Chapter 15: Altem is Proud of His Naming Ability

The patron began pacing around Harmony, examining her. Checking every detail for certain traits to pick out, in order to determine the validity of her statement. She was sweating nervously while holding her breath. It was strange, but also made her feel like she might have said something to potentially earn his wrath.

He finally stopped and held a hand to his chin. “I've laid eyes on the scavenger many times. You do bear some striking resemblance. It never crossed my mind about the possibility of…”

He noticed the breastplate she was wearing. He squinted with a disgusted expression and pointed at the armor. “Let me see that armor.”

He really has a one track mind, thought Felicia. She turned to Vault for help, but he was massaging his temples out of annoyance. If she listened closely she could also hear him muttering about how “done” he was with this guy.

She wasn't sure what to do, so she passed him the armor and he began examining it all over. “If you want my attention then say Altem.”

Harmony blinked. “Is that your name?”

Altem did not look up from the armor. “A name is just the sound one makes to get another's attention. That is the one you should make to get mine.”

Vault walked up to Harmony. “We should just give up on this. He won't help us. He's just more interested in giving negative comments about my creations.”

Altem put the armor down and gave him an unamused look. “Not true.”

Vault responded with a similar expression. “Say something nice about that armor piece I made.”

Altem was about to open his mouth, but Vault cut him off. “And you have to mean it!”

Altem clicked his tongue and fell silent for a moment. He took a minute to examine the armor again before speaking. He sounded similar to Eunice when she was struggling to ask Vault for help. “It’s…Not…The worst thing I've ever seen.”

Vault chuckled with a smug look on his face. “Did it really hurt you to say the bare minimum?”

Altem put the armor down again. “Do you want to be left to your own devices again?! I can leave you to continue working on these scraps of junk!”

Eunice tagged out with Felicia. “Stop! We're getting off topic!”

They both turned to her and regained their composure. She took a step towards Altem. “Altem, these mortals need your help. Another mortal has been reborn into this world with the ability to create golems. In time their range will expand and overwhelm all who live here.”

She gave him a pleading look. “Please, lend them your aid. They will surely fail if nothing is done.”

He gave her a blank look. “I owe you nothing mortal.”

Eunice took a nervous step back startled by his response, but also unsure of how to respond. Felicia tagged out with her. The transition felt like she was putting a hand on her shoulder and saying “let me handle this”.

She took a step towards him while glaring. “Eunice has gone on fetch quests for you before! You should at least be willing to help her a little!”

He blinked. “You don't understand, mortal girl. I have no issues lending aid to the scavenger. You, I will not.”

She gave him a look of confusion. “She just asked you for help though! Why did you turn her down?!”

Altem grabbed her face and began studying it. “Was she speaking before? Interesting. You are both merged into one, but still have separate minds? Perhaps it is not a complete fusion. Maybe in time another state union can be achieved.”

Harmony was feeling uncomfortable and irritated. She shoved him aside. “Personal space dude!”

Altem regained his composure. “Alright. If what the scavenger wants is for me to lend you two a hand, then I'll comply.”

Vault looked stunned. “Why are you willing to help her so easily?”

Altem sat against a wall. “It is as these two have said. The scavenger has done a lot for me. I am returning the favor.”

Harmony went on to explain their situation in more detail. Altem listened intently while occasionally pacing the room to examine Vault's creations. Either he was getting easily distracted, found the conversation very boring, or this was helping him think.

They finished their explanation and eagerly waited for a response. “Patron's are only capable of doing so much. Especially during the survival game. We can't directly lend any form of aid. Instructing, advising, giving new bodies with powers to be awakened, and sometimes gifts under certain circumstances are allowed.”

He held up his hands in front of both of them. “Show me the specs of your new bodies. I need to see what I am working with before I can craft a solution.”

Harmony paused for a moment. Altem is not her patron and yet he wanted to see her status screen. Should she be willing to just give out information like that? It seemed like personal info that you shouldn’t share with anyone. Kind of like giving out your street address to a complete stranger.

She could hear Eunice’s voice in her head. “<It is alright. Out of all I have met…He was the lesser of all evils. He was more focused on his creations than being cruel despite his…Difficult personality…>”

Harmony felt a bit more relaxed and approached Altem with Vault. They placed their hands against his and the system windows appeared around him. As he analyzed the information in front of him, he created his own system window.

A jumble of words began forming all over it. “From what I can tell, you require new equipment, a useful method of restoring yourselves to a healthier state, and to make it past scratching the surface of your abilities.”

All the windows except the list that he had been creating, vanished. He began organizing the jumble of letters and muttering about how tedious it is that the system does not have spell check.

Maybe he had a whole mess of ideas? Or he was just really scatterbrained. She couldn't really tell, but she was just happy that they weren't going to get a jumble of letters and have to spend a day or two trying to guess what he was saying.

He turned the system window around so they could see what was on display. It lists off three Mission tasks along with a little bit of information under each one.

“Mission: Golem War Preparation”

“ Task 1: Acquire New Equipment. ”

“Description: Acquire new equipment to stand a greater chance at the threat that is to come. More materials can be gathered from the golems to craft weapons or by exploring unvisited areas. There are also the items dropped by the creatures of the night which tend to be more unique.”

“Task 2: Reliable healing method”

“Description: Discover a method of restoring your body to a healthier state. Some options are, gathering medicinal herbs that can be found out in the wild, visiting a healing spring, or gaining healing skill.”

“Task 3: Self discovery”

“Description: Experiment with your abilities in new ways to discover more of their potential. Begin with Manifest Merge and see what results you can get with it. Crafting skill needs a lot of work.”

Vault furrowed his brow at that last sentence. Altem smiled at them with satisfaction. “Now these…Are good names.”