SNAPCRAFT | Ch. 40 - Zoom Out
Added 2023-12-15 17:57:48 +0000 UTC"What do you mean, a study trip?" Kai demanded.
When Trudy told him she and Clara wanted to speak with him, he never imagined this was what they wanted to drop on him. How would he make things right with Ariel if he was on a study trip?
“It would be a good idea for you and Ariel to spend time apart. That's all."
"Trudy, that doesn't even make any sense! This city is big enough to accommodate millions, and that still isn't enough space for Ariel?"
"Kai, I'm trying to help you here, child."
Kai looked at the leader of his dying people. Clara once said that a tree's age can be determined by the number of rings in its trunk. If the same principle applied to Trudy's wrinkles, he was sure she could put some trees to shame. It was hard to withstand the ancient look of their leader and remain unaffected.
He tried to steady his voice, but all that came out was a husky whisper. "Am I being punished?"
"No, Kai, no. If knowing that someone plans to defect was a sin, I should be the one punished."
He suddenly remembered the arguments Alex and Trudy had had near the bonfire. "Y-you knew?"
"I'm old, not blind. The questions Alex asked. The doubts… I knew. I knew."
"If I'm not being punished, why are you sending me away?"
"You're trying too hard, son. You're too close to this. I'm doing you and Ariel a favor. Give Ariel time to digest what happened. Having a relative choose exile is worse than losing them to the blight. With blight, you know they have no choice."
"Also," intervened Clara, "Someone needs to fill in the shoes of the biologist after I’m gone. Now that Alex is gone, that responsibility falls on your shoulders."
Kai took a deep breath. He was mad at Ariel for treating him so rudely over the past week. She wasn't the only one grieving. But despite how poorly she had been treating him, he still cared. "If it's what's best for Ariel…"
Clara patted him on the back. "Ready your bag, Kai. We leave at sunrise."
*
After Kai rested for a while, he started feeling bored. The room was too silent. To break the silence, he paced, with heavy stops, eager to be teleported to the next stage. Kai found himself missing Maia and her obnoxious trivia. Having someone to talk to impacted his psyche more than he had anticipated. Maybe that’s why, this time, he had recovered more quickly between rounds.
Kai reviewed what he had learned in the city arena. He could boil his experience down to two lessons. One was the potential of abstract photography. From now on, he would be more mindful of scenes that could be translated into emotions or abstract concepts. Even if no humans were in the next stage, that didn’t matter. He had gotten [Neglect] from capturing an old scrapyard and had [Loyalty] by photographing a dog.
A cool thing about abstract cards was that he could merge them with a human card. Perhaps they could even be combined with creature cards, although he still had to run experiments on that later.
He had also learned that messing with one’s opponent wasn’t limited to throwing bombs during the snapping part of the exams. It was also possible to send attacks, as it were, during the crafting stage. He should have predicted this possibility when he first saw the [Neglect Bomb] upgrades. When he funneled so many resources into [Fire], he never imagined that its upgraded version sent a devastating [Solar Breeze] toward his opponent.
The bad news was that if he could do it, others could too. Hopefully, the [Lightning Rod] upgrade would shield him from such attacks, and none of his future competitors had gotten their hands on an upgrade designed to pierce through the [Lightning Rod’s] defenses.
Ironically, an AI created to end wars was promoting an arms race. Sadly, he could do nothing about it but join the race and invest in defenses for himself and his cards. After the final seconds ticked away, Kai's figure was finally transported out of the white crafting room.
In the blink of an eye, Kai was surrounded by vegetation everywhere. It was beneath his feet; some bushes reached his ankles, others reached his knees and waist, and then trees of all shapes and sizes towered over him. If he wasn't mistaken, Daisy had just transported him into a jungle.
“Welcome, Kai,” greeted Maia.
Maia was a sight for sore eyes. Kai fought the urge to hug the android. “Hi, Maia. It’s good to see you.”
Kai checked the scoreboard and frowned at what he saw. The enemy’s scoreboard was blurred. It looked like his opponent had some upgrade shielding them from being spied on. Although not knowing how his opponent was doing robbed him of his peace, it wasn’t a crippling setback. He just had to give it his all and hope it was enough.
Chances were that if the opponent could block his [Scoreboard] upgrade, his [Hunter Eyes] one wouldn’t work either. He was beginning to regret purchasing the latter. What good had it done him? It was somewhat helpful in the factory arena, but other than that, it was practically useless.
