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After almost a year heading towards Erid, I was running out of things to do. I’d exhausted every avenue I could think of, and then all the ones that Rocky could, to try to produce as many nutrients as possible. We’d done a darn good job if I said so myself, coming up with ways to extract almost everything I need from a mix of the Taumeoba, my own gut bacteria, and spare rations from Rocky’s ship. But no matter what way I looked at it, there was no good way to get vitamin C or E, and there was no safe way to separate the selenium from the mercury in Rocky’s rations.
Honestly, it was enough of a miracle that a random bacteria in the samples from Adrian was somehow producing beta carotene. I guess that there are only so many ways for something to make itself orange. A. carrot was happily breeding away in its tank, making me all of the vitamin A I would need.
Once we got to Erid, vitamin C should be doable with their equipment, and selenium would just need to be found in a purer source. I was trying not to think about vitamin E. It would take a long time for that to show up in my health, at least, and Rocky had assured me that Erid would make every effort to keep me alive.
Privately, I wondered if Rocky would say that if he knew what a coward I was. He was the only one on this ship who deserved to be called a hero.
Ugh. All of the material on “How To Stay Sane” said that I shouldn’t dwell on that.
I turned my attention back to the terminal. Stratt’s efforts to pirate as much of humanity’s total output as she could had led to some interesting inclusions, including a wide set of video games. According to the information tagged onto that section of the database, this had been justified with that they were good for mental health and distraction, and I could definitely use at least one of those.
My students had always been chatting about one game or another. I scrolled through the titles that I recognized, passing over anything that was a shooter or that I couldn’t pause. I’d had enough of time-limited life-or-death choices for a lifetime. Possibly several lifetimes, in the same way that some criminals were sentenced to consecutive lifetime sentences. You knew that it wasn’t possible to make happen, but it sure felt like it was right.
One caught my eye. It was bright and a little cartoony, in a pixelated style. I read through the description. A farming game sounded really nice right now, honestly. Why not.
I installed it, booted, and was immediately met with the death of my grandfather and a harsh critique of capitalism. I could roll with that.
I spent the first couple of seasons sticking to farming and socializing with the villagers. The fishing game was annoying, and I didn’t want to concede to picking up the training rod. Mining was mostly optional, since the blacksmith sold pretty much everything down there.
Or at least, I thought he did.
I squinted at the screen in offense. Where was I supposed to get slime for the Adventurer’s Bundle? I would have thought that it would be something that I could get by fishing, but even my conceding to using the Baby Training Wheels Rod hadn’t gotten me anywhere. Could slime be something that you… mine? Gross.
Well, I hadn’t found it anywhere else. I may as well head up there and see.
It became clear pretty darn fast where and how you get slime. I groaned. I’d picked this game partly because I didn’t want to do combat!
Unfortunately, I was now invested in my little farm, and I absolutely refused to let the corporation that had overworked me to the point of breakdown take over the town. So, into combat it was.
It was surprisingly, not as stressful as other combat games. I could drag along piles of food for healing, take it a few floors at a time and then go back to my farm to chill, and then-
“What is Grace doing, question?” Rocky chirped.
I yelped, pressing the pause button on reflex. “Good gravy, Rocky! Don’t sneak up on me!”
Rocky tilted his carapace mischievously. “Grace is not good at listening. This is not my fault.”
I sighed. “Okay, yeah, sure, but,” I paused. “You’re going to keep doing this, aren’t you.”
Rocky huffed out his vents in amusement. “Grace is less stupid than he looks.”
I threw my hands up in the air, gesturing as if to ask an invisible audience if they can believe his audacity. Rocky huffed again, then returned to his original question. “What is Grace doing?”
“Playing a video game,” I answered, returning my hands to the controls. “They’re kind of like a movie, with sound and visuals, but you get to control the character.” I knew that description wasn’t complete, but I wasn’t exactly an expert in video games.
Rocky made an intrigued trill. “Like being an actor in a play, question?”
I considered this. “Sort of,” The more that I thought about it, the better it fit. “You’re given a few options for your script, but you can’t do anything that the person making it didn’t think to let you.”
Rocky hummed thoughtfully, then demanded. “Let me try.”
“Sure, just let me save-” Rocky bonked impatiently into my chair. “Hey!”
“Let me try,” Rocky demanded again. “Grace has had a turn. I have never had turn.”
Sometimes, I really regretted teaching Rocky the concept of taking turns. “Fine! Just don’t mess it up, okay?” I passed the Eridian-friendly set of controls to the mini-airlock in his ball, which he cheerfully accepted while I worked to change the connection over to them. Thank goodness for Wi-Fi.
Rocky hummed. “I will not mess it up-” He stalled out suddenly. “Grace?”
His tone had shifted in a way that I associated with him being suspicious. I frowned at him, baffled. “What?"
He tapped one of his claws on the floor. “What exactly is being killed in this game, question.”
I blinked. “Well, uh, this is the mines. They stuck some monsters in there for you to fight for materials.”
“Monsters.” Rocky repeated flatly. “To kill for materials, question?”
“Yes?” I helplessly gestured at the screen.
“What is the name of that monster, question?” His tone took on an accusatory edge.
I took a closer look, and promptly put my head in my hands.
“Grace answer.” Rocky rolled his ball towards my toes threateningly, and I backed away a step, holding up my hands.
“Okay, I know this looks bad,” I began. “But in our defense, when this game was made, we didn’t know that Eridians existed.”
He listened at me judgementally.
“The person who made this made them up. They’re not sapient, they’re just creatures, and most of them attack you first.”
“Not all,” Rocky pointed out. “Some just living their lives.”
I groaned and plopped down on the floor. “Rocky, you already know that humans kill things that are living their lives to survive. You guys do the same,” I paused. “Would it make you feel better if I promised to run away from the ones that try to attack me and leave alone the ones that aren’t?”
“…it would.” Rocky admitted. There was silence for a moment. “Wish that we could change the code so that they were safe.”
I frowned and rubbed my face. “I think that I heard some of my kids talk about a way to do that. Modding, I think it was?”
Rocky paused, then tapped a few queries I couldn’t see from my angle into the database search, and trilled in triumph. “Many, many mods! Excellent. Nexus, very good. Harmless monsters, good, good.” He scrolled for a bit, then paused. “This does not look difficult. Rocky could make one.”
I hadn’t really thought about Rocky learning to code, but it made sense. He already soaks up language like a sponge, and coding is closer to math than language in some ways. “Go for it,” I encouraged him. “You can be the pioneer of software engineering on Erid!”
“What is software?” Rocky demanded, already looking through what looked like a wall of text on coding. “Nevermind,” He cut me off. “Found it. Interesting, interesting. Will make one that just saves the rock crabs. Make rock crabs friends for the farmer. You will use it.”
I laughed, and leaned back on my hands. “Yeah. I will.”