Raiden had already decided who was the right person to approach for information. On the one hand, over time, Hehlef had become more likeable. Her lessons were great and she was patient with him most of the time. And by now, Raiden knew Hehlef was more educated than Rehtu, and could probably give him more detailed answers. Maybe too many answers.
At the end of the day, Rehtu was selected to approach for two reasons: she was more friendly, and she was more likely to keep the conversation informal. Keeping it informal was Raiden’s key to prevent suspicion and unwanted questions.
Once he had a game plan ready…well, mostly ready…at least as ready as he could figure out...he would begin with Rehtu during their next round of PT.
Rehtu showed up with the usual greeting, “More light Raiden.”
“More light Rehtu. You going to torture me again today in PT?”
“Probably, you could use more of it.” She grinned with her typical bright style.
They had the standard casual conversation during breakfast and then as PT began Raiden dove in, “So how long have you been working here?”
“Hon, I’ve been here since you were a pup. Blinding lights, it must have been fifteen years already.”
He continued through the list of questions he had prepared in his head, “How do you like working here? What do you enjoy most? What are the biggest challenges?” On and on he went with his list of questions, and Rehtu began to open up more and more. Turns out, she could be a bit of a talker when she wanted to be.
By the end of the session with Rehtu, Raiden had learned enough from her answers to piece together a better picture of things: The place where they were keeping him as a fairly-well-treated captive patient, was indeed some sort of a hospital. But perhaps a very niche hospital. They had patients of all kinds: sick, injured, traumatized. What caught his attention was how some details were very much out of place for a regular hospital.
For starters, according to Rehtu, the place seemed to be only for private, exclusive clientele. “One of the toughest parts of this job is not being able to help everyone. Occasionally, someone in the area has a serious emergency and gets permission to come here for assistance. But because of that, others sometimes try to come here for less serious issues, and we have to turn them away. I really hate doing that because helping people is the whole reason I chose this job!”
If this place was exclusive, what am I doing here? Raiden wondered. Also strange was the fact that they healed broken bones, head trauma, lots of head trauma, and other serious injuries, but there was never talk about surgery of any kind. There was plenty of talk about elixirs and medicine, usually in the form of a liquid. Which no doubt would taste awful, Raiden concluded.
Even more strange were the details about a place Rehtu called the “rejuvenator room.” Not wanting to push his luck, he didn’t press when these odd details came up, he just let the conversation flow naturally. More to find out later - that list was still growing. He made good progress today, and it appeared without looking the least bit suspicious. He needed to think through the right questions he would ask next in order to learn more.
The following day during PT, Raiden was especially frustrated with his physical progress. He still couldn’t walk out of the room without his vision starting to go black, and for the past several days, he had been forced to slow down his ‘exercise’ to avoid passing out. Everything just felt very hard to lift or move. Even his clothes felt heavy on his body. That…was a very odd feeling. He was weak, super weak, and that was not changing very fast.
A part of him wondered if his weakness was one of the shortcomings his divine visitor had mentioned. Perhaps she knew his body would be weakened by whatever resurrected him? Perhaps his calling would be more of a leadership role or other means of influence through philosophy or the like?
For some time, this had all been weighing on him like the old lead blanket had. He had learned much from yesterday’s conversation, but it still left him with more questions. Consequently, the mounting stress added more weight to his physical frustration, and it showed today.
“I know you are disappointed about the progress of your physical conditioning,” Rehtu said, noticing his worried look. “Even though you clearly have been working hard. Like it or not we have just over two weeks left before the new Annual begins, and then you’ll just have to make the best of it.”
The what now? Raiden jolted internally. What ‘Annual’ starts in two weeks? Why is she talking as if I’ll be a part of it, and what does it have to do with my physical strength?
He knew the answers to these questions were important, but asking them could expose him. So Raiden refrained from asking until he could think through the right approach. Instead, he chose to find out how soon ‘two weeks’ would be; he still had no point of reference for what a day was, let alone two weeks.
Ultimately, his precaution proved to be in vain. Before he could ask his question, Rehtu continued, “I know we’re not supposed to delve into the personal lives of students, but may I ask which moon you’re from?”