After coming to terms with his opponent’s progress being impossible to monitor, Kai turned his attention again to the scene around him. Unlike the first stage, where the forest was made exclusively of pine, this jungle had a rich variety of species. Clara’s training kicked in, and he started identifying several species of trees, bushes, and climbing plants.
He furrowed his eyebrows when he spotted a coconut tree and then strangling vines. This kind of vegetation was indigenous to a very specific biome. He then squatted and studied the sandy soil. Just as he was about to have an epiphany, his train of thought was interrupted by a distant thunder. Kai looked up, camera in hand, ready to photograph lightning. Nothing. It was a sunny afternoon, with no rain clouds.
“How can there be a thunderstorm if there are no clouds?” Kai exclaimed.
“Good question.”
His attention went back to the biome, and realization struck Kai. “Unless it isn’t a thunderstorm.”
All the slight hints formed a picture in his mind that made him take off running. There was another thunder. He had heard this sound before, never in person, but in movies. Kai phased through a wall of thick vegetation and found a beach.
The beach wasn’t too big. Maybe ten meters of sand separated him from the ocean. The waves formed tunnels that rolled over the sea's surface and crushed the sand, creating a pleasant explosion of foam and salt.
Even though Kai didn’t want to linger, his feet were stuck to the ground, and his eyes were glued to the sea. His sector had no ocean. Their biggest body of water was a river, but it was impossible to compare both.
Something about the blue horizon's infinity and the never-ending dance between the water and the sand spoke to Kai's soul. It was almost as if his heart was encased in ice, a block of ice that only the spray of surf and the blue horizon could melt.
“It's beautiful,” exclaimed Kai.
“Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the Living Infinite,” quoted Maia.
The words struck a chord in Kai’s heart. “These words… I’ve heard them before.”
“Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”
“Of course. Captain Nemo.” Kai had read the book when he was a kid. “I didn’t know you had books in your memory.”
“Some. Did you know that the most renowned painting of a beachy landscape is The Persistence of Memory, by Salvador Dali?”
Kai smiled as Maia blabbed on about surrealism. Her voice was now to Kai like a song one put on to fill an empty room or scare away solitude. He was grateful for the music she and the ocean provided. They were helping him stay calm despite all that was at stake.
Kai studied the jungle behind him, the beach, and the ocean as she went on to discuss paintings.
Rather than thinking to himself, Kai spoke his conclusions aloud. “So, from what I can tell, this stage has three sections—Ocean, beach, and jungle.”
“Right, right, analytical thinking. Good, Kai. That has been one of the keys to your success in previous stages.”
Kai couldn’t help but stand slightly taller after hearing such a compliment. “Well, thank you. So, the question is, are all three of them accessible to me? Where are the boundaries of this arena?”
Kai crossed the beach in a few steps. He was expecting to walk over the ocean but entered the water instead. He kept walking farther and farther until he was waist-deep in the surf.
“OK. So the floor of this arena isn’t completely flat,” Kai concluded
“So, what's the plan, Captain?” probed Maia.
Kai whirled back toward her, surprised. Was she making a joke about her own reference to Captain Nemo?
“Simple.” He looked at the clock. “Since there are three stages, we will allocate 30 minutes each. We’ll assess the potential of each one and capture the most precious things we find. Then, we will dedicate the last 30 to 40 minutes to whatever stage has the most potential.”
“Where will you start?”
“What do you suggest?” tried Kai. In the last round, Maia’s insight into how Daisy treasured children had been a determining factor in him securing good cards.
She giggled and waved her index finger from side to side, “Negative, Kai. That is not the way it works. Although you can bounce ideas off me, I won’t share opinions. That’s cheating. Nice try, though.”
Kai clicked his tongue. He had hoped to get some information out of the android. “Let’s try the beach first," he said.
Kai and Ariel had always dreamed of walking on the beach, but he shuddered as he looked to his side. Instead of finding his wife, he was fulfilling his dream with an android.
The thought of disloyalty to Ariel made him flush, and imagining how she would react once he told her about this episode made his heart freeze. She would tear him to shreds. This would be a good part of the story to leave out of his account later. He knew Neil would have approved of his decision; after all, the old man championed survival.
The sand of the beach felt different from the desert’s. Whereas the desert sand had a dry crunch, the sand on the beach had a round softness. It was funny how different sands could feel so differently. Kai scanned the beach, looking for something out of the ordinary and worth photographing.
One of the first things Kai noticed was the seashells partially buried in the sand. There were many of them, in different shapes and sizes. Kai was confident they were nothing but common cards. He would leave these for now.
