Aeon Nether & Idol Effigy

Chapter 64- Checked

Eyes followed me as I cleaned and all I could do was act belligerently in the face of it all.

I was unnecessarily aware how silly they were to worry about me. It's been a while since I was in pain, but I wasn't numb to it at all. In fact I hated pain with every molecule of my being. Sure, I withstood the previous pain I was in, but since it was constant and started out that way since I was born into this life... It- I'd just call it as it was, the pain had gotten to feel good-ish. It was similar to the feeling of the injuries you'd get or suffer from, but felt like you miss them once they heal or get sorted out. It was like that for me for a while. Not all the time. Just stopped recently and my previous pain reception that would make me cry at every little thing has come back from my previous world's body only slightly.

The only thing that sucked more was the now watchful eyes in the room who thought something was wrong with me. Honestly, I was concentrating so much that I didn't realise or feel that I was bleeding. Huh. I suppose in some ways it is strange that I didn't cry again. Normally I'd cry if someone made me feel like I should be crying.

My mind was preoccupied as I kept cleaning the used materials and dishes in one of the classroom sinks. Worried as I was that I was going to have to interact with moths in the real world with the lights on in the class and the windows open in an inviting gesture to all the insects in the now darkening skies.

"Everything seems to be okay?" The doctor's tone was questionable as she checked me.

I was still partially over a sink that someone had now taken over to wash everything. Moving on, I saw various people cleaning the floors and tables. The cleaning seemed to be finishing with the smell only slightly diminishing from the room. The windows were hardly helping with the dispersal of smells. Keynote being that the windows were helping. A winning reason to keep the windows open regardless.

Shaking off the doctor and worried looks, I helped put everything into order to observe the options first interaction with the dolls. Reviews were going to be written for all nineteen people in everyone's essays on how they should improve their options. In a way it was understandable why people only continued to give me a look after the cleaning was over and didn't come over to talk to me or eachother.

With a sober mood clinging to the air we all sat down the seats with desks all moved back into their proper positions, albeit it being a lot closer to the observed options. First up was the first choice that would start from the descending order that it was finished in.

Barely keeping up with everyone else I was nervous about my options and dolls. The dolls so far seemed strange, they all had different levels of expertise and survival. A few had 'faulty' dolls that no one talked about, because they were quickly replaced once they tried to run out of the built shelters to kill themselves.

Mine was the sixth one in the dark and light woods. Sir Eustace paused whilst standing over mine. The dolls took a solid minute to pick which group of four would go into my shelter. Eventually a group of four male teen dolls were picked with one of them looking like they were an adult. They were delicately placed using the same small cage previously used to lower them down into the options.

The cage aimed to place them in my shelter, within the light hexahedron. Originally they were all spread out to the corners of the cage, but they had to converge into the middle of the cage when the light fence I'd made produced sparks on the edges of the cage. Once they arrived at my shelter they immediately went in to check it out and stayed there for a while. The shelter had windows, but with the first storm coming they seemed to be making sure that the windows were closed as they all huddled inside the shelter. Ten minutes passed and my shelter wasn't even touched by the acid rain.

Sir Eustace moved onto the next option, but my face kept on staring at the people in my option. The dolls had come out of the shelter after checking everything inside. They seemed to be all following to find where I got all the water from until they found where I'd distilled the water from and seemed to double check that it was safe. They also placed some things to warn them later on if there was a problem with the water.

It seemed that they were overjoyed when they found the stack of wood and various excess materials I'd placed in an additional smaller warehouse or shed-like shelter. Alongside wood, I'd placed things like the leather I'd made and used a dark gem to keep the meat cool. Sadly, it seemed like the dolls didn't want to eat the meat I'd stored for them and chose to use it as bait on a hunting trip after they made weapons from additional materials I'd left.

Something about the way that they didn't trust my shelter, water, meats or weapon's rubbed me the wrong way. I mean I'm not the best at this class, but I was above average. Sure, the option I picked was out of my range or it should have been, but I picked it correctly to play to my strengths. I just hoped these dolls weren't idiotic enough to do something stupid whilst hunting and die that way. They don't replace dolls like that. I guess only ones that showed clear suicidal tendencies were replaced. It was a good thing that I'd still pass, as long as my shelters were alright. Just sucks that I may not get as high a grade for it as I wanted.

My eyes eventually moved into the other options to write more detailed notes and observations on their shelters. We took a break for another hour after the last initial notes were written for the last finished option one. Then we ate in silence, all hoping that the dolls will pass their own survival tests, so we'll score higher with our shelters.

On a happier note, all of the shelter's didn't need any fixing after the initial weather cycle.

After the hour break was up, another round of weather cycles continued. My dolls didn't seem to care much, but a few stood up suddenly when the cycle started. They didn't seem to have noticed another weather cycle had begun. Well, not all of them didn't notice it. Two of them clearly did, but put faith in the canopy.

This time the weather would continue for a while, until we came back to the shelters after watching our other options.

Option two followed a similar pattern. It seemed like the other fast students didn't care as much about the option as I did, but they all passed the initial weather cycle. I noticed this time that a few were in need of the dolls repairing them in a hectic manner. Mine seem fine. I was just slightly worried about how the dolls would survive in the desert. I found some water, but I don't know when the well would dry out. I also didn't know how to prepare an scorpion like monster meat and was unsure about whether it was rotten now. I'd tried to make a sand fridge, thinking that the layers of sand would get colder the deeper down where the box I made of carapace was placed.

Option three was more complicated. They were all good, but when the second long-term cycles came some of the dolls chose to try to move the shelter away from the coast as quickly as possible or decided to scrap the shelter and move deeper into the ocean. It was surprising that they reacted like that. All of us kept a decent distance away from the shore. I'd made mine fairly deep trying to concentrate on giving the dolls in my shelter some oxygen options. I was one of the nine that hadn't gotten the dolls to leave during or before the undersea continuous weather cycle.

Sir Eustace stood up again, "Sadly, we need to discuss our initial notes before we continue our observations tomorrow after a good night of sleep. Let's start with the initial notes in the order we just did, but opening them up for all the options per person. Let's start with Dale..."

"I thought my second option needs a lot of work, because I didn't put as much time or effort as I should have into it. I'm unsure whether that one will last after the first continuous cycle even with the help of the dolls. My third option wasn't deep enough into the ocean and I wish I'd assessed the environment more. In addition to making more practical shelter designs. My first option was better than I'd initially thought, but it feels very standard. Between my mind not being able to think properly during the process to make a build more closer to what I could design rather than a set of regulation guidelines would have been better for me." Dale quickly explained nervously.

Sir Eustace started deconstructing everything about his options, shelters and material choices. Stating that he wasn't adventurous enough and since he got the second option shelter to build based on some of his weaknesses he should have paid more attention to it. The third option was excusable, but he'd felt like it was too decorative, a feeling that he was just consuming time rather than giving his all to actually think properly in the examination environment that we had.