Ray, Initae, I and many officials of the order are gathered in the main hall. Initae and the officials are going over who knows what about our itinerary. But our first stop is going to be Likaz, the planet of sorrows.
Apparently there was a large illegal biomodification research station there that made some pretty scary creatures. In the process of removing the illegal installation, many people were lost, thus giving its name as the planet of sorrows.
Anyways, that is our next destination and is the site of the second altar for the first trial in Humanity’s Trial of Ascension. I'm sure between the water, horrific monsters, and altar, it'll be a fun little vacation.
By the way, in the time before our departure, Ray and I have been doing some combat training of our own. We are making steady improvement, but Initae still seems to want to push us harder.
“Alright kiddos, let's head off. Our brand new battleship, the Sycos, is ready and waiting!”
Ray:”Oooo, I sure hope it's fancy and comfortable. That Altair was kinda cramped.”
Ko:”I just hope it's fast, we are already in last place, best to return quickly so we can regain some of our prestige.”
We head off through the city. It takes several minutes of walking but we finally board a shuttle that takes us up to the Sycos. It appears to be the 800m A39-Syocs Voyage Battleship. It has a top hyperspace speed of seven million times lightspeed, and has a decent cargo capacity. But the piece de la resistance, it has some very fancy crew and officer quarters. We also have ten crew aboard. All in all, a pretty good ship. In summary, it's more or less a direct upgrade to the Clak.
Of course, the first place Ray goes to check is the bar. I head to the bridge to meet with the captain. A Velz by the name of Lap Sky. He seems to be fairly competent. We go over our travel itinerary and the voidlith we will be taking to reach Likaz. It will be about one hour through the sanctum and two through the universe. A pretty nice trip.
We quickly depart and start heading towards the voidlith. I decide to head down to the bar to find Ray. As is expected, she appears to already be several glasses deep.
“You know, we have an altar coming up. You better not get too drunk.”
“Oah Dontcha worry. I can always use this augmentation kit to purge it before we gotta do stufs.”
“You know, that's a fair point. Chef, get me a few glasses too!”
The chef, a Pota of course, slides me several glasses of whatever Ray is having. This Potaian liquor sure is stellar stuff, i've missed it.
Ray:”So, what do you think the second altar is gonna be?”
“Well it's gotta have something to do with water. Maybe they'll make us fight a leviathan.”
“Thatd be so cool! I hope they give us another mech. Amphibious mechs are always the coolest!”
“We can't really know what to expect. The first trial had us climb a mountain and then cook a meal. Who knows what this one will be.”
“Ooo, maybe we will have to do a dance! We should have no issue with that.”
“We would just have to shine our brilliant moonlight and their judges would be instantly mesmerized.”
“For sure.”
We continue to drink until it's time to shift through the voidlith. We then promptly expel the alcohol and I head to the bridge. Hopefully this time I'm not knocked unconscious.
Initae:”Alright Ko, you know the drill. Bring us through the voidlith.”
I activate the VeilKey and we pass through the barrier. Naturally, we are greeted by a massive voidlith. I begin the process of accelerating and we shoot off towards the end of the voidlith. I can feel my mind and body being strained, but it is not nearly as bad as last time. We pass into the void quite easily.
However, I do start to feel a very weak and basically collapse into Ray’s awaiting arms, though I remain conscious. Positives and negatives I suppose. I manage to guide us through the voidlith and we enter the universe once again.
“Well done, Ko. You didn't pass out this time! Though, you are looking a bit weak. Perhaps you should go lie down. We've got two hours till we arrive at Likaz.”
I weakly tell Ray, “you should carry me. I think it might be hard to walk.”
“Sure thing! I guess this is what it feels like to be dealing with an immobile drunk!”
She then quickly sweeps me up in her arms and not very gently carries me into the officers lounge. It is far larger than any we have had before. She throws (literally) me down onto the sofa and then sits next to me.
“Ow. I'm far more gentle than that! Next time I'm going to start jostling and throwing your unconscious body around. Let's see how you like it!”
“Well, sorry, but my courier services aren't very experienced. I guess I should leave the carrying of people to you.”
