PSTH: Chapter Forty-Seven

Given that Primals don’t have biology, and reproduce through either budding off new, semi-cloned versions of themselves or by being generated outright by an essence heart, why do so many of them have distinct genders? Well, as far as we can tell, humans are mostly to blame. Evidence from the Post-Arrival but Pre-Modern Era is hard to come by, but from what we can tell, many early Primals were agender, or something close to it, having no concept of gender whatsoever. Like if aliens landed on earth and started asking humans if they’re bloure, ungodo, humimim, or lakaka. There’s just no frame of reference for what those mean. Through interacting with humanity, they developed personal preferences, and as that baked into ancestral memory and essence heart information network, increasing numbers of Primals began to associate with genders in relation to the localized cultures.

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Video essay labeled ‘Primal Gender, Tamer’s Influence’, 453 Modern-Era

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In our last recorded fight, Gawain had beaten me. Now, I’d won. I looked up to see how he was taking it

“Well done,” Gawain said. He looked annoyed by the loss, but not truly angry, which I supposed I couldn’t blame him for. I’d also be annoyed after a loss. Thankfully, he was mature enough to step forward and extend a hand. “Go again?” 

We sparred for a couple of extra rounds, taking breaks between the fighting to let our, as well as our Primals’, anima and pneuma recover, and through the fighting, a pattern quickly started to become obvious. So long as I could eliminate Gryphon before Hex was taken out, I stood a good chance of winning. But if Hex was eliminated while Gryphon was still in play, or worse, in his storage gem? I would almost always lose.

By the end of the training session, we all had made some solid gains from the various wins and losses. None of my Primals had enough essence to break into a new level, not so soon after having just gotten to their current level. Funnily enough, Zale was actually probably the closest, despite being two levels higher than Scales or Hex. He’d been fairly early on in level eighteen when I’d found him, but while Hex and I had been working to re-map her ousia weave, he’d been cultivating on and off. Even with him passing most of the power from training to Hex and Scales, in order to help them catch up, he was still a stone’s throw away from forming a new layer on his core. 

I picked up a towel and began to clean off Scales’ scales and Zale’s carapace, while Hex scrambled away and hissed in annoyance from the wet towel. I sighed and let her go – she’d be fine to clean herself off with her own grooming. Especially because Primals didn’t sweat, not in the conventional sense. That was an advantage of being made entirely of essence without any icky biology to get in the way. But even though they were made of essence, they could still get dirty. Air, dust, dirt, and grime could usually pass through a pneuma shell unless the person creating it was using specific effort to keep it out. A training ring like this tended to accumulate concrete dust, as well as scraps of dirt from leaf litter, and other things.

Gawain stepped up next to me, and I glanced over, expecting to see him take out a towel of his own and wet it, or maybe pull out some sort of fancy gizmo or gadget that would work to clean his Primals off. Instead, he leaned down and plucked my Augpad off the floor. 

“Hey!” I protested, though not as loudly as I might have. This was the second time he’d stolen my augpad, and the first time he’d just been linking his little drone to it to let me download the footage. I was grateful for the footage, but the lack of respect for me was grating. 

Sure enough, Gawain handed me back my augpad a moment later, and I saw that he’d connected the footage from the drone again. To my surprise, he had included a handful of other shots, images and video that he’d taken from our time in Arkose. 

“There. Now you can actually make the videos you need to, instead of just talking about it. You should consider getting a floating aug-frame, or some goggles. It would be useful for.” 

“Like your eye?” I asked, and Gawain blinked, his hand flying to his left eye, where I’d seen the implanted technology. Then Gawain did something strange, his lips turning downward, but not in a frown. He was… pouting? 

“I was attempting to be kind,” he said, his voice stressing the word attempting. “I recognize that any sort of augtech implant that isn’t a medical prosthesis or something of that sort is going to be expensive and outside of your budget. A floating frame or aug-goggles shouldn’t be too bad.” 

Watching him pout – though there was still a layer of irritation wrapped over it – I actually felt mildly bad for him. He was making a genuine effort.

“You’re right, and I’m sorry. But I admit, I’m surprised to hear you suggest a floating frame. You went on a whole ramble about how augpad recording and speakers are terrible.” 

“The video fidelity of the average augpad is significantly higher than their audio. There’s nothing wrong with using an augpad camera, at least not until you’re someone like the Consortium who handles mass events, or if you work in a lab and need something more specifically tailored to your work.” 