After walking in the dry sand and finding nothing, he veered closer to the water. There was something enchanting about walking with his feet in the stretch of wet sand kissed by the ocean. After a few waves, Kai noticed something strange about the damp sand. Shortly after each wave receded, little air bubbles formed on it. Was it foam? He wasn’t sure.
Just as he was about to squat and investigate the bubbles, a twinkle of light caught his eye. He searched for its source and discovered a half-buried piece of glass in the sand ahead. He ran toward it and found a bottle with a rolled piece of old parchment inside.
“What is this?” he asked as he summoned his inventory and put on the dimensional gloves. As circular green patterns lit up, he could pick up the bottle. He turned it over and hit the bottom of the bottle a few times until the scroll popped out. After unrolling it, he found a few scribbled notes.
Buoy (Rare)
[Air] + [Rubber]
Recipe book updated!
“A recipe!”
“Good for you. You only found recipes in the factory and city arenas much later into the round.”
Kai’s eyebrow shot up. “Yeah. But I thought Daisy was hiding these. Every single trial runner is going to find this bottle.”
“Your point being…”
“I think Daisy wants every player to find out about recipes.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“To make life harder for me. Why else?”
Kai had to make a decision. This recipe was displayed in a pretty obvious place. As long as his opponent had the [Dimensional Gloves] or an equivalent upgrade, chances were that they would be competing with him for its ingredients.
This was the first time that he found a recipe sitting by itself. Why was that? Could there be other bottles scattered around the beach? Or was this the one recipe that Daisy was giving players this round?
It didn’t matter. This recipe had just become his top priority. He had seen firsthand how powerful recipes were. If this was the only recipe, he needed to use it fully. If it wasn’t, he had to try to hoard the ingredients and negate some points to the enemy trial runner.
“Air… How can I capture air?”
He looked to the jungle for signs of the wind rustling the leaves. Nothing. But even if he had found trees swaying in the wind, how was he supposed to capture the motion? He picked up a handful of sand and then dropped it. It fell straight down—no sign of wind either. But even if it had been a windy day, he didn’t need a [Wind] card. He required a [Air] card! What a frustrating ingredient. There was air all around him, but how was he supposed to capture it?
The sound of a crashing wave reminded Kai of the little bubbles he’d seen earlier. He raced to the surf and got his camera ready. As soon as a wave rolled back into the ocean, he waited and, spotting a little air bubble, took a shot.
Capture successful!
Tries left: 19 of 20.
Air (Uncommon)
Mix of gases that make up the atmosphere.
1 of 3
Hp: 2
Vp: 2
Seeing his plan work, he took a second shot straight away.
Capture successful!
Tries left: 18 of 20.
Air (Uncommon)
Mix of gases that make up the atmosphere.
2 of 3
Hp: 2
Vp: 2
Good. With this, he had half of the ingredients required, and he had only left one to his opponent. All he needed now was rubber. That part was easy. He had figured out how to get it as soon as he read the recipe. Kai ran back into the jungle. Earlier, he spotted a plant that would give him all the rubber he needed. It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for.
It was an unassuming tree with large dark green leaves. Smiling at the memories of the days spent in the mountains with Clara, he aimed the camera at the tree and took a photograph.
Capture successful!
Tries left: 17 of 20.
Rubber Tree (Uncommon)
A tree that is prized for its many uses.
1 of 3
Vp: 1
Hp: 3
Capture successful!
Tries left: 16 of 20.
Rubber Tree (Uncommon)
A tree that is prized for its many uses.
2 of 3
Vp: 1
Hp: 3
As luck would have it, Kai was the first to get both ingredient cards for this recipe. Now, all that was left was finding out what purpose [Buoys] had. Kai resumed his exploration of the beach and kept walking until he bumped into the arena’s edge.
“So we come to the end of the beach,” announced Maia.
“It looks like the arena’s equally divided between jungle and ocean, with one strip of sand separating both,” said Kai as he studied his map, pondering his next move while biting his fingernails.
“What are you thinking, Kai?”
“I have to decide where to go next.”
On the one hand, he felt more comfortable in the jungle. After all, however short it had been, he’d studied fauna and flora with Clara in the mountains. But that wasn’t the option he was leaning toward.
“Hmmm. Since the recipe describes a [Buoy], I’m considering going to the sea. Also, I’m curious to find out how that part of the arena works. The biggest water mass I’ve seen in the exam was the pond in the quarry.”
“Sounds interesting.”