“The only person I ever carry is you! Ms. Genius Prodigy Superstar, the hopeless alcoholic.”
This comment earns me a nice hard punch to the shoulder. But then she proceeds to act like nothing happened and turns on the TV to a movie about a giant shark. The same series that we didn't quite finish before the whole being blown up thing.
We watch the movie in mostly silence, by the time it's over we are about to approach Likaz. We head to the bridge and get a visual on the planet. As expected, it's just a ball of blue. It has an average ocean depth of five kilometers. I can only imagine all the untold horrors that must lurk in its depths.
Ray:”That planet looks both super fun, but also one befitting of the moniker ‘planet of sorrows’. I still wanna go fight some cool monsters though!”
Initae:”Well, we are about to dock with the station, so be ready.”
We successfully dock with the small station in orbit. We are greeted by a Zekan Scientist. They are inhabiting a humanoid shell, presumably to be more welcoming to us contestants. However, when they see Initae wave us off, they have a distinct look of displeasure. I guess her act of destroying their homeworld has left a lot of bad blood.
We enter the station and are greeted with seven human-sized tubes. However, inside is not a mech but a chair instead.
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Scientist:”The third altar will be conducted remotely, please sit down and link into the net. The first stage of the altar involves a dive into a nest of leviathans, ideally without being detected until near the end."
Ray:”ooo a stealth mission, do we get cool mechs, this is gonna be so fun!”
We sit down in the chairs and attach our neural ports. Immediately it feels as though our consciousness is sucked in and down to the planet. This must be what the Zekan’s digitization technology feels like. It's quite strange.
Once the process is done, I feel as though my body is massive. Which is because it is. It seems that I am in a large underwater submarine that is shaped like a dolphin. But strangely enough, I can feel its exterior as though it is skin. Man, this is a trippy experience.
Ray:”Wow this is so cool and strange! I feel like a fish. I can just swim around.”
Naturally, Ray quickly gets the hang of it and is swimming around in the pool area that serves as our start point.
Zekan Scientist:”Welcome fellow beings, you are given the great honor of being encapsulated within the revolutionary Z01-Mk5 swimshell endo-mech. These SwimMechs are designed for high mobility underwater and stealth operations. They are fitted with the latest Zekanian neural storages for the most comfortable integration.
We will now begin with the second altar. The goal of the first stage is to stealthily move past the various sizes of leviathans that lurk in these depths. Your target is an underwater shrine that resides about fifteen kilometers down. Reach it and details of the second stage shall be revealed.”
Ko:”Well then, let's do this. It's been a few weeks since we last took a swim.”
“Sure has, can't wait to see what kinda horrific beings might lurk in the dark.”
We dive. We start going straight down, thankfully we have been provided with a rough map of the terrain. We also have a few tools to use in our stealth mission. Firstly, our shells are effectively invisible, using some crazy optical camouflage. Secondly, we have an echolocation device. Which is directly interfaced with our consciousness, which just feels plain weird. I don't know how to describe it, since human vocabulary doesn't have descriptors for senses that humans don't have. Thirdly, we have a jet that supposedly makes us go super duper fast. Though it'll alert anything nearby to our presence. In summary, we are like high tech chameleon dolphins.
Ray:”Woah, this is crazy. I feel like I am just a fish, swimming about this beautiful sea.”
“Well, we are only about a hundred meters down. I'm sure it'll be a lot scarier once there is no more light.”
“Yeah, light only reaches about one thousand meters down… we are going fifteen kilometers. We better get going.”
We head straight down, past the light zone of the water and into pure darkness. It is now that we are extremely grateful for our echolocation and maps. We manage to not run into anything until about seven kilometers down. Then we sense it for the first time.
Ray:”What the klack is that? It must be three hundred meters long!”
Ko:”I don't know, but it shouldn't be able to detect us, so let's just avoid it.”
In our senses we notice a massive moving creature. Easily dwarfing any of the largest whales on Earth. And to think, we haven't even hit the darkest depths yet. We head yet deeper, encountering several more large creatures. I can start to feel a sense of pressure on the shell from all the water. It won't break, but it isn't very pleasant to have that much force compressing you from all sides.
