MissingNo
Inactive Member
"I promise." The pale warrior was definitive in her reply. She always was.
The dusk-skinned elf nodded slowly. "Good." Without another word, he turned and walked away.
Lenwe had given Nel permission to leave New Kohana to learn. She needed to experience life outside of Lenwe’s house and beyond the short time she had training with Nepleslian Intelligence. He also made her promise to return…an odd gesture on his part. Of course Nelew would return if he told her to. But he had insisted. He trusted her; she knew that. And, knowing him, she also knew that his trust was a rare commodity.
After all, whenever he left the compound, she went with him. To the world beyond the Godfather’s compound walls, she was the cloaked, “mysterious figure” who acted as Lenwe’s protector, the one who did his bidding, the one who made the elf’s arguments more…”convincing”. He relied on her consistency, and now he was sending her out. Something…”felt” strange to Nel, though. Like there was another reason for the mission.
Things had been different for Nel since the laboratory technician named Guiding Stars had brought the strange device to her. The case had information stored inside it that related to her, she had realized. Specifically, the system that was stored inside her and had created her. The device had details on how to maintain it, what it did, how it did it, even some basic templates on how to use it. It also had notes on the template for her body and improvements that the creator had hoped to make to it, including something referred to as “imprint templates”. After trying everything else to one extent or another while in her cell, Nel began analyzing the template notes.
When she was finished, she realized that her methods of processing information had changed. At first it had registered as a glitch. She could still access her normal modes, but the new ones seemed to take priority, and their results were unreliable. Nel had to force herself to run everything twice, once on reflex with the new modes, and again, consciously, with the old, methodical modes. After a bit, she realized that the new modes were not glitchy at all. They accelerated her ability to reach conclusions without sacrificing mental resources, enabled her to bypass inconsistencies and errors that used to make her freeze, and make connections between ideas and information that were simply not there before. The only issue was that the results of these new features just weren’t as reliable as those of the old modes.
At Nel’s request, Guiding Stars made further visits to the pale warrior’s cell and, despite still being terrified of the Colosseum champion, the Kohanian scientist did her best to explain how these new ways of thinking worked and how they were best used. To any other person, the difference between Nel’s new state of mind and her old ways of thinking was like a teenager learning to think as an adult…difficult and nearly incomprehensible, but likewise she could no longer process information on the merits of logic alone. She began to see links between events, people, places, and even ideas that were invisible to her before. A sort of intuition developed, making instant leaps to conclusions she would have spent milliseconds verifying before. This spawned innovation in her combat, with less rote repetition of movements and smoother transitions, something that showed during her last fight some months back.
Humanoid interactions were less strenuous for her now, and even rumors were now more than error-filled data packets. They sometimes had truth in them, and now she could begin to determine where those truths were. While she was out with Lenwe, Nel had heard things. As she passed by the captive combatants training for the Colosseum, people talked. They whispered about what was going on beyond New Kohana’s orbit, of wars and a spreading threat known as the “Mishhuvurthyar” or “NMX”. Before she had joined the IPG, Nel hadn’t paid any attention, but now she did. The threat had grown since she returned. Over the year, it became apparent that New Kohana now had some rather unsavory neighbors occupying the nearby systems.
Maybe this was why she was being sent out, to gather information on the new enemy and report back? Her thoughts mulled over this idea for a few moments before she stopped herself. This was inaccurate speculation, and she could not act on any inaccurate information until it was confirmed or refuted. As Lenwe walked away, she followed after him.
-----
So it was true, this was her mission. But, instead of immediately taking a shuttle to the nearest rumored Mishhu-held world, Lenwe insisted that Nel gather information from other places first.
It was easy to choose a destination; Nel would be avoiding any Nepleslian worlds. The IPG was not likely to be happy if Nel were discovered to be alive; from her time training with them, Nel knew they were as, if not more, obsessed with secrecy than Lenwe, and their intelligence network was certainly more extensive. That in mind, with the publicity she had in the Colosseum, if the IPG were watching then they already knew. Why hadn’t they acted, then? Maybe because Lenwe hadn’t pressed Nel for information about their operations. She hadn’t been privy to their networks, only their training practices. And, if the IPG had indeed investigated the elf and his bodyguard, then they hadn’t found anything threatening to Nepleslia. Barring any serious expansion, Lenwe was satisfied with his set-up on New Kohana. The planet had been good to him and his business.
Government grudges aside, Yamatai was also well-known for its art and culture; Nel would learn much there. But It also didn’t hurt that it was the closest non-DiON world, or that it was Lenwe’s homeworld, and he was able to acquire an identity for Nel through some of his old contacts. Those contacts also let him know that whatever he wanted to find out about the Mishhu was likely to be there. While New Kohana was, for the most part, keeping to itself, Yamatai seemed to be in the thick of the war…possibly in more ways than one. It would be the best place outside of a military intelligence agency to learn where the NMX were moving and where they might be headed.