Raiden had more questions now..Student? Why would she call me a student instead of a patient? More importantly, he knew that there was absolutely no way to answer ‘what moon’ he was from. Not without potentially sounding like this world’s biggest liar - outside of maybe their local politicians. Never doubt the ability of a politician to one up you on lying, he noted.
Nevertheless, Raiden was ready for this. During his planning he knew he might get asked questions he wasn’t ready to answer. So he had a contingency plan. A contingency plan he had thought through many times long before ever even coming to this world. On Earth he frequently attempted to escape his reality with books, especially fantasy novels.
Many times in those books, the characters had painted themselves into a corner by blindly making up answers to tough questions. Saying they were from another part of the world or from a country which they knew nothing about. What could go wrong there?
Others would create names of non-existent relatives, or just flat out make up some kind of personal background which had more holes than a sieve half rusted through. Dancing around the lies led to more lies, broken trust, and never ending trouble. Inevitably they would get caught in their lies.
Why?! Why try to create what you can’t back up?
This had always annoyed Raiden when there was a much more simple solution. And besides, Raiden didn’t want to live a life of lies. A life of omissions would be tough enough. Lying when it was convenient was a slippery slope. When he spoke, he wanted others to be able to trust him. Consequently, in response to her question about his home moon, he went with his contingency plan:
“To tell you the truth, Rehtu, I can’t answer that question.” True. “I don’t even know where I am or what I am doing here. Call it amnesia if you like, but I’ve been struggling so much just to recover, it hasn’t been important enough to bring up before now. And then there was the language barrier, which didn’t help. So I have to ask you, what is this place, and what is it I am supposed to be starting in two weeks?” All true comments, Raiden preened in his strategy.
Rehtu was silent in stunned shock. Her mouth had paused in the open position, and it didn’t appear that any air was going in or out. Painful silence ruled the moment, but Raiden resisted his urge to break the quiet by talking; instead, he let Rehtu have the time she needed to process his words. Rehtu’s mouth eventually closed and her ribs resumed expanding and contracting to force new air in and out. She took a moment to gather her thoughts.
“Blinding lights Raiden, that’s horrible!” she finally blurted out, “But…if you have amnesia, how did you know your name was Raiden?”
Eyes open wide in disbelief, now it was Raiden’s turn to sit in silent shock. Craaaaaap! he groaned within himself, All those years berating the folly of book characters making up stuff when they could have played the amnesia card, and I never for a moment considered the potential gaps in the amnesia plan. Here I thought I was smarter, and I can’t even handle the first question that comes out of her mouth. I’m an idiot!
Fearing his visual expression would look bad—too late—Raiden steeled himself and went with the first thing that came to mind: to emulate the look of a very confused man, a look of troubling bewilderment. It was an act easy to pull off as he truly was troubled, and bewildered, at trying to come up with an answer to something.
In hopes of shifting her suspicion he added, “You know… I’ve been wondering about that for as long as I’ve realized it.” Another truth, albeit regarding how to dig out of his hole, not why he knew his name. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to he thought.
“Perhaps it was being deep in a state of constant total isolation, and then finally being able to talk with someone? I really haven’t been able to figure that out yet.” A lie followed by a truth. Ok, now he’s only half a liar.
She mulled over his response for a short time while he sat quietly to avoid digging a deeper hole. Then she spoke cautiously, as if to convince herself, “There have been rare instances of head trauma after a long slide or extensive recovery in a rejuvenation device, which could explain it.”
‘Long slide?’ Do they have extreme playgrounds here or something? Raiden puzzled.
“Regardless,” Rehtu resumed, “if you truly have amnesia, there are important things you need to know. First of them, you are on the planet Erezth’or. This place is The Shrouded Academy of Light, located in the Primitive Wilds. This building is the Academy’s Vitality and Healing Center.”
Raiden couldn’t avoid furrowing his brows while she spoke. Is the academy shrouded or is it ‘of light?’ Geezo folks, pick one. “I’m Sorry, what are the Primitive Wilds?”
“All areas outside the ordered rule of an empire are known as wilds, and this academy is located in one of them. These wilds are called the Primitive Wilds for a few reasons. First, the class proficiency of most people here is more primitive, making it less dangerous.