I made a sound of interest and nodded. I hadn’t known that, exactly, but I knew that even some semi-professional tamers still used augpads for their video work. It was why I hadn’t been too concerned about getting something fancy. That said, getting a frame that I could set to hover in specific positions with some simple anima manipulation? It might be a good idea. Bulkier, slower, and more attention-consuming than something like Gawain’s miniature drone, but certainly a good way to get records of something major enough for me to want to create a video about it. Some things, like the fights against Councillors, would have their own recordings, but others wouldn’t. 

A full set of aug-goggles was probably overkill. I knew that they were used for some games, had a lot of useful features for helping get around, and could be used in training people for different jobs, but they wouldn't have an aerial viewpoint, and would really just be slightly more 

“Thanks for the idea,” I said. “But seriously, stop stealing my augpad without asking. It’s not yours.”

Gawain’s lavender eyes sliced through the air and settled on me. I could see the thoughts whirling in his head, though I didn’t know what they were. He didn’t settle on anything clear or specific, though, and instead just nodded, then turned and started to walk away from the ring. It was rather abrupt, and I just sighed. I’d offended him, that much was clear, but more than that I didn’t know. I looked down at Scales, whose shark tail was wagging back and forth. 

“I don’t understand him. Do you?” 

Scales didn’t answer, of course, but he did press his nose into my hand, demanding more pets. I finished wiping him down, then cleaned Zale off, and left the ring as well. The murky mystery of Gawain’s emotional state wasn’t something that I was going to crack any time soon, but there were several things I needed to do, namely around making some of the videos I wanted to make. When I got back to the hotel, I set my augpad up and started looking through the footage, alongside my own pictures. I was nearly instantly overwhelmed by the sheer quantity. Not only was there the footage from battling with Lisa Ruth and the fight I’d just had with Gawain, but also literal days worth of video from our trip through Arkose. Even scrubbing through it quickly, it was hard to narrow it down to just a collection of moments that I would want. In the end, I wound up shifting to focusing on writing, and figured that I’d match the footage to what I talked about. 

I still wasn’t sure that using a script would really sound right for me, especially since I did a lot more adlibbing while talking, so instead I focused on another bulleted list. Oddly, my lists were both longer and more detailed than they’d been for my first collection of videos, the ones I’d released for the fight with Councillor Cruz. I had to trim out some of the points of the one minute short form videos explaining my fight with both Lisa Ruth and with Gawain, as well as trim the short video about Arkose. 

Once I had them all down to a manageable length, I recorded the super quick commentary on them both, and then posted them to my tamer account. It had been a little while since I’d checked on it, and to my surprise, I had actually received two credits, tipped from people who had watched the fight breakdown with Councillor Cruz, and the video had racked up over eight hundred views. My eyes widened as I saw them. Eight hundred people. Sure, compared to the hundreds of thousands or even millions who might watch the recordings of a big tournament, it wasn’t much, but if I was in a room with eight hundred other people, I knew that I’d feel like I was in a massive crowd. That was almost a third of everyone in the village I’d grown up in. 

And two people liked it enough to tip a credit. Two credits wasn’t much, subjectively or otherwise. It was enough to get one or two items from a vending machine, maybe, and that was about it. But it wasn’t about the amount of money. Two people had enjoyed the content enough that they wanted to pay for it. That was… great. 

With a strange but powerful sense of validation that I’d been right to push for being a tamer, I pulled out the new microphone that Gawain and Rane had helped me pick out, and started to record the audio for the short form videos, before uploading all three of the short form videos. I linked Gawian in the battle against him, and then linked him and Laurel both in the exploration short, before setting them to release in a relative order: exploration, then turned back and started to work on the long form breakdowns. Those took a lot longer, and I wasn’t able to complete either of them that day, but by bouncing between working on all three of them, I was able to make some decent progress. 

I stopped for dinner, eating more of the elk-based chili with River and Laurel. While breaking up some cornbread in the chili, Laurel looked up and nodded.

“Saw you tagged me in the video, thanks. I don’t know how much I’m going to be doing of video production like that, but it’s cool to have it up.” 

“Why not?” River asked. 

“Tournaments,” Laurel said. “Tamers and people who really follow the sport will watch the videos about fight breakdowns and such, but most casual watchers tune in for the large Consortium Tournaments or local ones. It’s where pretty much everyone actually raises their fame.” 

“True, but having an established base helps give people something to check out, rather than just following and wondering if you’re going to show up at a major tournament,” I pointed out. “It’s a helpful way to do things.” 

“Sure, and I’ve got some fight records up, but Vince told me not to bother with it unless I enjoyed the process. Then there’s the fact…” 

We spent almost an hour over dinner talking about the ups and downs of making the videos, with River throwing in his commentary on magiaball and cultivator boxing. After that, though, I returned to my room and flopped on the bed, pulling up some videos of my own to watch. It had been a good day. I was ready to relax, rest, and get back to work in the morning.