Ortai Legacy: Arrival

9.2 - Arka Shortage (L)

Mar'kost leaned forward to take my hand and gingerly squeezed it. "I know you don't trust my motives, but can't you fathom that I might want you to be happy?"

"I can." Of course I could; but understanding the concept didn't mean I fully believed it—or at least, it was difficult to believe that he was invested in my happiness without ulterior motives. "Let me get this straight, you-" It was hard just to say the words. I felt unbelievably naive for asking him a question that he would undoubtedly say 'yes' to, if only to appease me. "-you like me?"

"Yes." His lips twitched into a faint smile. "We established that."

"I mean, even if I were all human and I didn't have any magical powers or telepathic bond with you, you'd still like me?"

He hesitated. "If you became human and lost your magical abilities now, I would still like you. However, we never would've met without magical interference, so I can't truthfully say 'yes' to your original question."

"Makes sense." I sent a mental tendril out to probe the veracity of his reaction. He'd never seemed to have much trouble reading my surface thoughts when I was distracted, but all I got when I poked his mind was chaotic static. Focusing with all my might caused the 'static' to become a chorus of overlapping thoughts—all in Mar'kost's voice. Wincing, I retracted my mind.

"Are you alright?"

I narrowly resisted the urge to scowl. "What's it sound like when you read my mind?"

Head cocked, he stared off into space. "Why do you- oh, you couldn't make sense of my thoughts. It isn't surprising. I've heard non-shifters can only think about one thing at a time, but I didn't fully understand it until I met you. It's fascinating that you can manage all your limbs with only one core. You can even walk, think, and talk at the same time."

"Yeah..." He'd mentioned the basics of shifter anatomy before, but his description was more reminiscent of a single-celled organism with easily replicable organelles than a multi-brained octopus. Maybe the organelles included a handful of brains. It wouldn't surprise me at this point. "So you can consciously think about different things at the same time?"

He nodded.

That basically meant I had no way to verify his honesty besides waiting and watching for who knew how long. It wasn't something I particularly wanted to think about, but it was hard to curb my curiosity. "What're you thinking about right now?"

"Your question, winning the exploration rights, drykon sapience, and dungeon clearing strategies."

"So you're basically a genius."

He blinked. "No?"

"You literally have multiple brains."

"They're all significantly less complex than the average Sapient's. Only four of them are capable of conscious thought. The rest primarily manage biological functions and memory."

I didn't want to know how people had figured all that out without an MRI, but I had a feeling it involved vivisection. "I don't know if you can call them 'significantly' less complex if they can still think. It's not like you could divide a human brain into different parts and expect each part to have a stream of consciousness." At least, I was pretty sure you couldn't. There was no ethical way to test it, anyway.

"Perhaps, but I doubt I would do any better on an intelligence test than the average human."

I vaguely remembered Intelligence being one of the Stats measured by the Interface. [Hey, Weylan, what's my Intelligence Stat?]

[76]

[And what's Mar'kost's?]

[84.]

I gave Mar'kost a look. "What were you saying?"