OctupleCompressedNeodymium

  Yeffrey stretched his arms out as Galneira returned from the camp. It had been a few days now, maybe a week, and they had cleared out quite a few Northern raiders camps. Including one that they caught before they actually could do any raiding.

  At first the caravanhands had been a little dubious, but not only they had faced so far no organized resistance from the Northern forces, what they did gain was appreciation from the common folks. And as it turned out, it made them more willing to buy, so it worked out for everyone.

  Galnie smiled at him and tched on his arm. She had been getting more affectionate tely. Yeffrey really didn't mind at all. It was nice, having a girl actually wanting to hang around with him. "Thinking about something ?", she asked him.

  Yeffrey grinned. "Well, back in the Before, the only girl I hanged around with didn't really like me. Simply thinkin' I'm much more fortunate in this pce", he said as they sat down under a tree.

  "Why is that ?", Galneira asked, huddling closer to him as she did so.

  "Because lil ol' Zoemie thought I was a huge pervert. Which is, you know, true.", he answered with a grin, eliciting a small giggle from Galneira. Ain't gonna deny it. He looked at the sky through the leaves. It's gotten's pretty hot out, now. He was not unhappy to have left the castle, even if he missed his buddies Franqiss and Heustam.

  "Why hang around her, then ?", Galneira asked, still a little confused, breaking Yeffrey out of his reverie. Win some, lose some, he decided as he started talking a bit. Been a while that subject came up. At least it was with someone who was not really involved in any of that mess.

  "So, first time I met her, some asshole was looking to cause me trouble. Turns out shoving nerds in lockers was still kinda a thing at our high school." This made Galneira frown. "She leg-swept him from the back and kicked him in the back of the head. Asshat was down in 5 seconds. I covered for her, because I'm not an ungrateful asswipe, and started hanging around her at that point.", Yeffrey started to expin.

  "Didn't she have any other friends ?", Galneira asked. He could feel her curiosity and concern alike, but, well, the concept of high school didn't really exist in this pce. Yeffrey wasn't sure how he felt about this.

  "Not in our css. She thought everyone kinda hated her, and I kinda see where she's coming from when she says that, but, like..." He put his head on his forehead, trying to organize his thoughts. "So, part of the thing here is that a lot of that stuff only really connected when I started hanging around with you guys, or rather I got away from school as a whole."

  "I had a conversation once with her girlfriend, Nethany was her name – well, I don't know if they were, like, actually together, but they def were an item, ya know ? She was a css representative in another css, and, like, really, really fucking smart. And we talked a bunch about it, it was really interesting."

  "Where was that Zoemie girl during that time ?", Galneira asked. Hold on, if I remember right...

  "Got a one-week suspension after... beating up another student and a PE coach ? I think that was that ? I think it's that it's one of those situations were everyone was kinda in the wrong, although, if Zoemie didn't lie to me, and for all her faults she's not a liar, she was the least guilty party in that whole mess." This seemed to confuse Galneira a little, so Yeffrey decided to eborate on it a bit.

  "So, the thing is that if the coach had made any attempt at deescation whatsoever, things would have turned out a lot better for him. By the way I told this to his face, and somehow got away with it. But, yeah, that thing was just a whole fucking mess. And my buddy Heustam showed me a photo that seemed to confirm Zoemie's version as well."

  Yeffrey shook his head. "Anyway, so, a thing about Zoemie is that the dudes never, never fucked with her. Either they'd get beaten up, or they'd get into trouble for beating up a girl, and they knew it. They knew they couldn't risk it, even with how much the faculty was against Zoemie."

  "Yeah, I don't know what the faculty had against her, don't ask me. They definitely did, though. Still, even Rickard and his buddies didn't try anything funny. But the girls, especially the popur ones like Najabel and Lyna ? They really hated her, and it took me a while to figure out why."

  "So, the thing Nethany expined to me is that when a dude is, like, a wimp, it's generally other dudes that confront him about it. Whether it's calling him gay or the locker-shoving I was talking about earlier. But, and here's the thing that took me a while to get : for the girls, it's the popur girls that do that."

  "And the thing is that they're much more... socially adroit about it, in a way they could just run circles around someone like Zoemie. They spread rumors about her calling her... well, at first they called her a lesbian, but it turns out she does like girls and doesn't give a shit about it, so they took to insinuating she likes little girls."

  "One thing these girls loved to do, Najabel more than Lyna, was to have other girls spread rumors and privately confront people who seemed interested in becoming her friends. They really hated Nethany for that ! Not only they couldn't separate the two, but Nethany is really, really good at pying the popurity game herself when she wants to."

  "Didn't they try to do it to you, then ?", Galneira asked.

  "Yup. But, well, didn't work. I don't give a shit she's a lesbian, I'm not interested in fucking her, I don't have kids, and... Their st threat was that they were going to tell any girl interested in me I hanged around her. But newsfsh ! I'm a nerd. I was never getting a girlfriend in high school anyways !", he said, ughing slightly at the end.

  "Anyway, the craziest thing about it all, is that one thing I saw in an unreted video about manospherians and cucks.", he said. "These tactics of, essentially, "become what we want and we'll stop fucking with you ?" That's abusive partner tactics."

  Yeffrey took a deep breath. "There was a rumor about Nethany. That she was so sick and tired of the nothing being done about the bullying... She got herself a... S&W dot five oh ? And she was pnning on using it if nothing was done. It was just a rumor, though. Besides, we're not Americans, some high school girl getting a gun is... really unlikely, let alone shooting it without shoulder damage."

  Galneira simply stayed at his side for a bit as the conversation went into a lull, grabbing a bit of water from a gss bottle in storage. After a while, she looked up at him. "Can you tell me more about your home ? About those machines that reaps for you ?" For someone like Galneira who had grown up in a farm, these sounded fascinating.