The next day, Morimoto Hoshi boarded a transport running import/export between New Kohana and Yamatai.
The dusk-skinned elf nodded slowly. "Good." Without another word, he turned and walked away.
Lenwe had given Nel permission to leave New Kohana to learn. She needed to experience life outside of Lenwe’s house and beyond the short time she had training with Nepleslian Intelligence. He also made her promise to return…an odd gesture on his part. Of course Nelew would return if he told her to. But he had insisted. He trusted her; she knew that. And, knowing him, she also knew that his trust was a rare commodity.
After all, whenever he left the compound, she went with him. To the world beyond the Godfather’s compound walls, she was the cloaked, “mysterious figure” who acted as Lenwe’s protector, the one who did his bidding, the one who made the elf’s arguments more…”convincing”. He relied on her consistency, and now he was sending her out. Something…”felt” strange to Nel, though. Like there was another reason for the mission.
Things had been different for Nel since the laboratory technician named Guiding Stars had brought the strange device to her. The case had information stored inside it that related to her, she had realized. Specifically, the system that was stored inside her and had created her. The device had details on how to maintain it, what it did, how it did it, even some basic templates on how to use it. It also had notes on the template for her body and improvements that the creator had hoped to make to it, including something referred to as “imprint templates”. After trying everything else to one extent or another while in her cell, Nel began analyzing the template notes.
When she was finished, she realized that her methods of processing information had changed. At first it had registered as a glitch. She could still access her normal modes, but the new ones seemed to take priority, and their results were unreliable. Nel had to force herself to run everything twice, once on reflex with the new modes, and again, consciously, with the old, methodical modes. After a bit, she realized that the new modes were not glitchy at all. They accelerated her ability to reach conclusions without sacrificing mental resources, enabled her to bypass inconsistencies and errors that used to make her freeze, and make connections between ideas and information that were simply not there before. The only issue was that the results of these new features just weren’t as reliable as those of the old modes.
At Nel’s request, Guiding Stars made further visits to the pale warrior’s cell and, despite still being terrified of the Colosseum champion, the Kohanian scientist did her best to explain how these new ways of thinking worked and how they were best used. To any other person, the difference between Nel’s new state of mind and her old ways of thinking was like a teenager learning to think as an adult…difficult and nearly incomprehensible, but likewise she could no longer process information on the merits of logic alone. She began to see links between events, people, places, and even ideas that were invisible to her before. A sort of intuition developed, making instant leaps to conclusions she would have spent milliseconds verifying before. This spawned innovation in her combat, with less rote repetition of movements and smoother transitions, something that showed during her last fight some months back.
Humanoid interactions were less strenuous for her now, and even rumors were now more than error-filled data packets. They sometimes had truth in them, and now she could begin to determine where those truths were. While she was out with Lenwe, Nel had heard things. As she passed by the captive combatants training for the Colosseum, people talked. They whispered about what was going on beyond New Kohana’s orbit, of wars and a spreading threat known as the “Mishhuvurthyar” or “NMX”. Before she had joined the IPG, Nel hadn’t paid any attention, but now she did. The threat had grown since she returned. Over the year, it became apparent that New Kohana now had some rather unsavory neighbors occupying the nearby systems.
Maybe this was why she was being sent out, to gather information on the new enemy and report back? Her thoughts mulled over this idea for a few moments before she stopped herself. This was inaccurate speculation, and she could not act on any inaccurate information until it was confirmed or refuted. As Lenwe walked away, she followed after him.
-----
So it was true, this was her mission. But, instead of immediately taking a shuttle to the nearest rumored Mishhu-held world, Lenwe insisted that Nel gather information from other places first.
It was easy to choose a destination; Nel would be avoiding any Nepleslian worlds. The IPG was not likely to be happy if Nel were discovered to be alive; from her time training with them, Nel knew they were as, if not more, obsessed with secrecy than Lenwe, and their intelligence network was certainly more extensive. That in mind, with the publicity she had in the Colosseum, if the IPG were watching then they already knew. Why hadn’t they acted, then? Maybe because Lenwe hadn’t pressed Nel for information about their operations. She hadn’t been privy to their networks, only their training practices. And, if the IPG had indeed investigated the elf and his bodyguard, then they hadn’t found anything threatening to Nepleslia. Barring any serious expansion, Lenwe was satisfied with his set-up on New Kohana. The planet had been good to him and his business.
Government grudges aside, Yamatai was also well-known for its art and culture; Nel would learn much there. But It also didn’t hurt that it was the closest non-DiON world, or that it was Lenwe’s homeworld, and he was able to acquire an identity for Nel through some of his old contacts. Those contacts also let him know that whatever he wanted to find out about the Mishhu was likely to be there. While New Kohana was, for the most part, keeping to itself, Yamatai seemed to be in the thick of the war…possibly in more ways than one. It would be the best place outside of a military intelligence agency to learn where the NMX were moving and where they might be headed.
The next day, Morimoto Hoshi boarded a transport running import/export between New Kohana and Yamatai.