Second, the communities are quite primitive too, with no major cities in the area. Ironically, this lack of wealth is what keeps more proficient threats away—why waste skills in an area with little to gain, right? So, the lack of wealth makes it safer in some ways.
Lastly, because of this Academy, which has been around for centuries and is famous for its program cultivating students through the Primitive proficiency.”
Raiden wanted to know what the ‘class proficiency’ was all about, but had a more pressing question. “So…you think I am here for the Academy?”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Oh, without a doubt.There’s nothing else here,” Rehtu quipped. “And besides, your arrival here gives it away. You came through our receptor, which can’t happen by accident. Only a certified recruiter can grant access. If you arrived here, they sent you.”
“What do you mean, I arrived through your receptor? What is a receptor?”
Surprised, Rehtu asked, “How can someone who traveled through a light slide not know what a receptor is? I know you have amnesia, but that’s still truly weird.”
“Lately, my life has been nothing but weird.” Then, dragging out the next word in a long low tone, Raiden said, “But…you know what’s more weird? I don’t know what a light slide is. What’s that?”
Rehtu’s confusion grew profoundly. “Um… really?” Raiden flashed an innocent smile as if to apologize, so she continued.
“Ok. Well…how should I put this? A light slide is what we call traveling by spiritual light. You enter a launcher, which pulls your spirit out of your body and uses the necessary amount of spiritual light energy to transport your spirit to a receptor at your destination. When available, the receptor directs your spirit to a nearby rejuvenator—don’t worry, I’m getting to it.” Rehtu added before Raiden could ask.
“The rejuvenator takes your spirit, provides physical matter, and creates a body around your spirit using coding from the spirit. That’s where I come in. My job is to care for regular patients and assist in the recovery of those who arrive from the slide and are rebuilt by the rejuvenator. I’ve been told I got this job because I’m great at welcoming newly arriving guests!” she shared with satisfaction.
It was now Raiden’s turn to be stunned into a loss of breath. They rip your spirit out of your body, send it on a beam of light, and print you a new body somewhere else? Ho-ly crap! And that happened to me! Well, the second part anyway. Permanent bragging rights on all my Trekkie fans, I got beamed down Scotty!
Raiden wasn’t entirely sure if it was a good idea to continue their conversation, but he was far too curious at this point to stop. “So, does every student travel here through the light slide?”
“Not at all. Most don’t, actually. As I mentioned, the Academy is in the Primitive Wilds, making it hard to reach. Most students travel here through conventional means, even if it takes a long time. Only a few are forced to use other methods due to overwhelming distance, difficult terrain, or being from another celestial body—like a moon, another planet in our solar system, or even a nearby system within the Spiritual Collective cluster.”
They have interplanetary travel, without spaceships? Medieval friggin’ space travelers, who knew?! Raiden was getting more questions than answers now. Okay Raiden, don’t get sidetracked.. “Tell me, what is the Spiritual Collective?”
“The Spiritual Collective is a group of solar systems that can reach each other via spiritual light travel. This doesn’t mean all of them do, just that they can. Many moons aren’t worth visiting, and landing on a gas planet would end badly. If a place is within the reachable zone, it’s part of the Spiritual Collective, which is a reference for a physical area. If they’re connected through slides, they’re part of the Spiritual Assembly, or just the ‘Assembly’ as most people say.”
“Why can’t all solar systems reach each other?”
“Finally, a question from you that isn’t weird. Good for you, Raiden,” she said, tapping his shoulder in congratulations. “To slide to another planet, you need to do two things: First, the launcher must lock onto the object’s spiritual center and select a fixed location on the surface where the receptor is, relative to the center. This ensures you slide to the same spot regardless of the planet’s orbit and rotation. If the planet is too far to lock onto its spiritual center, travel is impossible.
“Second, even if you can lock onto a planet’s spiritual center, some planets are just too far to reach. Traveling extreme distances through space causes spiritual light distortion, so the further you go, the more spirit energy you need. Eventually, the amount needed exceeds what we can store. It’s something about the diminishing return of light concentration, according to scientists.
“Then there are veiled planets. They are close enough for the energy to get you there, but you can’t lock onto their spiritual centers. No one wants to go there anyway. Frightening places, those veiled planets. Some Travel Masters say every collection of systems, like our Spiritual Collective, has at least one veiled planet, making ours strange but not unique. Some cultists disagree, but all agree that veiled planets are dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.”