  He started to talk, as Galneira closed her eyes and tried to imagine it. Colossi of metal on huge wheels of metal and that rubber substance, with which they merely reaped grain. The utterly fantastic, used to do the utterly mundane. It was a good image. Much better than the one of high school. She hoped she would see it one day.

  Katelyn stretched her neck as she left the room where she and her cssmates were working. She had a few things to do in the castle, so she started marching in good order. She had been given a job, after all, and she would see it through.

  Now, if only the others took it a quarter as seriously as she did, she would be a much calmer person ! Even thinking about the fact some of them had chosen to leave really annoyed her. And Katelyn didn't care for getting annoyed – it was a waste of time and energy. Instead, she focused on what she could do with what she had.

  Right now, they were working on spinning wheels, of all things. She hadn't known it was that important, but according to Trenran spinning was the single most time-consuming activity they could automate with what they had. Katelyn had groaned at his history buff joke, but the jock clearly knew the subject better than her, so she would defer to him.

  Brandrew was in charge of making the prototype. She hadn't thought a gay, sporty guy like him to have woodworking as a hobby, but right now it was convenient, so she would take it. That said, he wasn't who Katelyn was looking for currently.

  She instead squared a turn, and quickly overheard two boys talking, one of them being someone she was looking for. She put the paper for him on top of the list as her ears guided her to them. "My Starmieuses Thunderbolt.", one of them said.

  "Argh !", the other one snarled. "My math tells me my Volcanion takes 85% damage, and therefore faints. Dammit, you got me there." She knocked on the door, and entered. "Well, if it isn't Kat. Got a paper for me ?", the tall, dark-skinned Franqiss said, a pearly-white smile on his faceas he turned to her.

  "Yep.", she replied, and put down the paper in front of him. He channeled his strange magic through. They had first thought it a coincidence, but it turns out that Franqiss seemed to have gained the ability to... magically solve math equations, whether spoken or written. He gave back the filled paper after a few seconds. It was random, but Katelyn didn't care as long as it worked.

  She pulled out a few silver coins, gave them to him, and recovered the filled paper. The first few times, she had double-checked with her phone's calcutor, but nowadays she trusted his magic to be correct. "Is that necessary ?", Heustam asked, the short, gsses-wearing boy a little confused.

  "Work done well must be rewarded, otherwise people get zy.", Katelyn answered as she left the room. Thankfully neither of these two had ever tried to turn it weird. Only Lyna left to deal with. Katelyn didn't like dealing with Lyna much, the other girl loved her queen bee nonsense. Her friend Najabel was even worse about it.

  Katelyn had never cared much about them back in school, because she had reliable teammates like Myrianne for team assignments back then. But in a situation like their current one where everyone had to contribute, she would simply have to swallow her irritation.

  While she didn't find Lyna, she heard Junille mumble to herself after a bit more walking. Katelyn fiddled with her tie's knot a little, before showing herself. "You.", Junille grumbled, the chubby redhead looking displeased as usual. "What do you want ? You always want something."

  "I'm looking for your girlfriend.", Katelyn started, before fiddling with her tie as Junille's face instantly went thunderous. Argh, dammit. I don't have the time for her throwing an hissy fit. "Sorry, I meant Lyna. You've seen her ?"

  "I'm. Not. A. Lesbian. Got it ?", Junille started, and Katelyn nodded. Urgh. Stop wasting my time. "...Haven't seen her today. She was grumbling about that other bitch." Katelyn raised an eyebrow, but went silent. "Still can't believe she almost blinded Lyna and got away with it. And for no fucking reason, too ! Maybe I should've called my dad on her. Teach her a lesson."

  Whatever, Katelyn thought as she shrugged. "Not like anyone has any idea where she is now.", she said. But still, the selfishness... The mind boggles. "Anyhow, I need to go." Katelyn didn't care about their excuses, whether Lyna's, Najabel's or Zoemie's. There was too much at stake.

  Besides, I've survived worse.

  High Priest Kvutar looked calmly through the ancient gss artifact. An immensely powerful divine artifact, that could locate any heaven-blessed person given enough information about them. He had only used it to observe the Outsiders, so far.

  Most of those who have left were of not much interest to him. Najabel lived somewhere in the southern part of the country; Yeffrey was accompanying a demon caravan in the north.

  Most of them he knew well, but there were some where that was less so. Like that one most of the Outsiders didn't name, few called her Zoemie. Lady Scandia, once the professor of the Outsiders, called her Araselia.

  He had looked for her before, but had found no precise result. But... now he did, somewhere in the Seaguard Greatwoods. He would not consign this information to writing. It was too risky for the other Outsiders to find, as he understood they had had issues with her in the past.

  He did not care about their prior poor retionships, but if he could avoid them fighting or killing each other now, it would serve the Heavens that much better. He considered. Should I find her and bring her back ? The Heavens worked in mysterious ways, and humans including himself often failed to fathom those, after all.

  He decided to consider it more thoroughly. Make sure he didn't miss anything. Her position was problematic, as she could potentially assist their enemies. That said, the artifact could not tell him how far her influence extended. Several of the Outsiders had compined that too many of them had left.

  Kvutar took a deep breath to center himself. If she had accepted to py her role, he wouldn't even have had to entertain such considerations to begin with. Clearly, it is to some degree her fault. When he slept that night, High Priest Kvutar dreamed. It told him to not go there. Surely, a temptation from an enemy.

  He started to prepare himself for a pilgrimage to the south the next day, all kept under wraps. He even went out of his way to acquire a... special item, to ensure everything went smoothly. If anyone knew he had acquired such an item, it would put his position into danger.

  But the will of the Heavens was absolute, and he would not allow anything to get in the way.