Chapter 8 - Getting Work

I was not sure whether to go into Domus or not. I was pretty proud of what I had done, and I wanted to just have some normal rest as well. But as soon as I thought about all the people that were going to be competing to give value to the alliance, I realized I didn't have much of a choice. 

I sat up from my bed in the Outpost, and even before my eyes could adjust I saw the tall bald man from yesterday looking inside what seemed to be my closet. "Looking for something?" I asked him. He didn't seem the least bit bothered that I had 'caught' him by the way he calmly turned around before saying, "Your trident; Raven told me about it last night and I'm quite intrigued." 

I haven't told you much about how he looked so I will now. He was a very skinny man, not much meat to his bones at all. The military uniform covered every bit of his skin not showing even an inch other than his face. Even his hands were bound by tight silk gloves, whose grey matched that of his uniform. He had an almost perfect face, you know the type that models have. Sharp jawline, a slender strong nose and thin eyebrows. All this complimented by his snake like yellow eyes. Keeping with his snake nature -from what I saw at least- it seemed that his tongue was much longer than ordinary and was split down the middle separating into two halves. This must have been his mutation, like the other ones I had seen on the street. This was my first time seeing one up close, so it surprised me how low key they could be. They had no real effect on how he looked otherwise, didn't seem to affect his nature either. It felt like it was just an addition to him as a human and not something that fundamentally changed his species. It was this strange man that had spoken.

Well at least he's honest. I stood up, rubbed my eyes and told him, "You could have just asked you know." Then I summoned the trident in my hands, and there it was again, casting a shadow as dark as itself onto the floor. He did seem genuinely intrigued. He walked up to it and closely examined it while it was still in my hand. Gesturing his hand forward he asked "Can I?" Seeing no problem in letting him hold it, I handed him the weapon. At this point, he sat down, and pulled out a notebook and a set of instruments that included a small blade, a rock looking object, a lens like cylinder, and finally a small sheath of some sort. "Well I had no idea you were gonna put it under inspection. Is that military order?" He was looking through the lens cylinder after laying down all his other tools while saying "Nope, just a personal hobby." I nodded and as I did he got working. He first started with the lens as he closely inspected the bladed prongs and the handle of the trident. He put away the lens and noted some things down. Then he did a similar process for the knife using it to scratch and prod at the surface of the weapon. The same went for the rock which he used the trident to scratch. Then finally he put the small sheath on top of one of the prongs, to which the sheath reacted by changing its shape and adjusting to the blade of the prong. If I had to guess, he probably had an art or attribute that allowed him to summon these tools and use them to study the properties of a weapon. 

That seemed like a really useful ability for the military. It was no wonder he was a part of the army. The entire process was done in about five minutes, mostly since he worked so efficiently. From the look of it, he seemed impressed. This observation would be quickly affirmed by what he would say next - "This is quite an impressive weapon. It ranks well on all the scales while still managing to not be overcomplicated in design. Its sharpness is definitely one of the best I've seen. For a beginner weapon, its a great start. Make sure to use it well." He then handed the trident back to me. I looked down at the weapon, looked back at him and said ,"Anything interesting you notice?" He shook his head in a denying manner and said "Other than its quality, no. It seems like a normal enough weapon if you look beyond the materials used." I nodded before realizing that there was something important that I needed to know about this person. 

"So, what's your name?" Remembering how poetic names were in this world I hoped he would too. "Oh, my apologies, I should have mentioned earlier. My names Jeff." I must have gone and jinxed myself cause that was the most basic name someone could have. "It's nice to finally know your name. I'd appreciate some privacy now though I still have to shower." He simple nodded his head respectfully and said, "Thank you for allowing me to explore my hobby." Then he snapped his fingers, which made all the tools he used disappear instantly. He left the room shortly after. 

Now that I had the room to myself, I headed into the bathroom and had a shower. I was not sure whether my body actually needed this but I still made sure to do so. It did help me feel more fresh so no harm done. I had never eaten in this world so I had no idea what the cuisine was like. To test it out I headed down to the cafeteria area in the main floor -the place which I had entered on my first day - where there was a row of tables with food served on them, almost like a buffet. 

When I reached there, I noticed some staff that I had noticed cleaning and cooking eating food on some of the tables. I walked up to the buffet table, got myself some bread and fruit and sat down alone at a table. Other than the bread and fruits, there was some meat on the table along with something that looked like a desert cake almost. The fruit were quite exotic in my eyes. Bright colours and interesting textures were a great part of the experience of eating the fruit. Among others, on one side of the plate was a fruit that looked like a purple banana that had the texture of a cheesecake and tasted like oranges. The other side had a strange black fruit that had spikes poking out of it. When I got through the outer layer and peeled it away using the knife I finally had access to the insides that practically spilled out almost like a juice. The bread, other than being slightly sweeter, was the same. Still it was a nice meal given that it was free. 