In an effort to keep her on track, Raiden interrupted, “So, if a light slide removes your body on the way out, how do you add new planets and moons to the assembly without a receptor and rejuvenator already there to land at?”
Rehtu impossibly brightened up even more than usual, “Oh, you asked the right person that one! I know about this because my sister’s husband’s brother, Lefri, is a slider, and he never stops talking about it at family gatherings.
“When new celestial objects are discovered within our Spiritual Collective, and if they are suitable for travel, they are targeted with a special one-directional slide. Once locked on, they send a specially trained expert called a ‘slider’ to create a receptor at the new location. This is extremely dangerous, as many things can go wrong—at least, that’s what Lefri says. Though, he is quite braggadocious and can’t be completely trusted.”
“Yeah, I know a few of those.”
By now, Rehtu was finished with her PT and was comfortably sitting on the side of Raiden’s bed. She leaned in to continue,“Now, the slider needs a specially trained form of magic to set up the receptor, because when they arrive, they don’t have a body yet, it’s just their spirit. Once that’s done, a special device is sent by light, which arrives and, even though it’s still just spiritual light, it runs a one-time spell to build a rejuvenator.”
Magic? They have magic here?! This is getting good, Raiden grinned to himself.
“Once the rejuvenator is built, it’s easy: send someone down the slide to the rejuvenator, which is manned by the slider, to get a body. Next, send the parts for a launcher, which are also built in the rejuvenator. Once the launcher is set up, there’s now two-way travel. Boom, a new member of the Assembly in the Spiritual Collective is connected.
“Now, just so you know, there hasn’t been a new habitable planet connected for centuries. Most new locations that sliders connect nowadays are places of interest for research: moons, comets, other smaller objects. Nothing I would call exciting, but don’t let Lefri hear you say that—he’d give you an earful,” Rehtu half whispered. “I think they just do it so they don’t lose their craft over time.”
Raiden’s imagination of seeing non-humans grew. “That is wild. With all these other places in the Assembly, how many students at the Academy are from another planet or moon?”
“In your cohort, about 1 in 10 students are from off-world. You’re the only one this year from a moon, which is why you’re the only student in the healing center right now.”
There she goes with the moon again. “Why so few?”
“Sliding from one location to another requires a significant amount of spiritual light energy, making it incredibly expensive. The further you travel, the higher the cost. As a result, only the wealthy typically afford it, especially to send their children to an academy. The rest rely on local academies, which don’t always yield the same results,” Rehtu added with sympathy.
Seeking further understanding Raiden continued, “Why don’t people who live on this planet use the slider when traveling? The distance from here to the other side of the planet has to be a tiny fraction of the distance of traveling to even the closest moon. Wouldn’t that make it cheap enough for those here to use it?”
“Even though traveling between locations within the same world is shorter than traveling between planets, it’s still quite expensive due to significant spiritual distortion in the atmosphere. And many debate whether you’re traveling through the planet or around it. In contrast, traveling through space has less distortion, allowing you to go much further for the same amount of energy, similar to how physical light behaves when looking at moons versus across the horizon.”
Raiden’s eyes popped, “Wait, did you say ‘moons,’ as in plural?”
“Yeah, there are three of them here,” Rehtu commented casually. “Anyway, there’s always a cost for the launcher to extract your spirit and even more for the rejuvenator to rebuild your body. These costs remain the same regardless of the distance. Another factor is that some people just don’t like the idea of traveling this way, even if they can afford it—it spooks them. And to be fair, there’s always a risk of something going wrong, like your amnesia.”
“Huh...Ok, so why do you think I’m from a moon?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” she chuckled. “When you arrived in the chamber, it was clear you had very low muscle and bone density. The rejuvenation chambers provide us with these details so we know how to treat new arrivals. Since your body was formed from the code stored in your spirit, it means your original body had the same conditions. This only happens if someone grew up in a very low gravity location.
“Your condition was worse than most who live on our moons, so I figured you were from another moon in the system or elsewhere in the Assembly. Most who grew up on our moons, that can afford to come here, have some gravity training and conditioning before arriving. Also, most who come from major planets or nearby moons can speak the language of the assembled planets.”
