Stleq

Tourney sub for week 37 of the Octopus Tournaments. Come to our Discord to join!

Hi Mom!

Sorry I haven't been writing as often as I promised - herrys were working me half to death. They think I can work 24/7 like them, if you can believe it. Don't worry, they've adjusted my schedule to be "more suitable for a weak, debilitated fleshling" (these guys are the best, I swear). As much as they love productivity, a worker passed out is a worker not working.

Jokes, aside, my first week has been wonderful, save the first three days of adjusting my schedule. Old Lea gave me a tour of their Hall when I got here. (It's L347H, but I dont have the time nor patience to pronounce that. Annoys the shit out of her). And now I know why the herrys are weak to pride - the place is gorgeous! The ceiling seemed exposed to the sky, but Lea told me it was covered by a transparent material called glass, banned in Moreisia (explains why we never see any of it back at home. Curious. Can you look up why? Herrys won't tell me no matter how much I bug them). Upon closer inspection, it looks like it was made of sheets propped up on great metal arches that soared across the Hall. Some sheets were even tinted, throwing down shades of crims and amber down onto the floor.

Down here, herrys of all shapes and colors flowed in and out of the side corridors to a rhythm I couldn't track. It was mesmerizing to watch; one moment you can catch some centuries old automaton like Lea creaking along, then see a man walking into a neighboring corridor, only to realize it's a modern model flaunting real clothes! Some sort of bright, cut up cloak so that its edges fly in the absent breeze. The new bots all wore something, though some styles I couldn't recognize - some dressed like Emphars, others Limvis, everything in between. Most of them I couldn't even recognize, like that claok from before and some frankly scandalous pieces I don't really wanna describe.

There were some decorations, too, locked under boxes made of glass. Finally got to touch it - cold and smooth, like nevermelting ice (wonder if that's how it's made? I'll go have a chat with Era whenever I get back. Doubt he'll wanna get into trouble, though.) Like the clothes, there were things I recognized and others that were completely alien. Little jars of morei sat in one case, glowing their respective colors. Others showed off necklaces, some in our style, some made of rougher materials I haven't seen before. One was even made of teeth (ew), which Lea told me was a set of hunting trophies, similar to the ones in the old stories. Speaking of which, there were cases littered all throughout the place with our books, some being studied by fledgling bots as we passed. There were also the trees, huge plants that cast shadows onto the ground. They came in the seasonal colors, ivy, vern, crims, and amber, but there were some... really really weird ones. There was a stocky vernish... thing, leafless save for hairy spikes sticking out of it. A scary looking violet one loomed in one side of the hall (harmless, Lea said), and the crowing achievement, a huge, majestic behemoth in the center of the room, whose cyans and magentas I could swear were glowing. Unlike the other trees, though, which were free from any glass bindings, this one was covered in a huge thick box, going several feet into the floor. "Not so harmless," was all Lea said.

None of that could really trump my favorite part of the Hall, though: the kavvys. Some of them roamed free around the Hall, little winged ones Lea called birds. They had some sort of band on their feet that prevented them from leaving, but they looked content enough in the eaves of the more innocuous trees and the arches high above. Some of the cases down below had displays for other small kavvys, with doors for easy access for feeding and cleaning. Lea even let me hold one, a little scratcher with huge ears. It's left claw was injured, Lea pointed out, and I noticed that all the kavvys in the hall were injured in some sort of way. Younger ones stay in here, she said, while older ones are moved down below into simulation rooms where they could train them before releasing them again, whatever that means.

Something I notice about them: they're pretty big hoarders. What's in the Hall is only a fraction of what they have throughout the Herriah mountains. They do work hard studying them for whatever they need it for, but what next? When Lea told me they released older kavvys, she said it with a sort of reluctance. They're like a bunch of archivists, accumulating more and more from each mysterious corner of the world we Morei know so little of, but still refuse to share the knowledge save for some bragging purposes. Kind of like the whole deal with their beacons, preventing anyone from crossing into or out of the world beyond the mountains. Why don't they want anyone to discover anything about the old world, the one our ancestors left behind? Maybe that's why the Great Dragon made them, so that we'll never find out.

Woops, running out of time. Ten hours a day of work time isn't bad but also doesn't leave much time for fooling around. Spent most of the week settling in; my room, thanks to some cool memory reading tech, was reconstructed to look almost exactly like the one at home. I went about organizing it in my free time, as far as my standards go. You'd still freak out about it, but now you're too far away to tell me to clean it up :D The whole memory reading process is kinda creepy, though. I kinda regret doing it; who knows what they took? I could have sworn I heard a herry talking in my voice the other day - and Lea's voice seems to switch, day by day. Eh, maybe I'm just getting a little crazy spending time around the bots. I'm meeting some new people tomorrow, though, "fleshlings like myself," as Lea would put it.

How are you doing on your own? Are your students doing well? You being too harsh on them? Dad's birthday is next month! Did you find someone else yet, or you planning on living alone for a while? Don't forget to look up that thing for me! Write back! Love you!

~Sethi