I put the plate down on the sink that was nearby, and left on my way outside. I wanted to talk to Cathryn as well since I wanted to get more training in, and also needed to know what I needed to do as a job. I left the bright café area and looked around for Cathryn on the main floor. Around 5 minutes later, I saw her talking to someone also wearing a military uniform. I didn't want to disturb their conversation so I hung around for a minute watching some popular people on YouTube who used tridents to see how they fought. Actually in last years tournament, there was a popular trident user who made it to the quarter-finals. His name was Rellorz.

The interesting thing about him, was how unexpected his fighting style was. Even though he had a melee weapon, a quite a lot of his attacks were ranged. It looked like his art was to control the direction his trident was traveling in after he threw it. So often, he would keep a strong range while using his trident to attack from a distance. Sometimes, he would close the distance and fight using a smaller sword, and have his trident effectively act on its own to support his assault. Other times he would use his innate reflexes to control the trident to shield him. Watching him was a thrill and he seemed really strong. That's why it was hard for me to imagine that this strong of a person only made it to the quarter-finals. That meant that there were at least 16 people as strong as him. Looks like I had some strong competition. 

5 or so minutes later, I saw that she was done talking with the employee who had gone off somewhere and she was standing unoccupied looking through the window. 

I walked out of the corner, up to the window and next to her before saying "Hey, I know I've kinda been slacking off. Is there anything I can do to help around, at least while I'm training to join the war?" You see, the thing about Cathryn is her voice is authoritative without her needing to be loud, so I wasn't scared of her being unreasonable. What I was worried about was getting a job that I would have to put a large time commitment to since I wasn't going to be in this world all the time. Luckily the job I would get was nothing of the sort. 

"You're not expected to do anything other than train but, you can help out in the tech section if you have knowledge of science." That sounded cool, though I really didn't have any idea how the science in this world worked, I was sure I could help run some errands. "I don't have much knowledge but I could help run errands for them and let them focus on their work more, would that be okay?" She thought about it for a while before answering, "I don't see a problem with it, you still do have to check with the science department though. They're in the room opposite the training centre. I'm sure you have already met Jeff so make sure to talk to him about it, he's the current lead for science." I thanked her for her help before climbing down the stairs for the basement. 

It was nice to know that someone I had already met leading the science team and it wouldn't be awkward when I approached them with a mediocre knowledge of science. But I had to try, I felt useless not being able to do anything while everyone else was fighting a war. In the last few days, I had barely talked to anyone other than my parents who I had run away from. I needed someone to talk to. 

Opening the door opposite to the training centre -which had the sign "R and D centre" - above it. Inside was a completely different world. The rest of the military outpost was completely inconspicuous, meant not to draw attention. Here it felt like it was meant to draw as much attention as possible. The sounds, the look and even the smell of the room was intriguing. 

Most of the room was filled with steel coloured machines working away. But every now and then I would see a flash of bright colour. Among all the steel, the bright flashes were like the 'Holi' festival that I used to celebrate back home. This Willly Wonka view was accompanied by a chaotic cacophonous group of noises. It was actually quite annoying so I covered my ears with my hands as I walked in. Right as I did, a gas from above the door came down quite fast. By the smell that resembled alcohol, it was probably the disinfectant needed to conduct experiments. It was great practice to do that actually. Inside, it was a maze of steel machines, glass apparatus and big chemical bottles. As I walked forward through the maze trying to find someone, I would see a plant kept in a box and every now and then an animal in a glass box eating out of its food bowl. The plant was quite normal but the animal was like the combination of a dog and a snake. It had the structure of a dog, but had no fur and the skin of a snake. I guess it made sense that there would be some studies of biology going on in here as well. 

After walking forward and going to the left a bit, I saw someone using a machine. He put in a spherical capsule filled with a black liquid and put it into a small rectangle device. The rectangle device made a whirring noise for a couple seconds, before a small amount of bright red steam came out of the device. He opened the machine and got out the spherical flask which was now shining brightly with a blue colour. He then took the device and set it aside in a storage area. I walked up to the man after he was done with his work and started to say "Hey! I'm Amitav, a new recruit, I wanted to help around in the lab while I'm training to join the war. Is there anything I could do?" The man looked away from the desk first almost inspecting me as a prospect before saying. "Well, we don't have anything skilled for you to do, you'll only have menial jobs like cleaning equipment and using the less important machines. Jeff just doesn't trust that many people with handling the more important stuff." I smiled before saying "That's quite alright, I'm not looking to do anything technical, I just want to be useful while I train." He seemed genuine when he said "Thank you, its nice to know you're willing to give time to science. You can get started with doing what I was just doing right now. Go grab some gloves from that counter over there." 

I went and grabbed the gloves, and started to do the same process he had done with 20 or so of those spheres. It was somewhat interesting work, since it was always interesting to see what happened each time. Meanwhile, the scientist had left to go work elsewhere. By the time I was done, I looked at the time and saw that 3 hours had passed since I had entered Domus, so I decided that it was time to go back to the real world since a meal was about to be served in the flight.I headed back to my room and hit the bed.