly guarded strongholds for the safe storage of memories.

… what do they need these memories for now, though? They’re all gone.

You press your hand against the cabinet, undoing the locks. The cabinet hatch slides open with a grating screech, and you wince, but the contents are now bared to you. Reaching past the shreds of cloth and no longer functional records, you pick up the pearl.

You drop it the moment your hand makes contact with it, inhaling so sharply you have to stop to cough, but the moment you recover, you snatch it out of the cabinet, holding it in both hands to properly read it. It—you don’t know what a consultation log is, but Day, she…

Your legs give out underneath you, and you sit, rereading the pearl again and again and reading it into your own memory. How long ago did she—fuck, there’s no time data. It was never recorded. But this must have happened way before you were even commissioned; the pearl itself is old, centuries old, but the data is burned so deeply into its structure you can still read its contents clearly.

“I could not vanish without causing ripples.” A strangled noise shakes its way out of you. She was right, as always, even back when this was recorded. Was she always this wise? Moon spoke so highly of her whenever you asked about her, so she must have been.

You grip the pearl tightly in both hands, a flood of emotions surging through you every time you read the pearl. Are there more? There’s memories all around you, surely some of them have to have her in them, right? There has to be more. You just have to find them, they’re here somewhere.

A sob crawls out of your chest, and you press your head to your hands. You left her memories behind. You left them. You didn’t bring them with you. Why didn’t you? Did you already know this information? No, there’s no way you could have, this pearl was produced centuries before you, but—

The pearl is burning hot. You drop it on the ground next to you, but keep staring at it. You already know what it says, but you want to keep reading it anyway.

… you’re not leaving your memory crypts until you find something else.

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