The Core: The First Guest

49. Queen to Rook 5

"So... I guess it has been a super long time since you last saw me?" I asked, curious as to how she still acted so childlike.

"Yeah... a couple of years. But I still love to sky fall. My mom has let me visit a few planets in VR to try it inside and she says that Dad is saving so that I can have a physical body to try it in real life." She said with a wistful sound in her voice. It was hard to tell expressions on a Gurn since only their mouth, nose, and eyestalks extended beyond their fluffy coat.

"Oh?" I asked when a little idea popped into my head. "Well, can you have your mom look into a little planet called Earth and a sport called Sky Diving? I think you will find that what I did is not as good as what they can teach you how to do there." I said as I imagined her taking the form of a teen and being excited to be the first one to jump out of the plane. Might freak her instructors out.

"Just don't forget to pretend that things can hurt you and to pull the cord well before you touch the ground," I added when I saw that I had her full focus on me.

"Earth, Sky Diving, got it!" She said with a cheerful voice.

My cr had finally made its way down to scrubbing my legs off and I was already feeling so much cleaner than before.

"So, when you say a couple of years, do you mean in VR?" I asked when the inconsistency began to bother me.

"Yup."

"Why is that? I have been outside of VR for a while, I got tied up in something." I asked.

"Well, you see..." She said as she started to walk slowly through the muck, I noticed that her cr kept cleaning her fluff off as she took each step. Why hadn't the other players done the same as well?

"My mom believes in the old way that you have to spend real time in reality, experiencing things in different places, and learning how the universe works to grow up. Cavii doesn't listen to her parents and she tries to play as much as she can. Anyways, mom says that the scientists who created the Personal Live Matrix for the Tela designed it in such a way as to require real-time for the younglings to "Mature or Level Up" to various stages of development. Cavii is a lot younger than me now, I have almost reached the next level." She said before she seemed to get pensive. I glanced out of the side of the mound, wondering if she had seen anything. This side of the mound sported a sheer drop-off and not a path upwards like the part that I had seen before.

"I need to go. Cavii is very angry with you." She said before she turned towards me, her little eyes looking up at mine.

"Ha, well, she might get to beat me another time," I said as I reached out and patted the little cotton candy hair.

"No, you don't understand. Please, Kevin... you have to beat her as many times as you can. Every time she wins she just gets worse. I think it has something to do with the race she plays... it is bad." She said as she started to hover a little above the tunnel floor. I looked closer and found that she was using her cr on her feet to lift herself.

"You need to run, her groups are on their way here. I need to get back to another team. Also, thanks for the advice! I will be sure to tell my mom!" She said before she stepped out from the ledge and sailed down the side of the mound to disappear into another opening.

Why did I feel like something was wrong? I looked around quickly. I hadn't heard anything or seen anything so what was with this strange feeling? I had learned a bunch from that first encounter with Cavii's team, they used everyday stuff to work around the native's spear throwing and the Fomys teeth projectiles. What I hadn't seen was how they attacked with cr. The odd thing was, they hadn't even used cr to do anything while they had been in my sight. Sela cleaning her feet was the first indication that they even had any to use.