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Many Worlds Chapter 59
It didn’t really take long to figure out the new interface that Herbert helped them reach. There were a few false starts, but that was to be expected for an alien language. Fortunately, their minds weren’t too alien, only their letters and sounds. They still thought somewhat like humans. Thus, Robert took a few tries, before realizing that touching the characters on the screen would play the sound associated with them. Fortunately, it wasn’t like English where the characters had a name as well as the sound they actually made. That made the whole process easier. Professor Merkot started an audio recording, partly in case they were unable to get back to this interface for some reason. He also included a similar associative diagram arranged in the same way as the characters on the screen.
About an hour was spent listening to the sounds and trying to associate them to the character, as well as to pronounce them. Fortunately they seemed like they could be pronounced by human (and Uesmethi) tongues. The most important thing though was understanding, but since they didn’t have any words yet, just characters, they didn’t have anything to try to understand just yet.
After some time spent on that, people had various understandings of how the sounds worked, but it was decided they would move one. There was a button off by itself which matched the word they thought was “more” or “continue”, and so they had avoided pushing it in case they could not get back easily. Though it should be possible, they might get into a state that wasn’t technically impossible to get out of, but which they couldn’t figure out. Jules doubted Herbert would provide any more help.
As they pressed continue, it turned out to be exactly what they needed. A program for children. Or at least, it seemed that way. It was in the same style as things such as children’s books on Earth, at least. It started off with single words, presumably nouns, since there was always an image on the screen. The voice would pronounce the name of the object, or animal. Unfortunately, some of these things weren’t exactly recognizable, especially the animals. However, what followed would be another screen with the same thing doing something, or having something done to it. A verb and a noun. Fortunately, the actions were fully animated, either from recordings or realistic looking computer graphics, and also with sound if it was helpful. Otherwise they might have had to interpret drawings, which could be complicated. Drawings had many conventions that weren’t necessarily obviously connected to what they were trying to convey. Speed lines could indicate movement, but that wasn’t always the case- they could just be lines.
Over time, everyone made some progress with their understanding. Jules did too, but he missed the enhanced learning ability. It was so easy to learn a language with the help of the system. He wondered if there were some other way to achieve that effect, but he didn’t know what it would be. Then, after some time, Professor Merkot put away his datapad. “This is fascinating. I surely must come back, but I must go inform some of my contacts about what we have discovered. Could you escort me back to town?”
| Quest complete!
Investigate the mysterious structure and the language it contains! You have gained experience! |
Jules was surprised at that. Herbert obviously didn’t want to be involved in the situation, yet they still received quest experience. Jules was certain that Herbert had some kind of control, if not total control over that system, so getting rewarded for a quest seemed incongruous. Jules also noticed he didn’t receive enough for a level, but that made sense. Robin leveled up, but she was low level, unlike Jules and the rest.
—–
Over the next few days people flooded to the structures nearer to the cities. This included both adventurers and native Uesmethi. Though it couldn’t be said that the cities were all perfectly settled down after the landshift, most people who came wouldn’t have any use for the reconstruction efforts, since they were scholars and linguists. Nobody had known about these structures before they appeared. Now, they appeared all at once. Was it a coincidence? Nobody was sure. The structures had various parts unburied. Some of them were in the sides of mountains, and only showed some of the bottom. Various operations were launched to dig or mine the structures out. Since the only known entrances were apparently near the top, they generally started there. However, people soon found that formula was not true across all of the structures.
The strangest thing was that the structures could only be opened by adventurers. They had to place their hands on the walls in just the right way, and in the right place… and doors would open. Uesmethi natives didn’t seem to be able to do anything to open them, however almost everything looked fine inside.
Outside of Many Worlds, some linguists on Earth also took to studying the language, because they found it rather interesting. Some of them paid high prices to purchase wristbands, but those were just the impatient ones. The information would come out of the “game”, and more importantly… new wristbands were being introduced to the market. After the initial release of about three million, it had taken a month for the next batch of wristbands of similar quantity. However, the next group would be coming in two weeks, and it seemed like the batch after that might have even more in the same time frame. Thus, some people were willing to wait. However, with 15 billion people, not everyone could experience the game, even at such seemingly crazy rate of production. Though, perhaps not even 1 billion people might have actually been interested in the game.
—–
Isaac, Douglas, Robert, and Jules planned a trip further away from the safe zones of the city. The closer structures were being managed by the Uesmethi, which was reasonable considering this was their planet. However, this also meant that even though Jules and his friends could enter almost as they pleased, at least the facility they helped discover and open, there was still only so much time they could have. They didn’t have to be at the facility to view the tutorials, either, since Professor Merkot gave them access to the video files he had gathered and continued to gather. They would be public available at some point as well. Because of that, they didn’t need to stay at the facility, and wouldn’t really be able to do much. Thus, they decided to venture to a further one, which would be more dangerous but also more available. It might even be a different kind of facility, since there had been a few structures that weren’t at all like the library and living facility they had found. However, because they were travelling far, and through dangerous territory, they felt it would be better to have more people. Thus, they also invited Mary’s group, which included Ursula, Ray, and John. They had worked together before some, hunting monsters before the landshift, and everyone was interested in seeing what they could find.