The world began clicking into place. The room at his first awakening was a rejuvenation chamber. They didn’t question his strange arrival because he arrived in the same strange way some other students arrive. And he wasn’t weak because of his ‘recovery’, he was just plain weak for this planet! This explained why gaining strength took so long, he was not working to recover, he was working to add new strength.
Given the strain of moving around here, this planet has to be considerably larger than Earth. The gravity is probably at least twice that of Earth, which also explains why even my thin clothes feel oddly heavy. Speaking of which, “So what was up with that heavy blanket?”
“Oh, that?” she asked, then continued, “With your low strength and bone density, if we don’t hold you down, you might slip off the bed and break several bones, or even split your head. That would be an awful way to start the day, right? The blanket is heavy, though most of us can lift it easily enough, but not you.”
“So did you remove the blanket when I had enough physical therapy to move more safely?” Raiden suggested.
“Oh, sweetie, you forget I didn’t start your PT until after removing the blanket. Even now, I worry you might fall flat on your face at any moment, maybe just from sitting up too quickly! Remember that white drink you had every time you woke up? We lifted the blanket after you had enough bone density treatments to protect you from breaking everything when you did fall. Good thing, too, because you’ve fallen plenty already—you’re actually ahead of schedule on falling! But don’t feel bad, we expect you to fall a lot. It’s one thing to gain the strength to move around, and another to learn to keep your balance.”
That answered more of his questions. The frigging horror milk really was just some awful medicine! I suppose that makes sense, medicine is supposed to taste horrible, especially from the old-timey days. And then it occurred to Raiden, That means there’s still a chance of finding actual milk here that is worth drinking. Hallelujah!
Raiden also realized that the open wall in his room could have been designed to help him with the language, by exposing him to others speaking it. He supposed, being locked alone in a room wouldn’t have helped much, very clever.
Rhetu got up and prepared to leave the room. “And the dark yellow vial on the first day, what did it do?” he asked.
“Oh, that was a specific brain modifier! It activates special parts of the brain used for mastering language. No idea why it’s turned off for everyone by default, I mean, if it’s there already, why not work? Your brain has it, but the language elixir turns it on. Most people in the Assembly took the elixir centuries ago, and everyone inherits that now from their parents. But there are still many places with people who never got it.
“When someone is found without it, they usually are given the elixir, even if they can speak the language, primarily for the same reason everyone in the assembly took it in the first place: to keep our language from evolving, diverging apart everywhere in the Assembly. On a dare, I tasted it once as an adult, and honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the shock of how awful it tastes jolted your brain enough to turn it on. Nasty stuff!”
“So it doesn’t teach you the language, it just boosts your ability to learn it yourself?”
“You got it! How on earth would a liquid teach you a language, anyway? Blinding lights boy, sometimes, you really say the weirdest things,” she said with a playful grin as she left the room.
At that, Raiden was reminded of a comment from the Divine messenger before he came here: ‘To grow stronger, it is through your own efforts that you must seek it..true self worth is never given freely; it is earned through your own dedication and perseverance.’
Rehtu had unloaded a ton of new information that morning, and Raiden’s brain was reeling to absorb it all, much of which posed more questions than answers. It had been like drinking from a fire hose and Raiden didn’t want to overdo it with any more questions. The most urgent questions were answered, and that was plenty enough to digest for now. He was new to the planet and they were okay with it. They assumed he was from some small moon, and he didn’t have to lie about where it was because of his amnesia. Win-win.
Raiden’s burden of stress lifted. Everything had been set up for him. I really should have trusted that angel, or whatever she was, that she would set me up for success. And he almost couldn’t contain his excitement about the many cool things in this new world. The thrill of magic being a thing here, and space travel? How awesome is that! Still, with so much to absorb and reflect on, he would have a hard time trying to focus during his daily lesson.
In an effort to give his mind time to recover, he began to walk to the window and back, without hand holds, so he could pass out in bed and skip the day’s lesson. As he walked he considered how effective that trick was. Even more frightening to him was that he had done it enough to no longer be afraid to use it. And then he was out, fortunately landing on the bed. . . this time.