We hit nine kilometers down and encounter an even larger creature. It must be at least a kilometer long. We are still easily able to slide past them. But I doubt it can be this easy.
Of course, once we hit thirteen kilometers, we notice the main challenge of this stage.
Ray:”What, the, klack. IS. THAT!?”
Ko:”Well it appears to be a four kilometer long leviathan. Catalogued to also have echolocation as well as a nasty sense of territory.”
“Oh, that's nice. Let's just go right past that.”
“I don't think that'll quite work, you see, it'll be able to sense us. I think this may be why we were given the jet function.”
“You mean, we just gotta rush right past it and hope it doesn't eat us before we hit whatever is at the bottom?”
“Yeah, luckily it's so large that we should easily be able to survive once we get below it.”
“Roger that. Lets just burst past this massive leviathan that is probably very hungry for some nice juicy dolphins.”
We then proceed to activate our turbo jets. We then shoot forward like veritable rockets. I narrowly miss hitting the leviathan and manage to skirt past it. Ray, with her natural elegance, does it perfectly and even manages to make it look super cool. We smoothly glide into the bottom of the pit, which is a pool area not dissimilar to the one at the top.
Zekan Scientist:”Well done, contestants, you managed to dodge Sally! She sure is a nice gal, but she has a bit of a mean attitude. Please standby, we will transfer you into ground-mobile bodies.”
We are then quickly sucked out of the swimshells into android bodies that are mostly humanlike. They even resemble us! Though they got Ray’s haircolor off by a few shades. Pfft, they can't even bother with the most important parts.
We are then led into a fancy looking antechamber. It is made entirely out of a marble like material for some reason.
Ray:”So, what do you think stage two will be?”
“Well, last time it was cooking, so honestly I have no idea. But it seems like the first phase is some sort of physical challenge, the second one might be a skill challenge and the last one an intellectual challenge perhaps?”
“I mean that would make sense if we extrapolate based on our currently available data.”
“Maybe we get to meet another God? There are four trials, which would line up great with fire water earth and air. The classic four primary elements.”
“That would be cool. That fire god guy was kinda sick, too bad he didn't stick around.”
“Yeah, and who knows what the bonus will be this time. I mean, maybe we already got it? Since we weren't detected until the end of the dive.”
“Hmm, the scientist did say ‘ideally not detected until near the end’. That sounds similar to the casual stipulation added to the cooking.”
“Yeah, and we are both pretty good pilots, lesser pilots would've had a lot harder time remaining unnoticed.”
After a few minutes, the scientist reappears and motions for us to enter another chamber. This time it is massive… racetrack? It looks exactly like a horse racetrack you'd find back in the old days of Earth. The ones that people would race horses on and bet on them. Until they were overtaken by a brand of mobile game that just replaced real world horse racing entirely.
“Greetings mortals! I am known as the god of water. I welcome you to my domain.” The ‘god of water’ is a very large man that is sitting on a massive throne. Surrounding him are a bunch of horses for some reason. I guess I was right, this is a horse racing track.
“As a part of the second stage of this altar, we shall be testing your horse racing skills! You two will be made to race upon this special track. Should you complete it I shall award you my blessing. And my crown due to your earlier prowess in navigating the ocean!
May the ocean's bounty be ever in your favor, dear mortals.”
Ray:”Yipee! We get to race horses. I always loved to ride them back on Mars. They had such a fun time galloping across the Martian surface in such low gravity.”
Well, it appears we finally know what stage two of this altar will be. Horse racing, with real genuine horses. On this racetrack located fifteen kilometers underwater on an oceanic planet. Oh, and there is a water god that seems to love horses.
Nevertheless, no matter what this stage requires of us. Ray and I shall get through it together. So, bring it on.
End of Chapter 36
A/N: Hiya dear reader. Author here. I hope you are enjoying this interesting chain of events. Straight from high octane diving action to a high stakes horse race! What could possibly be more entertaining.
As always, if you are enjoying Ray and Ko’s journey, be sure to follow/favourite/comment/share with a friend, it is always appreciated! See ya at the races, dear reader.
- Cathrix